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.
I chose Houston based on the current trends of population growth in the general Tx region, the forum do have bias tendencies for traditional pre ww2 urbanity. Philadelphia, unfortunantly has the bones of a future declining city, the city infrastructure is too rundown and crime is more out of control than comparable large cities.
I don't think Philadelphia is a declining city, but I believe that Philadelphia is very stagnant and by that I mean Fortune 500 companies are leaving the city, violent crime is starting to rise, the school system hasn't been fixed, and you have leadership in City Hall which doesn't have enough guts to stand up for the city and I'm not just talking about cheap words, neither.
I knew the city was stagnant once the Comcast Information and Technology Center was erected. I was hoping we could get another company to either move here from another city or the suburbs but that never happened, which is why I wanted the American Commerce Center built, but that never happened. Miami has about the same number of Fortune 500 companies as Philadelphia which is two, but Miami unlike Philadelphia is a major international hub, which is why you have 44 diplomatic consulates in Miami to Philadelphia's 5 consulates and if I'm right, I could see the Italian consulate closing in Philadelphia and moving all operations to NYC.
The Israeli consulate closed in Philadelphia because the Israeli gov't wanted to consolidate and save money and Philadelphia took the hit and the same will happen once the Italian gov't wants to save money. Philadelphia isn't the same city it was even over a decade ago, and I don't want to say Philly is declining but it's very stagnant and it's not an innovative and fun city. If you want fun, go to Austin, go to Atlanta, and go to Miami. I had my fun when I came to Philadelphia in the 2000s. Nowadays, you can't have any fun in Philly.
Miami is just a more active city and a very vibrant city than Philadelphia and the same can be said for Atlanta but since I'm not LGBT and the LGBT lifestyle is very rampant in Atlanta, Miami is just a much better city for singles as well as for families and by Miami, I'm not just referring to the city proper, but the metro area.
Quote:
Originally Posted by inflation
Sunbelt cities (not popular with forum urbanist) are going thru what Philly, Detroit and Chicago did during their own growth spurts before. They are the greater cities of the future compared to some of the more rundown, visually out of shape scattered on the eastern seaboard and midwest. NYC will be fine but Philly might be the one to take the hit of domestic migration along with Baltimore for example for eastcoast metros, the same way Detroit or Cleveland declined while Chicago manages itself in that particular region. I factored in future growth for the poll choice but imo I'd say D.C and Sf bay area currently tie for 4th for their own specific unique industries.
Like I said, Philadelphia won't hollow out like Baltimore, Cleveland, and Detroit, but it's just going to be frozen like Chicago. When National Geographic christened Philadelphia as the next great American city, I was ecstatic about the designation and was hoping that Philadelphia would follow suit. All we needed was very good leadership from the city and state and that dream would've come to fruition, but I honestly feel that designation as of today isn't Philadelphia, but Miami. It's just too damn dynamic nowadays in comparison to Philadelphia and to important of an economic center to ignore.
[quote=wanderer34;63258485]I don't think Philadelphia is a declining city, but I believe that Philadelphia is very stagnant
Yeah I might've exaggerated the pessimism of Philly but yes the city has stagnated... being from California, I say for Philly folks, I wouldn't even think about whether the city is #4 on any lists... I would just enjoy the city for what is... lots of grit, history and it's own culture. A city with its own working class populace, the everyday people we see that is down to earth. I do realize the midwestern declined cities such as Cleveland have different ghetto bones so it's wrong to put Philly there with them but if Philly goes too gritty, too ghetto then that's all the city or metro will have in say another generation (25 years).
Not really sure what Philly and Detroit are even doing on the list.[...]Boston is a major academic and historical center, but in certain respects so is Philly and the latter absolutely does not belong in this discussion.
Then neither does Boston, by that metric.
The Brookings Metropolitan Policy Program did a study on Greater Philadelphia's prospects in the mid-1990s. In it, they coined a word that I still consider useful to describe the city itself:
"Bostroit."
