Though a mix of urban and rural, Luzerne is covered by parts of the Appalachian mountain range and is on the whole more rural in character. While there are pockets of well-heeled suburbia, Luzerne is less Northeast Corridor than Appalachia.
Did Bradlee really spend weeks in Luzerne? Really? Geographically, there may be <i>some</i> merit to that characterization, but none at all in terms of the overall population, which is concentrated in small cities and suburbs. Many of the numerous cities, townships, and boroughs in Luzerne are separated more by street signage than geography, and would be considered neighborhoods in a larger entity, were it possible to join them together politically. According to Wikipedia, the Metropolitan Statistical Area that includes Scranton, Wilkes-Barre and Hazleton had a population of over 555,000 as of 2017, (a pretty nifty trick, given that Luzerne, according to the 2010 census, had a total population of about 321,000, conjuring more an image of rust-belt cities, however struggling, than the image of rural decline the author suggests.
