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Well, the dense cores of Philadelphia and Boston are vertually identical, w/ about a 2-5% edge going to Philly.
Include Cambridge, Somerville, Chelsea, Brookline, etc, to Philly + Camden, north suburbs, etc and the extent of their dense cores are both empirically and factually identical. Philadelphia has norther Delaware, Burlington County, etc, included in it's metro. But, it doesn't contribute to it's empirical urban scale in any meaningful way. Boston's non-incorporated dense core evens the score....
(This fact has been demonstrated and quantified w/ extensive disambigution multiple times. ...go back a few pages).....
Boston has about 2.5x Philly in construction (if measured in sq ft since 2008). Boston's largest 150 projects rival Los Angeles and San Francisco during the same time period.
Boston edges out Philly on highrise construction beween 200-350'.... They're about tied on approved and under construction from about 350-750'.... Philly is building supertalls. Boston will be building supertalls when hell freezes over.
Boston's metro core construction is disguised really well however, as extensive dense planning and construction is spread all over the core... whereas Philly's projects are concentrated more in Center City, Univ City, ect.
Boston ranks 3rd nationally behind New York and Los Angeles in foreign capital investment, beating out San Francisco and Seattle the past 2 years. We also ranked near the top in venture capital in 2016....
Philly's CSA is 20% larger, give or take. On economic development, by comparison, Philly is still an up and comer, with a lot going for it, not the least being an enormous, developable street grid for nearly limitless density and height. In the coming years, Philly will begin to pull away from Boston on highrise construction over 400'. This is a 100% certainty, as Boston is just about out of land for very tall construction.
Philly faces serious social and economic challenges.
Boston's negatives and social problems remain significantly less than Phily's.... but both suffer from significant economic inequality and a lack of economic development for a large sectors of the population.
The T, and Boston's high speed rail link on the NEC also compares favorably to Septa, etc...
next up; more than a dozen new major air-rights projects are planned by MassDOT..... *for those less familiar with 'air-rights,' that will equate to more low to medium height skyscrapers built over freeway and rail.
Last edited by odurandina; 05-11-2017 at 11:02 PM..
Boston simply wasn't built on a grid; however, it does maintain good street connectivity over as large an area as Philly. I have heard some people say the lack of grid makes it feel smaller and others say the opposite so I think that can have an impact because you don't get the long vistas like you can in Philly as often.
Boston ranks 3rd nationally behind New York and Los Angeles in foreign capital investment, beating out San Francisco and Seattle the past 2 years. We also ranked near the top in venture capital in 2016....
Philly's CSA is 20% larger, give or take. On economic development, by comparison, Philly is still an up and comer, with a lot going for it, not the least being an enormous, developable street grid for nearly limitless density and height. In the coming years, Philly will begin to pull away from Boston on highrise construction over 400'. This is a 100% certainty, as Boston is just about out of land for very tall construction.
Philly faces serious social and economic challenges.
Boston's negatives and social problems remain significantly less than Phily's.... but both suffer from significant economic inequality and a lack of economic development for a large sectors of the population.
In terms of participation in the 21st Century economy, it's very true that Boston has long constructed a more substantial foundation compared to Philly, and is definitely "firing on more cylinders." It's also true that poverty (particularly "deep" poverty) and social distress is more acute in Philly.
However, it's important to note that Philly also has capacity and resources for collaboration and economic restructuring in spades, and recent numbers are very encouraging. The pieces are there--it's just a matter of forging them into a competitive strategy, which Boston to its credit has done very effectively. Although, even with the dramatic edge that Boston has in something like venture capital and foreign real estate investment, Philly actually surpassed Boston in employment growth based on the most recent numbers (https://www.bls.gov/news.release/metro.t04.htm), so clearly some efforts in Philly are bearing fruit. Some economic metrics, while they might demonstrate a city's profile, don't necessarily connect with broad economic growth (particularly as things like real estate and VC have a tendency to further concentrate wealth, as opposed to disperse it).
And as noted multiple times, affordability and COL considerations are crucial for the long-term economic viability of any city, and as someone who's familiar with both cities, there's no question that the severe lack of housing production and affordability have reached alarming levels in Boston. Prices have certainly also gone up in Philly, but relative to income growth, it's much, much more balanced. There's no question that this will begin to have an impact on attracting and retaining new and young talent for which barriers to entry need to be as low as possible for living and working (at least for the vast majority who aren't being bankrolled by their rich mommies and daddies), and that's becoming a heavier and heavier lift in Massachusetts generally: https://www.missourieconomy.org/indi...ost_of_living/
Overall, there is no easy answer as to what the future holds for both cities, and I think they're both formidable and resilient enough to address their challenges in creative ways. What they have in common is that they both have stood the test of time in ways that most other American cities have not, so either is a fantastic bet.
Always surprised by City Data's inconsistency. Lol.
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