Philly redevelopment writeup in The Great Inversion...thoughts? (Philadelphia, Pittsburgh: apartment complex, neighborhoods)
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Detroit is actually a pretty big asia hub at this point, along with Chicago. It's (counterintuitively) a much shorter flight (over the pole) than LAX to many cities in Asia.
Detroit is actually a pretty big asia hub at this point, along with Chicago. It's (counterintuitively) a much shorter flight (over the pole) than LAX to many cities in Asia.
I did know this. My younger brother flew to Beijing from Newark via O'Hare. It makes perfect sense.
When i flew to Australia all flights were via SFO or LAX and the number of flights on the departures board to cities in Southeast Asia from LAX was overwhelming for someone from the east coast.
IMO, the major benefit of a continuous inflow of immigrants - especially Asian, is their ability to turn garbage into gold (e.g., neighborhoods)- something Philly desperately needs to grow into a more international city.
I really don't think race has anything to do with it - it's much more about socio-economic status. I live in a neighborhood that is diverse but where asians are the largest group even though they come from 6 different ethnic groups. The Indonesians and Filipinos are the most middle-class and generally understand how to build equity but also leave the neighborhood as soon as they can afford to. The Cambodians are mostly blue-collar and may or may not take care of their houses but aren't particularly entrepreneurial. If there's a vacant house or some hovel of an apartment you can bet the slumlord/speculator is Vietnamese, Chinese or American - they're probably not well educated but have tight investment circles to fund projects of that extractive, pariah nature.
The best way to turn a neighborhood around, IMO, is with an infusion of middle-class americans (regardless of race).
Since it's very unlikely anyone on this forum is interested enough to actually buy his book on Amazon (your reference), we rely on you for an accurate interpretation of the text. That said, even the above statement appears grossly inaccurate - regarding PHL. Consequently, please provide the exact quote from the text so that we (I) can assess the author's understanding of Philadelphia's international transportation environment.
While I bought it as an ebook, I can't copy/paste the text. It's a rather long paragraph as well. I'll wait until I'm on a computer with dual monitors.
Why did Philadelphia fail to attract the immigrants who could have done it so much good? One explanation is that in recent times, immigrant magnets have all possessed hub airports and regularly scheduled international flights, and Philadelphia has been stuck with a regional airport with few flights to anyplace outside the United States. For Asians or Latin Americans seeking to relocate, Philadelphia has simply been hard to get to. The cities that attracted the largest share of immigrants between 1970 and 2000 were all cities with decent air connections. When Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson Airport inaugurated nonstop service to Rio de Janerio, traffic on the route reached fifty thousand passengers within one year, and the majority of these were Brazilians seeking to settle in the United States. Philadelphia offered no such service, to Rio or virtually any other foreign capital. As of 2010, there was still no direct service from Philadelphia's airport to anywhere in Asia.
I think his point is fair in a certain respect. I know many international migrants who purposefully chose to live in hub cities because it would be easier to visit family back at home.
One thing I found odd was he had no discussion of Philly's largest non Black/White group, the Puerto Ricans in parts of North and Northeast Philadelphia. While those areas certainly haven't been dynamic, they were a big migrant group who came in when the city was heading downhill, and they still comprise the vast majority of Latinos in the city.
Here is the paragraph:
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Why did Philadelphia fail to attract the immigrants who could have done it so much good? One explanation is that in recent times, immigrant magnets have all possessed hub airports and regularly scheduled international flights, and Philadelphia has been stuck with a regional airport with few flights to anyplace outside the United States. For Asians or Latin Americans seeking to relocate, Philadelphia has simply been hard to get to. The cities that attracted the largest share of immigrants between 1970 and 2000 were all cities with decent air connections. When Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson Airport inaugurated nonstop service to Rio de Janerio, traffic on the route reached fifty thousand passengers within one year, and the majority of these were Brazilians seeking to settle in the United States. Philadelphia offered no such service, to Rio or virtually any other foreign capital. As of 2010, there was still no direct service from Philadelphia's airport to anywhere in Asia.
......................
I think his point is fair in a certain respect. I know many international migrants who purposefully chose to live in hub cities because it would be easier to visit family back at home.
One thing I found odd was he had no discussion of Philly's largest non Black/White group, the Puerto Ricans in parts of North and Northeast Philadelphia. While those areas certainly haven't been dynamic, they were a big migrant group who came in when the city was heading downhill, and they still comprise the vast majority of Latinos in the city.
