Philly lost more than 7% of jobs and could lose 19,000 commuters a day, Pew study says (Newtown: how much, office)

[NewtownBucks]

Originally Posted by Angus215

Every day you commute into the city of Philadelphia, you get the "privilege" of giving an extra 2.5% of your income to the City, paying $13 to SEPTA (or surviving Philly's poorly-planned highway system and paying $30 to park), frequently inhaling second-hand marijuana, dodging panhandlers, and being forced to needlessly wear a cloth mask over your face. Why would anyone want to work remote???

The city needs new leadership for sure. Specifically, leadership that is not progressive liberal. As a poster said above, Philly had been on the right trajectory for decades . . . until Kenney (and Krasner) came along. It had even started to (slowly) reduce its highest-in-the-country wage tax. But that progress has all reversed.

The commute isn't great, but it's $13 to park (not $30), I've never had to dodge panhandlers or inhale second hand pot smoke (although I might just enjoy that one, LOL), and the day the announcement was made about the mask mandate returning, our HR sent out an email saying it doesn't apply to our office.

[bridge12]

Originally Posted by NewtownBucks

The commute isn't great, but it's $13 to park (not $30), I've never had to dodge panhandlers or inhale second hand pot smoke (although I might just enjoy that one, LOL), and the day the announcement was made about the mask mandate returning, our HR sent out an email saying it doesn't apply to our office.

Yeah, many Philly companies (such as my own) already have a vaccine mandate so the mask mandate is irrelevant.

[Angus215]

Originally Posted by JamesJay64

Honestly, the people that cite "frequently inhaling second-hand marijuana" as something wrong with the city instantly lose credibility to me. As a Center City resident, I can confidently say that I don't even smell it on a daily basis, and I walk absolutely everywhere. It's definitely no worse than other places I've lived... probably better than DC.

Most suburbanites' complaints show that they just hate cities in general.

I agree that it's not quite as bad as DC, where recreational marijuana is legal. We also don't have the "tent city" problem of DC, so things could be worse I suppose. But I'd say I smell weed about half the time I walk more than a couple blocks, mainly around the Center City West / Rittenhouse area. Also smell it frequently on Septa - not because they're toking on the train, but because their clothes reek of weed.

[selhars]

CITC? What's that stand for?

[Tweb66]

CITC= Comcast Information Technology Center, or something like that. But its just called CTC these days to differentiate from the Comcast Center.

[wanderer34]

https://www.inquirer.com/news/philad...-20220324.html

It's no bearer of bad news, but guess what, the city's population of Philadelphia has dropped to it's lowest level since 1975, almost 50 years, and people wonder why I rage about certain things I hate (CITC, SEPTA, the past two mayors, businesses leaving, taxes, gentrification). Image is everything -from a Sprite commercial!



But according to many of the boosters, "Philadelphia isn't as bad as Philadelphians say it is". The old adage is coming back, whether we're actually saying it or not. With the exception of MarketStEl, it just seems like a good bunch here would rather focus on a "certain element" as to why the city and the area is going down the tubes even though that "certain element had been here in whatever capacity since the city's founding and another group would say that Philly is coming up when I didn't see anything progressive about the city's skyline pre-2012 neither did I think Nutter or even Kenney was what the city needed as both those two are career politicians whose only luck is that there's a term limit for mayor.

We can all agree to disagree, but there's a reason why Fortune 500 and GaWC exist, it's a gauge to how a city's economy and finances are doing. There's a reason why NYC is Alpha++ and the only other city is London and while Paris is Alpha+, it essentially belongs in that same ranking as NYC and London. The other three American cities which I can see being Alpha are LA, Chicago, and Miami. Miami made it 2018 only to be dropped two places to Beta+, but once it can solidify that it's the foremost crypto capital of the world as well as a major financial and economic center, I can see Miami rejoining that ranking along with LA and Chicago.

Miami may be one of the few cities (along with DC) that may not need any Fortune 500 companies HQ'd in it's city limits due to the fact that the city of Miami and Miami-Dade County works as one unit. Even though Jacksonville is the biggest city in FL, you really have to look at FL from a county basis, similar to PA, and Miami-Dade is the top Alpha dawg in FL while all the other counties have to settle for second or third.

LA and Chicago may not go even higher since LA's cash cow is Hollywood and Chicago is the undisputed hub of the Midwest and the third largest corporate center behind NYC and Houston. If Philadelphia can't find an economic niche, it's going to decline not necessarily in population, but in economic and financial teams while Atlanta and Miami will be Alpha- and Alpha, respectively.

