Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Philadelphia is perpetually the single most underrated large city in the US, and seeing the treatment of the place by the media recently because of the Eagles just confirms it to me.
I will never understand the media narrative towards it. It is literally one of the best urban experiences in North America. It is usually top 5-10 in most metrics concerning education, GDP, culture, amenities, public transit, food, and certainly tops in history, etc etc etc, and yet it continually and continually and continually is looked at like it's Rome, NY or something.
Like, what the hell? Is it not supposed to be one of my favorite cities? Somebody pull the wool over my eyes then.
What is it the narrative of the place? Reality doesn't match it at all.
NYC being 90 miles/90 minutes away from Philly is a big part of it. There's a thread elsewhere entitled "does Philly have the worse perception problems...? devoted to just what you are saying above.
That's the most ridiculous thing I have read on here.
It's like saying "Chicago just doesn't have the cold that Minneapolis does."
Come on. You act like there is such a massive difference here. All I see are millennials and yuppies in Philadelphia. It's a top city for education, finance, etc. Its part of the Northeast megalopolis.
Exactly right. That's pretty much the majority of people I see in the parts of Philly I travel in. And there's also this: the generation right behind millennials( people born from about 2002 to the present), the oldest of whom are in high school , are pretty evident as well.
Public Transport is far from excellent. DC dumps all over it, and DC's is not great either.
Arts Scene - true
Nightlife - i guess, yeah. I'll give you this one.
Affordability - true.
By 'few years' you mean 50-100 years for a maglev/hyperloop?
I think philly is a good place for hq2 but the merits of philly are way overblown.
I hate to break it to you but Greater Philadelphia has one of the best transit systems in the nation. Southeast Pennsylvania has the 3rd largest commuter rail network in the USA. We have the 2nd busiest transit station in the USA after Penn Station in NYC. NOT DC.
Transit network size:
1) NYC
2) Chicago
3) Philadelphia
Has anyone on this board seen the Schuylkill Yards proposal where HQ2 would be located? Take a look for yourself. http://www.schuylkillyards.com/
This is adjacent to the 2nd busiest transit station in the USA. An Amazon employee can walk 3 blocks out of their building and do one of 4 things:
1) Hope on a commuter train to take an 18 minute trip to American Airlines Trans Atlantic Hub for the Northeast: Philadelphia International
2) Get on an Acela to get to NYC in about 80 minutes.
3) Get on an Acela to get to DC in a lil over 90 minutes.
4) Walk to the 3rd Best Business School in the world. Wharton @ Upenn.
Ladies and gentlemen those 4 things can be accomplished; all from WALKING out of your HQ2 office building @ the Schuylkill Yards. Quite impressive dare I say No city on that list of 20 can match that.
Looking at the subset of college-educated millennials (which is of course the prime workforce subset that Amazon will be targeting), out of curiosity I've actually pulled the data from the American Community Survey for metro areas between 2010-2016, and the results are pretty interesting. Here are the Top 10 metro gainers of people between the ages of 25-34 with at least a BA:
New York (+220,284)
Los Angeles (+157,419)
San Francisco (+110,157)
Houston (+89,200)
Seattle (+87,068)
Dallas (+84,595)
DC (+77,800)
Philadelphia (+73,870)
Boston (+72,243)
Chicago (+64,452)
So you're partially right that NYC and SF (along with LA) are pre-eminent educated millennial magnets that are in their own tier, but I don't think many folks realize the extent to which Philly has become a talent magnet over the past 10 years or so (due in no small part to its incredible value/affordability as an East Coast hub and economic vibrancy that improves each year).
At least in terms of attracting/retaining young talent, Philly is now absolutely in the same league as Boston, DC, Chicago, and Dallas.
Philly in the same league .... yes. Differing links on criteria and counts alter city rankings.
Forbes link on the Top Millennial cites .... had US cities far from the Top. Austin was the TOP US city in the world coming in at #41. They use a few criteria.
The US cities rank here was like this ... Their criteria apparently hurts Boston and NYC.
#1 Austin (rank #41)
#2 San Francisco (rank #45)
#3 Denver (rank #50)
#4 Portland Ore (rank #52)
#5 Seattle (rank #58)
#6 Los Angeles (rank #60)
#7 New York City (rank # 68)
#8 Chicago (rank #67)
#9 Philadelphia (rank #68)
#10 Boston (rank #79)
I hate to break it to you but Greater Philadelphia has one of the best transit systems in the nation. Southeast Pennsylvania has the 3rd largest commuter rail network in the USA. We have the 2nd busiest transit station in the USA after Penn Station in NYC. NOT DC.
