Washington D.C. vs Philadelphia (live, better, compare, place)

[the resident09]

Originally Posted by Penna76

I understand your perspective and DC has some strong selling points and as I have commented, DC is one of my favorite Top 5 cities in the USA without a doubt. I think Philadelphia gets sold short on a few points though and especially is underrated on how nice its suburbs are.

The Main Line is just one nice (and is the most well known) suburban area.

Within the Philadelphia metro you also have West Chester and the Brandywine Valley (which is comparable to Alexandria) and absolutely stunning.

You have Lower Gwynedd in Montgomery County which can rival Potomac and you have Mid and Upper Bucks County which is gorgeous and full of multi million dollar estates and historic colonial architecture with charming towns left and right.

The City of Philadelphia overall has more violent crime than the City of DC. No doubt on that and this is why the crime for the total MSA reflect the data you included.

But, Prince Georges County, MD had 100 homicides last year alone. No suburban county in Philadelphia can match that. I believe the highest murder count in suburban Philadelphia was Camden County, NJ with 30.

DC does not have a strong commuter rail system.

It has a heavy rail hybrid system that has been extended into certain parts of its suburbs, but overall it is quite limited. SEPTA is a legacy commuter rail system, this is why its suburbs have limited highways, because historically from the 1800s you could take rail into the city from what was then the country.

And when highways were modernized most communities said no, because they felt it would ruin their historic and quaint character and this is why the Philadelphia suburbs (especially on the Pennsylvania side) feel like you are in a small town, rather than a concrete jungle. The Pennsylvania suburbs even tried to fight building a 6 lane highway as late as the late 90s (now known as the Blue Route or 476). They prefer the smaller town feel of the suburban environment and heavily rely on commuter rail to get into the City when needed rather than driving in. And it is because the suburban rail transit in Philadelphia covers more miles than that of DC.

Transit accessibility in the two suburbs are 100% in Philadelphia's favor.

DC wins for intercity accessibility with transit. No doubt about that. This is why DC traffic is some of the worst in the nation though, because it is playing catch up to suburban transit accessibility.

And being able to take a commuter rail from Center City Philadelphia to the Atlantic Ocean for $9 one way in 60 minutes. Is pretty impressive. DC cannot match that.

With that, I do love both cities very much. I think Philadelphia is just underrated on a metro standpoint because many do not know of its assets, especially in its suburbs.

For example, DC in its suburbs has no liberal arts schools like: Villanova, Haverford, Swarthmore, Bryn Mawr

DC has the #2 rail heavy rail system by ridership in the country. That should be understood first. It could have 0 Commuter trains and still be ahead of most cities. But it does have it, and since commuter rail covers entire CSA regions, meaning you'd have to take all commuter rail from MARC and VRE and tally it up. When doing so it's over 15 million annually at about 7th or 8th city in commuter rail ridership in the country. So to say that DC "doesn't have good commuter rail", when it's ahead of all cities but 8 in the country (with the #2 subway) is wholly misleading. You're prone to twist threads/arguments to be one way, without given full context. Your metro area and DC are different in their suburbs, it doesn't make the rail lacking in DC or it's entire region. Does Philly have better commuter rail than DC, of course it, does DC have better subway rail than Philly? Hell yes. So I'm not seeing where this puts Philly ahead at all. Overall I'd put it 5th as a metro area in rail after NYC, Chicago, DC, and Boston.

I'm not sure what having a liberal arts college has to do with anything here. As I've stated before there's a liberal arts college in the CSA outside of Baltimore and another down in Central Virginia. You're just naming things that you like more, not things that make the suburbs better. Philadelphia wins on quaint towns and older well kept suburbs, DC wins almost in every other category IMO. QOL, diversity, less crime, more diverse, I'll probably give food in the suburbs to DC as well. The DC suburbs are also more appealing politically IMO, and more mixed use.

Prince George's has over 900k people, and the vast majority of it's almost 500 sq mi is safe. It's also the wealthiest county with an AA majority in the USA. Camden was one of the most violent cities in the country for almost a decade. There's nothing Camden like in the DC suburbs regarding crime.

And no Philly's waterfront doesn't top Georgetown, The Wharf, Capitol Riverfront/Navy Yard, Alexandria, National Harbor combined, plus the white water rapids of NW/ Glen Echo. That's all just in the city/immediate beltway.