Atlanta is the Hub of the South for a reason because it's centralized between FL, AL, MS, TN, NC, and SC, and Hartsfield-Jackson is the engine that powers Atlanta, regardless of how many airlines and how many destinations you can go to, it's not a better airport than JFK, EWR, MIA, or ORD, but it's the workhorse of American airports and I'll give ATL it's due. Atlanta has it's faults (no extensive mass transit system and awful traffic, plus a divide between rich and poor blacks as well as native and transplant blacks, plus a gay culture that's way too intrusive than what I've seen in SF), but Atlanta is eventually going to be upgraded because it's lifted it's weights to become a heavyweight along with the Chicagos, the Los Angeles, the DC's, and the Bostons of this country while Philadelphia has become too damn content with being the fourth, fifth, sixth, and county city while not improving it's lot. And Atlanta (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...States#Atlanta) and Miami (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...d_States#Miami) has consulates. Philadelphia used to be a very important city with a lot of consulates, but today in the 21st Century, I guess it's not as relevant internationally than in the past centuries.

It's also the state capital and a major educational center. Georgia Tech is no Penn, but I would put it along Temple's league except GT has a much better football program. And don't forget the black colleges and the corporations that call Atlanta home (Coca-Cola, Home Depot, Delta, UPS, Georgia-Pacific). Philadelphia used to be a major banking center and we don't have one bank HQ'd here. And Philly is going to be slipping in the rankings once those TX cities pick up much more people and Atlanta and Miami CSAs start to rocket to the point where Philadelphia can't catch up. If Philadelphia can't take some criticism, it's not going to relevant. It was relevant from colonial times to the 20th century, but nowadays since Latinos are a much bigger piece of the pie nowadays, I guess we need to consider San Antonio as relevant to America as Philadelphia since SA was once the capital of TX and TX was it's own nation at one point in it's history.

[MarketStEl]

Originally Posted by wanderer34

This thread is no surprise. From the late 2000's to the early 2010's Philly seemed to be on an upswing. However during the mid 2010's it seems to be that Philly is going back down in population. If each of the 19K commuters represented a head of household of about 4-5 other people including significant other and dependents, then that would mean that 76K-114K could leave the city for whatever reason. The main reason for people moving out of the city is because of crime, schools, and unemployment.

I had to go al the way to SF just t work the old job that I had which was taxi driving, and did make a good deal of money, not great, but good enough by Philly standards. The fact is that Philadelphia this past decade hasn't been as innovative and as dynamic that a lot of boosters try to make it and being a former booster, it's hard o see what Philadelphia is slowly devolving into or about to become. The Comcast Technology Center is the ugliest tower I've seen in a long time and still to this day I avoid looking at the Tower of Satan which is what I personally call it since it represents Comcast, high cable bills, and the MSM, which has provided a lot of misinformation for the past 5-6 years.

Philadelphia isn't the same city I grew up to love ever since as a kid. When I first came to Philadelphia on a field trip back in 1995, I instantly fell in love with the city because it felt the same as NYC, but nowadays, I feel like it's lost not only it's soul but it's heart. The beautiful skyline that it once had has been scarred by the CITC, SEPTA is in even worse condition, big companies other than Comcast are moving out or are planning on moving out, and I don't really see Philly coming back to it's glory. It's still going to be a big city of over 1 million should but it's not going to be the same city that it was back in the 20th century nor will it have the same clout it once did have neither as emerging cities such as Miami, Atlanta, Charlotte, Dallas, Houston, San Diego, and San Jose continue to emerge.

Oops once again!

A commuter as described in that article already lives outside the city. Otherwise, their ceasing to commute to work would not lead to lost wage tax revenue.

After that, all is noise. And some of that is easily refutable, like the one about companies other than Comcast moving out or planning to. As mentioned in another thread, our corporate HQ count remains steady and is about to increase by one with the move of Rite Aid Corp. into Philadelphia from Camp Hill (a Harrisburg suburb).

I'm beginning to think you are the fox who couldn't get the grapes.

[NewtownBucks]

Originally Posted by NewtownBucks

I work at a financial services company in Old City. While our upper management has been stressing that we are an "in-office" company, my area alone (there are 6 people under me) has lost 2 people to fully remote outside offers and there are a couple more who are pushing to stay remote even after our RTO plan goes into affect, and I will push hard to allow them to do that, as I have no desire to keep replacing people in a highly technically skilled profession where losing experience is a big set back. I don't know how much of my office will end up remote, but the RTO plan has a target of only 3 days in the office per week right now, so that is a 40% reduction in people in the office off the top, not counting the additional people who will be granted full time remote work plans.

The CEO of the company yesterday announced that we will be going to 3 days/week in the office permanently, so they have codified at least a 40% reduction in commuting for us.

[selhars]

It will be interesting to see if you lose anymore people who don't even want to come in 3 days.

That third day seems to make people think a bit more about just how much they want go into the office.