I've lived in central Pennsylvania for over 10 years. York is kind of...not good (sorry York residents). I've only driven through York on a few occasions, but the city is very rundown and a lot of homes just look poorly maintained. York has a lot of crime from what I understand too, far more than it should for a city of it's size. Not anywhere near as bad as Philadelphia, but Philly has like 10x the population of York, while York still has an unusually high crime rate. York has a serious heroin epidemic too.

I used to live in Harrisburg and recently moved to Lancaster. I didn't really like living in Harrisburg either, but it's still a lot better than York, it just gets kind of boring after awhile and the pandemic really caused a lot of businesses to close permanently. Since moving to Lancaster, I love it here, but the cost of living is a lot higher than York and Harrisburg. There are a lot of activities though and things seem to actually change here, rather than remaining static like Harrisburg. Lancaster is a lot more rural though. Even the city of Lancaster doesn't really have a single high-rise. I think you might want to look at Harrisburg if you're looking for a good balance of urban and rural setting without being priced out of the market. Lancaster is great if you can afford it and want a more rural setting.