[thedirtypirate]

Originally Posted by 908Boi

I understand this is purely subjective, but I am simply not a fan of Pennsylvania . For me personally, the DMV has offered a better QOL then I had previously (grew up in NJ, have lived in DC, VA and MD). And comparing say Montgomery County, MD to any of the Philly suburban counties, I think MoCo wins easily in most metrics besides urbanity. In addition, Prince George's offers a lifestyle that doesn't really exist in the Philly area (majority black and high income with great access to the city). The worst inner Beltway communities in Prince George's cannot be compared to a Philly, Chester or Camden as far as poverty and crime goes. As a Black man, I have way more of chance of being a victim of a violent crime in those cities compared to Montgomery or Prince George's County.

Prince George's County is an outlier in the entire United States with a very limited number of places with a similar socioeconomic make-up. If I had to pin one county down to compare, I would probably say Delaware County. It's not a perfect fit, but probably as about as close as you will get IMO.

[Penna76]

Originally Posted by thedirtypirate

Prince George's County is an outlier in the entire United States with a very limited number of places with a similar socioeconomic make-up. If I had to pin one county down to compare, I would probably say Delaware County. It's not a perfect fit, but probably as about as close as you will get IMO.

Hmm. Im interested on why you chose Delaware County?

I would say Camden County, NJ and Prince Georges County, MD are the two most similar in the respective metros.

Both are diverse (PG more so: but Camden County is for sure), and both have a very similar feel to them.

And both have a strong black middle class presence.

Bowie, MD and Cherry Hill, NJ feel a lot alike. IMO.

Although Camden County is not a majority black county like PG County, they both are similar.

[thedirtypirate]

Originally Posted by Penna76

Hmm. Im interested on why you chose Delaware County?

I would say Camden County, NJ and Prince Georges County, MD are the two most similar in the respective metros.

Both are diverse (PG more so: but Camden County is for sure), and both have a very similar feel to them.

And both have a strong black middle class presence.

Bowie, MD and Cherry Hill, NJ feel a lot alike. IMO.

The demographics really aren't that different, and Delaware County does lack the Latino presence found in Camden and PG, but the way that Upper Darby and the other inner ring delco suburbs sit around the city always kind of reminded me of PG. I can see the case for Camden with places like Collingswood/etc.


Also in terms of this waterfront discussion, I should have made it clear I don't think philadelphia's is necessarily better. I just don't think for river cities, there is as big of a gap like it is being made out to be.

[908Boi]

Originally Posted by thedirtypirate

Prince George's County is an outlier in the entire United States with a very limited number of places with a similar socioeconomic make-up. If I had to pin one county down to compare, I would probably say Delaware County. It's not a perfect fit, but probably as about as close as you will get IMO.

Prince George's County has more similarities with southern counties IMO than any county up north, like Dallas County TX, Fulton, GA, Dekalb, GA etc. but that's getting off topic I think.

Originally Posted by Penna76

Hmm. Im interested on why you chose Delaware County?

I would say Camden County, NJ and Prince Georges County, MD are the two most similar in the respective metros.

Both are diverse (PG more so: but Camden County is for sure), and both have a very similar feel to them.

And both have a strong black middle class presence.

Bowie, MD and Cherry Hill, NJ feel a lot alike. IMO.

Although Camden County is not a majority black county like PG County, they both are similar.

honestly i'm not too familiar with Camden County outside Camden City. I know places like Lindewold, Voorhees, Lawnside, Winslow have large black middle class populations. But these places still don't have the black affluence found in parts of PG.

The white and Hispanic populations of Camden County vs. PG County are much different as well.

[MarketStEl]

0

Originally Posted by the resident09

Philadelphia has some very nice suburbs, and the Main Line is special, but in the aggregate DC's are another notch up when it comes to things to do, diversity, and variety. There are no equivalents to Bethesda, Silver Spring, Arlington, Tysons, Alexandria, Rockville etc. in Philadelphia's suburbs. None. DC's suburbs have two major airports, (not even including BWI) one being top 10 in international traffic in the country.

um, what's King of Prussia, chopped liver?

As I believe I wrote above, Tysons (no longer Corner) is the ur-edge city (literally: it formed the basis of former Washington Post reporter Joel Garreau's book of that name), but King of Prussia plays in its league: it has a smaller resident population and a smaller number of office jobs, but it has the larger shopping agglomeration (comparing King of Prussia to Tysons Corner Center and Tysons Galleria combined) and the larger number of industrial jobs.

And Alexandria is just about the only DC suburb that stretches back as far as some of Philly's oldest — places like Newtown (1690s), West Chester (1701), Doylestown (1838) and Media (1853) all have the sort of small-town (or small-city) look and feel of Old Town Alexandria.