The reason Philly is — and does belong — in this discussion is because it's part Boston as well. And also, as another poster noted along with me, the city isn't the leader in any one field (not even the legal profession, where it had been an epicenter for a good long time and gave birth to a term — the "Philadelphia lawyer," one exceptionally well versed in the niceties and minutiae of the law), but it's either a solid second or a top-tier performer in several, including biomedical research — this city is the birthplace of gene therapy. And, of course, it's also the headquarters city of the company that not only owns one of the Big Three legacy broadcast TV networks but also delivers its programming to your TV via cable. It's also a rising star in the venture-capital firmament, with a rapidly growing tech startup ecosystem. (If you've used GoPuff to order convenience goodies or beer online, you're using technology developed by a company founded and headquartered here.)
Put another way, Philadelphia is probably the country's biggest and baddest also-ran, and the whole of that next-bestness is greater than the sum of its parts*. Certainly not great enough to warrant the #4 spot in the American urban hierarchy, but definitely still in the top 10 and likely to remain there for some time to come.
*Consider also another area where the city ranks second: number of people living in its downtown. A steadily increasing number of those people are New Yorkers, especially Brooklynites, who have figured out that the quality of their New York experience is not so much different or better than what they'd get in Philadelphia and that they'd pay less for it here. Net population migration between the two cities has been towards Philadelphia for nearly two decades now, and we're even beginning to see a trickle of Washingtonians making the slightly longer trek northward.
Quote:
Originally Posted by OyCrumbler
Right, Australian cities also have it as well and Toronto's working towards similar right now with Go Transit and the Bay Area is doing so with Caltrain. SEPTA (Philadelphia) plan is to also run Regional Rail that way and there's some push towards doing the same for Metrolink in Los Angeles.
SEPTA already does run Regional Rail that way and has ever since the Commuter Tunnel — the only facility of its type in the United States — opened in 1984.
Service on all but one of the 13 Regional Rail branches operates bidirectionally throughout the roughly 19-hour service day. What it doesn't yet do is operate frequently enough — most branches have trains once an hour off-peak, one of them operates every 90 minutes, and two operate at half-hourly intervals — to make using it as a primary form of transportation practical for many yet.
Latest stats show MSA Philly at $455M, Seattle $444M and Atlanta $432M, it's not much larger than either city and both cities have gained tremendously on Philadelphia. Philadelphia certainly belongs in the top 10 conversation but so does Atlanta and Miami. I have Seattle on the outside looking in.
That's all fair. I know we tend to think of this socially constructed "Top 10" as though it's written in stone or that it can't be extended more reasonably to a "Top 12", but all four aren't dramatically different in economic stature.
Quote:
Originally Posted by wanderer34
I can only see many of the aforementioned cities passing Philadelphia by this century while Atlanta becomes a major metropolis at the same vein of not necessarily NYC, LA, and Chicago, but more like a Boston or a Houston, where it's a hub, which it clearly is. Miami on the other hand, I can easily see it becoming a 10 million metro, especially if it's able to properly fix it's rail and road infrastructure.
There's a lot of things to respond to with your post, and I don't even disagree with everything you say. But I will just provide the nutshell version: Philadelphia was very much on the verge of regaining its economic footing pre-pandemic, and it's starting to once again regain traction in 2022. Every city is now in recovery mode right now; Philadelphia is absolutely not alone in that regard.
Without question, you're not wrong that the city has lacked the political will and vision for many years, but you're very remiss to ignore the new convergence of economic factors in 2022 (dire lack of affordable housing in other major cities--much moreso than Philadelphia, a dispersion of workforces around the country, and infrastructure/demographic woes that are very clearly beginning to impact not just the post-industrial and Rust Belt cities, but the entire US and especially cities without anywhere near the public transit infrastructure of Philadelphia [looking at you, Sun Belt]etc.). These trends can very well align in Philadelphia's favor, just as easily.
Bottom line, no one knows what the future holds. That should be more apparent now than ever. We're literally witnessing a restructuring of the global economic order that will take at least a decade more to unfold.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MarketStEl
*Consider also another area where the city ranks second: number of people living in its downtown. A steadily increasing number of those people are New Yorkers, especially Brooklynites, who have figured out that the quality of their New York experience is not so much different or better than what they'd get in Philadelphia and that they'd pay less for it here. Net population migration between the two cities has been towards Philadelphia for nearly two decades now, and we're even beginning to see a trickle of Washingtonians making the slightly longer trek northward.
