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Come on really? Philadelphia! It's so much more cultured, from the summer block parties, to our sports teams, etc. SEPTA is just as good as WMATA and Center City Philly is way more vibrant than DC IMO
At least Philadelphia has actually economically-integrated neighborhoods. That's much more than I can say for DC, and the lack of which is very much tantamount to racism (i.e., the stunning lack of African-Americans living in the highly affluent NW quadrant of the city).
You're right for the most part (the black population of DC declines each day as gentrification pushes them out), but which city diesn't have a wealthy area that is dominated by whites? And not all of NW is like that, many neighbourhoods such as Columbia Heights are racially integrated.
You're right for the most part (the black population of DC declines each day as gentrification pushes them out), but which city diesn't have a wealthy area that is dominated by whites? And not all of NW is like that, many neighbourhoods such as Columbia Heights are racially integrated.
True -- I was just exaggerating due to annoyance with the "philadelphia whites are racist" comment. I just wanted to illustrate that racism against minorities is not unheard of in either city, whether it is blatant or institutionalized.
So what? It is still a much better system and more comfortable for the general public to ride as well. I don't understand why so many people try to give some reason for the quality of a system just trying to inexplicitly discrediting it without admitting they are doing that. So DC has got higher funding priority for the metro system, well that's good for it and if you live there you share the benefit. Why does it make the comparison with Philly unfair? I don't see the reason for that. It is still a metro system and what you can get from it is clear and simple.
You're misunderstanding my point.
Basically, ANY city can have a system as modernized and efficient as Metro if it had a dedicated and guaranteed stream of funding from the federal government. Thus, it's not exactly that impressive that the Metro is as clean, efficient and modern as it is. I am not in any way trying to discredit it -- I personally used the Metro when living in the DC area very often and loved it.
My point was to simply defend Philadelphia's system in that it has more of an uphill battle for funding from its state legislature; a much more comparable comparison could be made with MBTA, MTA, CTA, or BART. It's just that the conditions for funding SEPTA and Metro are fundamentally different, and that should have an effect on personal expectation -- that's all.
There was an incident at suburban Philly swim club where a group of inner city kids (mostly black and hispanic) were asked not to come back. The kids were part of a group that had paid nearly $2K for the kids to swim at the private swim club for the whole summer. The swim club said that it could not accomodate them and gave the group their money back.
There were reports of white parents literally grabbing and pulling their children out of the pool when the black and hispanic kids jumped in. Now of course the swim club did not say "we don't want those black kids in our pool" they gave another reason dealing with capacity. I'm sure someone in Philly can give better details than me.
but keep in mind, that this is some private swim club in a wack suburban town outside of the city. the good news is, that the kids got to go to Disneyland courtesy of Tyler Perry
back to the question...i like both cities. DC is cool in my book. i picked Philly because i like tall buildings
Last edited by john_starks; 08-19-2009 at 07:29 AM..
In many regards, I agree with you. However, I don't think that's necessarily a fair comparison given the considerable amount of stable and guaranteed federal funding that the Metro gets. Public transportations systems in other cities could only be so lucky. It's a pristine subway system for the fact that it's absolutely imperative that government workers have access to reliable and efficient public transportation. This obviously translates into a high funding priority on behalf of the fed. For all its idiosyncrasies and antiquated infrastructure, at least SEPTA has a much more extensive commuter rail system than Metro -- an extremely important feature of a regional public transportation system.
Yet the one factor that makes Philadelphia more attractive overall is that it is a city that is nowhere near as financially exclusive as DC. I've never come across such dramatic disparities in economic class until I moved to DC (aside from maybe NYC). With much better economic diversity and integration, I feel that Philadelphia is much more livable -- not to mention not nearly as blatantly ostentatious.
Well don't forget that the commuter rail system is operated seperately from metro. There's VRE in Virginia and MARC in Maryland. Yeah the metro gets federal funding but so do other transit systems and in my opinion it's really expensive especially when compared to NYC. There's no monthly passes or anything like that. So I'm sure higher fares are part of it not just federal funding.
DC is very expensive but we have some of the highest salaries in the country even though there are more expensive cities such as New York, San Francisco, LA, Honolulu, San Diego and Miami. I don't know if Boston is more expensive or on the same level but it's at least tied with DC.
Now I will agree that there is a HUGE class divide in DC. At the same time I can't argue too much since I benefit from that class divide. I live in the very nice VA suburbs which doesn't have anywhere near the notoriety of SE and NE DC or some of the MD suburbs. Just last night someone was murdered. The other day a 14 year old was shot in her own bed by a stray bullet. Now she's afraid to even get in her own bed. They wern't in a rinky dink area it was all new housing but still in SE DC. It's a terrible shame that a child can't be safe in their own home. Poverty and high crime is very out of sight out of mind for a lot of us in the DC area especially in Northern Virginia. Some people will complain about Northern VA after one isolated incident of crime (oh those gangs!) and I just wanna scream do you know how lucky we are? So I will admit that I live in a somewhat insulated world.
So I don't know seems like back home in GA there was less class divide. Nobody cared about what college you went to. When people say "oh what school did you go to?" They mean high school. Here it's so weird when someone asks me that because they're talking about colleges. Then it's weird because they've never heard of my college and I'm like who cares as long as I got my degree from somewhere. So yeah DC and VA can be elitist. Although it is nice not being made fun of for talking "too proper" or better yet "too white". So you gotta take the good with the bad.
At the same time I love DC and VA despite the faults. The good outweighs the bad. I think there's more opportunity in DC than Philly. Both are great but at the same time gotta rep my new town. I don't know guess I got long winded.
Last edited by terrence81; 08-19-2009 at 08:02 AM..
but keep in mind, that this is some private swim club in a wack suburban town outside of the city. the good news is, that the kids got to go to Disneyland courtesy of Tyler Perry
back to the question...i like both cities. DC is cool in my book. i picked Philly because i like tall buildings
Really? They went to Disneyland? That's great! They deserve it after what they went through. Never experienced anything like that before as a kid thank God.
Oh the tall building thing. I think the lack thereof works for DC gives it a European look.
I'm white and I've always been a minority in the neighborhoods I've lived in since I moved to DC. Columbia Heights is majority black. I now live in Mount Pleasant which some stats say its 1/3 white, 1/3 black, 1/3 hispanic. Others still say its about 1/2 hispanic still. Capital Hill is EXTREMELY diverse. Petworth, Brookland, Adams Morgan, Bloomingdale, and several others are as well.
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