Again, as I noted above, DC as we know it now didn't really come into being until World War II, which is why most of its suburbs look newer and have wider roads.

Air traffic xtats are fine, but usually, the presence of airports aren't sold as an attribute that would lead suburbanites to settle around them. I do seriously doubt that air traffic into and out of Philadelphia will rise to the point where anyone would want to upgrade the Northeast Philadelphia Airport or convert the shuttered Willow Grove Naval Air Station into a civilian airport, but rising sea levels might make one of those things necessary, as Philadelphia International would then be mostly swamped. (I think the same would apply to DCA.)

As for transit: again, the Washington Metro, like every other Second Subway Era system, is a hybrid: it performs the functions of commuter rail and rapid transit at the same time. Philadelphia's Regional Rail network is distinctive as of now in that it's not peak-service oriented and runs (or ran, pre-COVID) well into the night. Only New York's commuter rail system (and to a lesser extent Boston's and Chicago's) had these characteristics as well.

And adding suburbs and beaches 60 miles away from Philadelphia doesn't boost the city either. Philadelphia doesn't have a beach inside the city. It's not Chicago. There are beaches, and other cities, within 60 miles of DC. The Chesapeake Bay is less than 30 miles from the District, so if we're going that far out, nothing in Philly's metro or 30 miles out matches the Chesapeake Bay. Philadelphia's waterfront in the city isn't better than DC's multiple waterfront destinations in the core either. The Delaware River is a (fill in the blank) compared to the Potomac.

That last is only because the Delaware is a working river while the Potomac is no longer, at least not at Washington. I'd consider that an asset, not a liability, and besides, the Delaware is getting redeveloped for a more mixed-use future. And having beaches within easy reach, I'm sure, would please those Washingtonians who hit US 50 headed for OCMD, or even more, those who get off it once across the Chesapeake and crawl along Route 404 headed for Rehoboth Beach, which, btw, is actually easier to get to from Philadelphia because the highways are better. True, there's nothing like the rapids of the Great Falls in Philly, but I'd put the Wissahickon Creek valley up against Rock Creek anytime. What are those beaches less than 60 miles from DC? The Bay itself has none either.

[the resident09]

^^^ Sandy Point and North Beach both on the Bay, are 35 miles or less to DC itself, and less than that from the MD suburbs. They are tiny, and I'm not saying these are anything notable to write home about, but they are beaches that exist and within 60 miles. St Mary's in southern MD has a couple like Piney Point on the Potomac side, but same thing very small. It's widely known that in MD the Eastern Shore is where the real beaches are.

[Duderino]

Originally Posted by the resident09

^^^ Sandy Point and North Beach both on the Bay, are 35 miles or less to DC itself, and less than that from the MD suburbs. They are tiny, and I'm not saying these are anything notable to write home about, but they are beaches that exist and within 60 miles. St Mary's in southern MD has a couple like Piney Point on the Potomac side, but same thing very small. It's widely known that in MD the Eastern Shore is where the real beaches are.

I think one of the key differences here is roadway access. Despite similar proximity "as the crow flies," DC's options for getting to the Eastern Shore are inconvenient, at best. The realistic access point to Eastern MD and Delaware is the Bay Bridge, which is epically congested.

Philadelphia benefits from several, much more direct access roads, with the Atlantic City Expressway being the most prominent and obviously the fastest. It simply goes a long way towards "feeling" more connected to the beach.

[Metal To The Core]

Which city is better ?

The criteria :

Urban Feel - Philly
People - Philly because there are fewer politicians
Better life - Philly, better cost of living etc.
Entertainment - Philly
Architectures - Both
Economy - Unfortunately, probably D.C.
Downtown - Like both, leaning towards Philly
Suburbs - D.C. because of Alexandria
Future possibilities - Not sure. Both?
Public transportation - Not sure about D.C., but Philly has good public transportation
Shopping - Philly
Open mindness - Neither lol, but probably Philly if I had to guess
Schools - ?

And more...

I like both cities, but dread the idea of living in D.C. Baltimore would get my vote over either one of them, though!

[Mutiny77]

Originally Posted by rowhomecity

I think though overall, Camden County, NJ is definitely the "Prince Georges County" of Philadelphia, IMO

Not seeing this at all. PG County has nothing like Camden itself and the municipality in south Jersey that's most representative of PG County is Willingboro which is in Burlington County.