This.
So many reference the "overshadowing" of Philly by New York ad nauseum, but they seem completely clueless as to the flip side of that coin. The fortunes of NYC and Philadelphia have become inextricably tied together, so much so that with New York's continued ascent, there is now well-documented "spillover" to Philadelphia and the surrounding metro area. Flow of "priced out" residents, expanding businesses, and other commercial activity, has made Philadelphia's proximity to New York much more of a blessing than a curse than at any point in its history.
I'd actually rank major US cities into the following tiers
1. NYC
2. LA
3. Chicago
4 or 5. DC / SF
6. Boston
7. Miami/Houston/Dallas/Atlanta
8. Philly/Seattle
Miami is just a more active city and a very vibrant city than Philadelphia and the same can be said for Atlanta but since I'm not LGBT and the LGBT lifestyle is very rampant in Atlanta, Miami is just a much better city for singles as well as for families and by Miami, I'm not just referring to the city proper, but the metro area.
The LGBT aspect is Atlanta is so over exaggerated. Cities like DC, Dallas and Miami have that lifestyle too, it's not magnitudes more in Atlanta. People try to act like everyone in Atlanta is LGBT it's still a very small portion of the overall metro population not like it's 70% or something. The LGBT population in Dallas and Miami are a lot bigger than some seem to realize too, especially in Dallas.
The LGBT aspect is Atlanta is so over exaggerated. Cities like DC, Dallas and Miami have that lifestyle too, it's not magnitudes more in Atlanta. People try to act like everyone in Atlanta is LGBT it's still a very small portion of the overall metro population not like it's 70% or something. The LGBT population in Dallas and Miami are a lot bigger than some seem to realize too, especially in Dallas.
Yeah, I would think Miami and DC are at least as LGBT friendly as Atlanta.
I'd actually rank major US cities into the following tiers
1. NYC
2. LA
3. Chicago
4 or 5. DC / SF
6. Boston
7. Miami/Houston/Dallas/Atlanta
8. Philly/Seattle
Why is Boston deserving of its own tier? Why would Philadelphia/Seattle be placed on a separate tier below Miami/Houston/Dallas/Atlanta?
Not trying to be contrarian, but I just don't see the point of making a thread just so people can throw around rankings without some explanation behind it.
I don't think Philadelphia is a declining city, but I believe that Philadelphia is very stagnant
Yeah I might've exaggerated the pessimism of Philly but yes the city has stagnated... being from California, I say for Philly folks, I wouldn't even think about whether the city is #4 on any lists... I would just enjoy the city for what is... lots of grit, history and it's own culture. A city with its own working class populace, the everyday people we see that is down to earth. I do realize the midwestern declined cities such as Cleveland have different ghetto bones so it's wrong to put Philly there with them but if Philly goes too gritty, too ghetto then that's all the city or metro will have in say another generation (25 years).
I don't think any of us Philadelphians here disagree with you, though some of us might remove the "very" before the "stagnant."
But I should also caution that slow growth != no growth.
The Greater Philadelphia region has been growing slowly for all of the nearly 40 years I've lived here, but the city has been a laggard on job creation for just about that long — Paul Levy, the Center City District's executive director, frequently trotted out at the CCD quarterly meetings that, in contrast to its peers (Boston, San Francisco, Washington, New York...), Philadelphia had yet to regain all the jobs it had lost since 1970 while all the peer cities had done so sometime in the early 2000s and blown past that mark. The city has been adding jobs at a faster clip since the Great Recession began, but I think it's still below 1970 levels.
Frankly, I think that having a diversified slow-growth economy may well be an ace in the hole for the Philadelphia region. It doesn't soar when times are good, but it also doesn't crash when times are bad.
That aside, everything else you say about this place is true, IMO, and if you got the impression from any of us that we thought that Philly deserved the #4 spot or worried over it not being there, then I apologize but also suggest that you go back and read the posts made here by Philadelphians.
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.
