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Urban Feel Philly quite easily IMO
People about the same
Better life Probably DC Entertainment Philly
Architectures Philly
Economy DC quite easily
Downtown Philly
Suburbs Tie
Future possibilities DC shows no sign of stopping.
Public transportation DC quite easily
Shopping no clue
Open mindness probably DC Schools probably DC
While nightlife is totally subjective, I'm still surprised by the number of people who choose Philly over DC. The DC Metro is more diverse and upscale and that's seen in the nighlife. There are way more upper middle class Hispanic and Asian hotties. In Philly, partying with Philly Ricans generally means "hood" whereas you can hit up Gallery in Silver Spring and be surrounded by extremely high quality Latina sisters. Philadelphia doesn't really have much of a Hispanic middle to upper middle class yet. In DC, the Hispanic middle class is starting to rival the AA community's. Just to make things more objective, there are 24,531 Hispanic households in the DC MSA earning $150,000 or more and only 6,102 in the Philly MSA. I can personally tell you that that translates into a better nightlife and generally more offerings within the Hispanic community.
Philly public schools are way ahead of DC's. You would have an easier time getting your kid a slot at Central, Masterman, Northeast, George Washington or CAPA than you would at Walls or Wilson. Trying to get into one of those schools requires either (1) the ability to purchase a very expensive residence west of Rock Creek Park or (2) getting extremely lucky in the lottery (which thousands of other highly-paid and well-educated parents are competing in). A lot of people in Philly may think it's tough to get their kid into a good school there, but it's not the same level of competition at all.
While nightlife is totally subjective, I'm still surprised by the number of people who choose Philly over DC. The DC Metro is more diverse and upscale and that's seen in the nighlife. There are way more upper middle class Hispanic and Asian hotties. In Philly, partying with Philly Ricans generally means "hood" whereas you can hit up Gallery in Silver Spring and be surrounded by extremely high quality Latina sisters. Philadelphia doesn't really have much of a Hispanic middle to upper middle class yet. In DC, the Hispanic middle class is starting to rival the AA community's. Just to make things more objective, there are 24,531 Hispanic households in the DC MSA earning $150,000 or more and only 6,102 in the Philly MSA. I can personally tell you that that translates into a better nightlife and generally more offerings within the Hispanic community.
I think that's fair. Generally, the Philly MSA is just not on same level of diversity of the DC area. However, it is worth noting that Philly is getting a lot more diverse due to increased levels of immigration from across the globe -- which lately is accounting for practically all of its population growth. Since I don't see DC becoming any more noticeably diverse (only larger), I can see Philly definitely catching up in this regard in the coming years.
Also, as I've noted before about supposedly high DC area household income, it is significantly tempered by cost-of-living. In comparing the income level needed to purchase a median-priced home (assuming 28% threshold of income) in the DC area to that of Philadelphia area, you would need to earn $40,519/year in the Philly area compared to $68,345/year in the DC area. That means you would need a 68% increase in income just to maintain the same standard-of-living in DC compared to Philly.
I think that's fair. Generally, the Philly MSA is just not on same level of diversity of the DC area. However, it is worth noting that Philly is getting a lot more diverse due to increased levels of immigration from across the globe -- which lately is accounting for practically all of its population growth. Also, as I've noted before about DC area household income, it is pretty significantly tempered by cost-of-living.
I agree, while household income stats are interesting, without looking at cost of living, they are not particularly helpful.
While nightlife is totally subjective, I'm still surprised by the number of people who choose Philly over DC. The DC Metro is more diverse and upscale and that's seen in the nighlife. There are way more upper middle class Hispanic and Asian hotties. In Philly, partying with Philly Ricans generally means "hood" whereas you can hit up Gallery in Silver Spring and be surrounded by extremely high quality Latina sisters. Philadelphia doesn't really have much of a Hispanic middle to upper middle class yet. In DC, the Hispanic middle class is starting to rival the AA community's. Just to make things more objective, there are 24,531 Hispanic households in the DC MSA earning $150,000 or more and only 6,102 in the Philly MSA. I can personally tell you that that translates into a better nightlife and generally more offerings within the Hispanic community.
You often talk about nightlife very single-mindedly. Not everyone is trying to network for work all the time or "be surrounded by extremely high quality latina sisters", whatever that means (considering Philly is way more Hispanic than DC as a city).
Philly has better bars, the widest beer selection on the East Coast, better music venues, 4 pro-sport teams that play in the city, casinos and is simply a much bigger city. I do think DC is better for higher end clubs and the metro is more diverse overall than the Philly metro (but not the city-and let's be real, Metro racial demographics don't mean as much for Philly as they do for DC as Philly is much more city vs suburb).
