Housing & Development · Monroe County
NYC Workers Priced Out Commute to Poconos; Monroe County Communities Transformed
New York City civil servants, EMS workers, and blue-collar laborers increasingly live in East Stroudsburg and surrounding Monroe County, Pennsylvania communities because NYC-area housing is unaffordable on their salaries. A renovated three-bedroom ranch in East Stroudsburg lists at $315,000 compared to over $760,000 for a similar home on Staten Island. The migration, spanning from the mid-1970s through the post-9/11 and COVID eras, has transformed Monroe County demographics—East Stroudsburg is now nearly 40% Black or Latino—and spurred new development including hundreds of townhomes approved in Pocono Township. Property values in East Stroudsburg have surpassed pre-2007 levels for the first time after a devastating wave of foreclosures following a late-1990s real estate fraud that left one in five Monroe County homes in foreclosure by 2004.