I grew up in Schnecksville, just north of Allentown. It was very suburban, but north of that is New Tripoli which is rural farmland. As others have said, rural PA has some OK areas, but a lot of it has problems with finding jobs, healthcare, and school districts. Rural areas in Lehigh County doesn't suffer from that much since the county is well off, but others around have it rougher.

Not sure what your budget is, but one thing about PA is there's usually developments even out in rural areas, if that's in your budget. And there's always plenty of run down shit for cheap if you're into fixing something up.