D.C. by a country mile. Philly is a pretty bleak city by comparison--more dangerous/higher violent crime rate, lots more rundown neighborhoods/areas, worse economy, much worse infrastructure (PA has the worst roads in the country after RI, and Philly has a disgusting airport), etc.
Also, D.C. area people are easier to live around than Philly people. The prevailing mentality of the Philly area is crude, ghetto, shrewd, ornery, guido, or some other variant of "tough." OTOH, D.C. area residents are much more refined and sophisticated in the way they act (i.e., more articulate, more polite, softer-spoken, etc.), and they're usually more intellectual and worldly, although snootier and more pretentious.
Philadelphia always feels like it's in the shadows of someplace else.
After searching cities around the country for a place to re-locate to, we moved to Philadelphia 3 years ago. Until I came to CD, I never encountered this sentiment. No one I have befriended in Philly over these past 3 years has ever mentioned this dynamic either. It's been repeated so often on CD, however, it's become a bit of an old chestnut typed out with little thought behind it. Out here in the real world . . .
Those household cost of living things are based on home ownership, I find them a bit skewed and not accurate.
^^ And yeah I was referring more to local events and the bar scene in Philly on entertainment. DC is no slouch though, easily better museums and such. And DC has better clubs and lounges. Philly I'd consider to have a better food scene.
Also, as I've noted before about supposedly high DC area household income, it is significantly tempered by cost-of-living. In comparing the income level needed to purchase a median-priced home (assuming 28% threshold of income) in the DC area to that of Philadelphia area, you would need to earn $40,519/year in the Philly area compared to $68,345/year in the DC area. That means you would need a 68% increase in income just to maintain the same standard-of-living in DC compared to Philly.
That really doesn't even matter because the income distributions in both MSAs among Hispanics are so different. 13.8% of Hispanic households in the Philly MSA earn $10,000 or less. In DC, only 3.5% of Hispanics earn $10,000 or less. If we increase the threshold to $20,000, it's 28.0% for Philly and 8.9% for DC.
Coming from the opposite direction, 13.9% of Hispanic households in the Philly area earn more than $100,000. In DC, 29% earn over $100,000.
I'm not going to add up all of the income brackets, but suffice it to say that the Hispanic community in the DC area is much better off than the Hispanic community in Philadelphia. On the ground, what you see is a Hispanic community in Philadelphia that's largely ghettoized in North Philly and Camden with a solid concentration of working-class Hispanics in the Northeast (it's a largely urban population). In the DC area, you have poorer Hispanics living in DC, some parts of NOVA and PG and MoCo, but a much larger share at the top end of the income spectrum. In Philly, it's the opposite with many more households at the very bottom than at the top.
You often talk about nightlife very single-mindedly. Not everyone is trying to network for work all the time or "be surrounded by extremely high quality latina sisters", whatever that means (considering Philly is way more Hispanic than DC as a city).
Not everyone is trying to get smashed in pubs either. If anyone's narrow-minded, it's you believing that everybody else in the world wants to do what you want to do. I'm not even Hispanic, but I can at least step out of the box and consider the nightlife aspect from that vantage point. And a robust nightlife for Hispanics is not only a good thing for that community, but also for outsiders (like me) who want to enjoy that culture and demographic in a non-ghetto environment.
Quote:
Originally Posted by grapico
Those are good points and it's noticeable walking around that DC is more diverse and the people probably have more money in their wallet.
Here is the paradox. If you're walking around DC (or at least when I'm walking around DC), it's less diverse to me. DC is either largely white or largely black with a slither of Hispanic neighborhoods. The neighborhoods that have any type of racial "balance" are gentrifying rapidly. The white people in those neighborhoods have limited interaction with black people and pretty much view them as a nuisance that needs to be gentrified away. If you said the words "Go Go," "Rare Essence," or "Chuck Brown" to the average white person in DC, they would give you a blank stare right before skipping into some cafe that sells $5 cups of organic fair trade coffee.
Philly's a bit different. Even in South Philly, which sees a lot of tourists, you see a lot more different ethnicities packed in. You might see some hipster white girl walking down the street next to a 54-year old Vietnamese lady who's getting directions from an Italian dude who's eating tacos he just bought from a Mexican lady's shop. In the Northeast, you will likely see little street gangs composed of white, Puerto Rican/Dominican, black and Asian girls. That seems to be a normal thing now on Cottman Avenue.
The DC and Philly suburbs, however, are the inverse of each other. Silver Spring, Takoma Park, Wheaton, Rockville, Fairfax, etc. are wildly diverse. Walk into any mall and you'll see an Ethiopian girl with a Salvadoran guy, a Mexican girl with a Nigerian, etc. The suburbs are very mixed (PG County excepted).
Last edited by BajanYankee; 02-20-2014 at 02:19 PM..
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