Mexicans and others have also come in recent years, but the Dominicans are unique in that most — some estimate 90 percent — of them come not directly from the Dominican Republic, but from the New York City area, what social scientists call secondary migration. “We saw a spike after Sept. 11,” Mr. Encarnacion said. “Ask them why they come here, they say, ‘We wanted to get away.’ ”  But many places are “away,” and they chose Reading in no small part for the modestly priced houses. The average house in Reading has risen from $47,000 in September 2004 to $73,000 in September 2006. In New York City, those numbers are called down payments.  Seven years ago, Juana Toledo, 36, was a single mother with two small children living in Washington Heights, the mostly low-income Dominican neighborhood in Upper Manhattan. She made flower arrangements in a New Jersey factory for $6.25 an hour, and was able to afford her $750-a-month one-bedroom apartment only with rental assistance from the government. She had little hope of ever buying a home in New York.  Then, a friend tipped her off to some houses for auction at an upcoming sheriff’s sale in Pennsylvania. “I came looking for a better future,” she said. And she got one, in the form of a three-story, six-bedroom row house on North Front Street in Reading. It was hers for $4,700 cash, money she cobbled together from friends and family. The house was in bad shape, but “you could live there,” she said.  She found a job in a hotel for $6.50 an hour, then moved to a chicken processing plant, where she eventually made $9.80 an hour. She now works in a restaurant that happens to be right near her daughter’s school, and instead of paying $750 a month in rent, she pays about $500 a year in taxes. The slow pace of Reading took some adjustment, she said, but not much. “I’m used to it now,” she said. “And I’m happy with life.”  She related her history on a recent weekend as she was having her hair done at the Carmen Beauty Salon, a Dominican-owned spot. The owner of the salon, Carmen Santos, had a similar story, going from $700-a-month rent and working as a hairdresser and sometime owner of salons to $500-a-month mortgage two years ago, and buying the salon in Reading last year.  Ms. Santos says life in Reading is much more relaxed. “In New York, you leave work like this,” she said, striking a melodramatic pose, back of hand on forehead, shoulders slumped. “Here, you work. But it’s very relaxed.”  Alex Betances, a real estate agent, has seen the Dominican community sprout from virtually nothing when he moved here from Union City in 1986 at age 11. These days, he looks for creative ways for families, many of them Dominicans from the New York area, to cover a $2,500 down payment plus closing costs. Sometimes that involves negotiating with banks, having the seller pay the transfer tax, or having the husband continue to work and live in New York until he can find a job in Reading.  “Poor people have the same financial issues as rich people,” he said. “Just on a smaller scale.”  But they do have different quality-of-life issues. Much of the housing stock in Reading comprises worn but picturesque old row houses. Crime is up in recent years, and more than 11,000 of Reading’s 17,000-plus students last year moved at least once during, before or after the school year, according to the schools superintendent, Tom Chapman. He said the constant relocation of students was among the major obstacles facing the school system. Dr. Chapman’s modest goal: “They have to be better when they leave than when they came.”  But if you’re a Dominican family from a poor, troubled neighborhood in, say, the Bronx, those problems are not a big deal. “When people come from New York, everything is good for them,” Mr. Betances said. “They’re used to problems. They say, ‘If we can make it in New York, this place can’t be that bad.’ ”  And to some extent, they can make the place into New York, recreating Dominican neighborhoods alongside the larger Mexican and Puerto Rican populations. There is a local radio station, WXAC at Albright College, that features a salsa/merengue/bachata/reggaetón rotation, and a Philadelphia Spanish station, WUBA-FM, has been reaching Reading since August.  And, of course, there are the small businesses like bodegas that are the signature of Dominican life in New York. Mr. Betances said that when he first arrived, there were only a couple of Latino grocery stores. “The beauty salons, the nail salons, the grocery stores, they all popped up in the last three or four years,” he said.  Indeed, though many Dominicans who had blue collar jobs in New York end up working in food processing plants in the area, others come with business plans. That includes Henry Cruz, a former mushroom salesman from Queens and now the owner of Rancho Merengue, one of the few nightclubs here catering to Dominicans.  He had long dreamed of owning a club, but in New York it was prohibitively expensive; Rancho Merengue is a modest space with a bar, a pool table, some tables, a stage and a dance floor, a hybrid of a New York Latin club and a neighborhood bar. But it attracts big names. One Saturday in September, the place was packed with Dominicans and Puerto Ricans as he held a birthday party for himself, featuring the well-known bachata singer Dominic Marte, who performed his hit “Ven Tú” for an adoring crowd.  A client of Mr. Betances, Gregorio Zarzuela, is another case in point. Born in the Dominican Republic, Mr. Zarzuela lived for 34 years in New York, first working in factories, then restaurants, then bodegas, and finally struggling with his own bodega at Third Street and Avenue D in Manhattan’s East Village while renting an apartment in Corona, Queens. “Life there was hard,” he said. “The rent was too high.”  Two years ago, he and his family bought a house for $99,000 in Reading. Then, he bought another building and opened a bodega there. “Living in Reading is just too good,” he said. “Business is slow, but you can live from it. Here I open at 7:30 a.m., and at 6:30 I head home to have a barbecue or make dinner. In New York, it was 6 a.m. to midnight. I love New York, but I can’t go back.”  Though the Dominicans who move from New York might have some regrets at leaving, “they adapt pretty quick,” Mr. Betances said. “They adapt to the tranquillity. They don’t miss the traffic; they don’t miss the parking, the hustle and bustle.”  A more complicated issue is their identity: are they Dominicans? New Yorkers? or Readingites?  Even the old-timers aren’t quite sure. “Where the heck am I from?” Mr. Betances said. “I was born in the Dominican Republic, grew up in New York, and now I’m in Pennsylvania.”  A version of this article appears in print on , on Page RE1 of the New York edition with the headline: Leaving New York, With Bodega in Tow. Order Reprints| Today's Paper|Subscribe
In the last few years, hundreds of Dominicans, long New York’s largest immigrant group, have given up their jobs and snapped up bargain houses in Reading, Pa.