Thanks for the response.
PHL is designated as a "MAJOR HUB" airport by the DOT/FAA. Regional Airports are NOT International airports. PHL has non-stop flights to 31 International Destinations, including to every major city in Europe + Tel Aviv. True there are no flights to Asia - yet and that is a negative. To point out RIO as a shortfall is at best absurd. He implies that because 50K Brazilians flew through ATL, that Atlanta itself significantly benefited, when in fact most likely just connected there, enroute to the Brazilian enclaves in the Northeast (NYC/Newark) or California. In fact, Philadelphia itself has an enclave called "Little Brazil". Unfortunately, the author's misrepresentation of Philadelphia's air commerce, IMO, casts doubt on the credibility of his entire thesis. Don't get me wrong, I'm not in any way trying to shoot the messager (you), your post and comments are quite interesting.
PHL is designated as a "MAJOR HUB" airport by the DOT/FAA. Regional Airports are NOT International airports. PHL has non-stop flights to 31 International Destinations, including to every major city in Europe + Tel Aviv. True there are no flights to Asia - yet and that is a negative. To point out RIO as a shortfall is at best absurd. He implies that because 50K Brazilians flew through ATL, that Atlanta itself significantly benefited, when in fact most likely just connected there, enroute to the Brazilian enclaves in the Northeast (NYC/Newark) or California. In fact, Philadelphia itself has an enclave called "Little Brazil". Unfortunately, the author's misrepresentation of Philadelphia's air commerce, IMO, casts doubt on the credibility of his entire thesis. Don't get me wrong, I'm not in any way trying to shoot the messager (you), your post and comments are quite interesting.
To be fair, he doesn't say "this is the sole reason." Instead he considers several, including the low number of jobs available in Philadelphia, and the city not being very welcoming to immigrants.
To be fair, he doesn't say "this is the sole reason." Instead he considers several, including the low number of jobs available in Philadelphia, and the city not being very welcoming to immigrants.
again, ridiculous.
First, a lot of new immigrants to the US (for the last decade) have not only been skipping big cities for the suburbs but they've skipping large metros altogether. That's not to say that big cities don't attract new immigrants by the planeload - it's just not what it used to be.
Second, the "unwelcoming to immigrants" thing is a joke. I live in a neighborhood that's 50% 1st or 2nd generation immigrant. You can walk out the door of my in South Philly walk down to South Philly High, turn down Wolf St, down to 10th, then back up towards Reed & Passyunk (maybe 25 minutes on foot) and you'll hear khmer, viet, mandarin, indonesian, thai, tagalog, nepalese, hindi, italian, greek, albanian, arabic (in 3 different accents), and spanish (in 4 different accents).
There are, in fact, two "little saigon" neighborhoods in Philly. 4 different enclaves of Cambodians. Two Koreatowns. Between Poles, Russians and Ukrainians half of Northeast Philly might as well be eastern europe. There are Brazilians in the northeast, Puerto Ricans and Dominicans in North Philly. West Philly has east africans. Southwest has west africans. There are Haitians in Germantown. Chinese in, uh, what's it called? Oh, yeah, Chinatown (and pretty much everywhere else in the city too).
If you're looking to be comfortable in America and live in an affordable city, you come to Philadelphia. If you want to chase the dream and work 80 hours a week you go to NYC. It's been like that for 300 years. It's not gonna change.
But to say that Philly doesn't have a sizable immigrant population or that life here is somehow more hostile to immigrants than any other city is ludicrous. Philadelphia has a very even keeled and diverse economy. We don't get the big booms that attract immigrants and contract workers like New York or Dallas. People don't come here to make a quick back - they come for stability.
To be fair, he doesn't say "this is the sole reason." Instead he considers several, including the low number of jobs available in Philadelphia, and the city not being very welcoming to immigrants.
Really and what example/proofs does he provide to support the assertion: "and the city not being very welcoming to immigrants"? His treatise would attain at best 1 academic review before it was cycled to oblivion. BTW, I am not taking issue with his comments on the mediocre Gentrification of older neighbohoods in Philly. It is IMO, one of the city's most significant obstacles to future economic growth. You seem to actually be defending most if not all of the author's comments, which to me has little merit since, like him you do not, nor ever have lived in the city. BTW, I reviewed the author's credentials and they are impressive - BUT even Einstein was wrong as many times as he was right.
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