Transit network size:
1) NYC
2) Chicago
3) Philadelphia
This is adjacent to the 2nd busiest transit station in the USA. An Amazon employee can walk 3 blocks out of their building and do one of 4 things:
1) Hope on a commuter train to take an 18 minute trip to American Airlines Trans Atlantic Hub for the Northeast: Philadelphia International
2) Get on an Acela to get to NYC in about 80 minutes.
3) Get on an Acela to get to DC in a lil over 90 minutes.
4) Walk to the 3rd Best Business School in the world. Wharton @ Upenn.
Ladies and gentlemen those 4 things can be accomplished; all from WALKING out of your HQ2 office building @ the Schuylkill Yards. Quite impressive dare I say No city on that list of 20 can match that.
Size is only one factor. With in the city and region, rapid transit frequency is way down compared to DC Metro. Are you really comparing SEPTA rapid transit to Metro? SEPTA rapid tranist is only two lines and caries a fraction of riders that dc metro rail does.
You can stay within the system and go to IAD (much bigger than philly) or reagan. Two airports without switching transit modes/systems.
I'm focused on what the 50k employees would use with the highest frequency. DC offers a much larger and robust rapid rail system than SEPTA does.
Correct, dunno where Mutiny is getting the idea that tons of millennials are not coming or staying in Philly. They're literally everywhere I go. The oldest of them have kids.
Size is only one factor. With in the city and region, rapid transit frequency is way down compared to DC Metro. Are you really comparing SEPTA rapid transit to Metro? SEPTA rapid tranist is only two lines and caries a fraction of riders that dc metro rail does.
You can stay within the system and go to IAD (much bigger than philly) or reagan. Two airports without switching transit modes/systems.
I'm focused on what the 50k employees would use with the highest frequency. DC offers a much larger and robust rapid rail system than SEPTA does.
DC has better rapid transit but when it comes to other modes of transit, Philly does everything else better (commuter rail, intercity rail, light rail, interurban rail, etc). Also Philly offers 24-hour rapid transit service, which is something Washington DC doesn't have.
Philly in the same league .... yes. Differing links on criteria and counts alter city rankings.
Forbes link on the Top Millennial cites .... had US cities far from the Top. Austin was the TOP US city in the world coming in at #41. They use a few criteria.
The US cities rank here was like this ... Their criteria apparently hurts Boston and NYC.
#1 Austin (rank #41)
#2 San Francisco (rank #45)
#3 Denver (rank #50)
#4 Portland Ore (rank #52)
#5 Seattle (rank #58)
#6 Los Angeles (rank #60)
#7 New York City (rank # 68)
#8 Chicago (rank #67)
#9 Philadelphia (rank #68)
#10 Boston (rank #79)
Hard to believe anyone would use a Forbes list to support anything. Their criteria is often so vague and so random that it's hard to take any of them seriously. They're click bait.
So, I wonder about the relevance of another thread and its in-migration figures for various cities when overlaid against the top 20 list for Amazon and what that means for their ability to attract people and the value Amazon may place on that. (Ive bolded overlapping cities.)http://www.city-data.com/forum/city-...different.html
Moved From Abroad
1. New York: 186,149 people
2. Miami: 116,278 people
3. Los Angeles: 109,776 people
4. Houston: 81,748 people
5. Washington DC: 81,330 people
6. Boston: 60,427 people
7. San Francisco: 59,614 people
8. Dallas: 59,540 people
9. Chicago: 54,504 people
10. Atlanta: 50,703 people
11. Seattle: 43,913 people
12. San Diego: 39,641 people
13. San Jose: 38,968 people
14. Philadelphia: 38,360 people
15. Phoenix: 31,948 people
16. Orlando: 29,130 people
17. Detroit: 27,943 people
18. Minneapolis: 22,389 people
19. Tampa: 21,801 people
20. Riverside, CA: 20,578 people
Not a coincidence that the top 3 cities here are also in the short list.
I think that Bezos is wondering how to draw talent worldwide and knows that Miami's reputation and easy access to Latin America means easier recruiting?
Atlanta
Suburban Virginia (DC area)
Washington, DC
Suburban Maryland (DC area)
Boston
Newark (NYC area)
New York
Philadelphia
Chicago
Denver
Austin
Dallas
Pittsburgh
Raleigh
Toronto, Canada
Nashville
Miami
Los Angeles
Indianapolis
Columbus, OH
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
No city on that list of 20 can match that.
