Best Big City Neighborhoods Mt Airy Money Mag 2013 (live, stats)

[mancat100]

I used to ride the diversity train. Now I really don't care. I just want good neighbors. Good neighbors in 99% of cases = solidly working class or higher. I don't have the time nor inclination to deal with poverty and its attendant social pathology anymore. I know that sounds bad but it is what it is. No white nor black trash, please.

[Cnote11]

Originally Posted by mancat100

I used to ride the diversity train. Now I really don't care. I just want good neighbors. Good neighbors in 99% of cases = solidly working class or higher. I don't have the time nor inclination to deal with poverty and its attendant social pathology anymore. I know that sounds bad but it is what it is. No white nor black trash, please.

Entirely agree... Certainly my neighbors are quite different than me to begin with. On top of that, I wish to have a diversity of walls and insulation between us.

[Larry Bowa]

Originally Posted by mancat100

I used to ride the diversity train. Now I really don't care. I just want good neighbors. Good neighbors in 99% of cases = solidly working class or higher. I don't have the time nor inclination to deal with poverty and its attendant social pathology anymore. I know that sounds bad but it is what it is. No white nor black trash, please.

That's the best we can hope for.

[Aimewitue]

Originally Posted by BR Valentine

It's a Forbes list and as with any such listing it's arbitrary. That said, if you look at the list Mt. Airy is similar to the other neighborhoods selected. They chose neighborhoods in which middle- to upper-middle income households can afford to purchase a house in the respective cities. The only potential outlier in the list is Park Slope, though even as exepnsive as it is, it is nonethless less expensive than many Manhattan neighborhoods. That's why Mt. Airy is on this list and not Society Hill or Chestnut Hill. Forbes intentionally chose what I guess you might call "value" neighborhoods that tend to appeal to families with school age children.

Mt. Airy is a nice neighborhood and as someone who grew up there and still has family and friends living there, I agree that common perceptions about diversity in that neighborhood tend to be a bit exaggerated. If one thinks that diversity is overrrated then obviously Mt. Airy is going to be less appealing.

The list is reallly just another in Forbes' endless supply of click-bait, but at least it's positive click-bait about the city. Of course, if you come to this forum to post endlessly about how awful the city is, then I suppose this list may disappoint you.

Good point....Philadelphia does have beautiful neighborhoods and Mt.airy is one of them. Mt airy tends to get on these list by forbes and other magazines a lot.

[2e1m5a]

Originally Posted by Larry Bowa

Yes, overrated. Check out the crime statistics, I'm actually surprised at the crime they have ... And I wouldn't say it's all that diverse, it's mostly black (62.5%) and the "white" (31.7%) are mostly Jewish. (5.8% other)
Mount Airy, Philadelphia, PA Neighborhood Crime Map, Statistics, Alerts and Reports
I'd prefer Society Hill or Crestmont Farms.

These stats are for Mount Airy in entirety-East and West. Generally, when people talk about racial diversity in Mount Airy they mean WMA which is almost exactly 50/50 white/black and has been for a while. EMA above Gorgas Lane has also always been very diverse although EMA as a whole is about 80% AA. And the white population is actually pretty diverse, but yes maybe 40% Jewish if I had to guess.

[FBJ]

When I think of best neighborhoods, the ones below come to mind

Schuylkill River Park

Fairmount

Manayunk

University City

Chestnut Hill

[Aimewitue]

Originally Posted by 2e1m5a

These stats are for Mount Airy in entirety-East and West. Generally, when people talk about racial diversity in Mount Airy they mean WMA which is almost exactly 50/50 white/black and has been for a while. EMA above Gorgas Lane has also always been very diverse although EMA as a whole is about 80% AA. And the white population is actually pretty diverse, but yes maybe 40% Jewish if I had to guess.

I wonder where we could find the stats for ECONOMIC DIVERSITY.....that would be great let me do some researching.

[stuckinsj]

Originally Posted by WestPhillyDude75

When I think of best neighborhoods, the ones below come to mind

Schuylkill River Park

Fairmount

Manayunk

University City

Chestnut Hill

How is the Schuylkill River Park a neighborhood? Never heard that one before/

[FBJ]

Originally Posted by stuckinsj

How is the Schuylkill River Park a neighborhood? Never heard that one before/

The 21st to 23rd street area from Chestnut to Spruce

[FrankInPhilly]

Originally Posted by Larry Bowa

Society Hill should have been there instead of Mount Airy.

And next year it might be. I haven't looked at the rankings from previous years, but I'd bet that the list is pretty volatile and that the write-ups for the neighborhoods rarely say "Proving its staying power as a top neighborhood, [wherever] is in the Top Ten for the fifth consecutive year." These rankings are on the whimsical side: criteria shift, and ultimately it really doesn't do anything except give the 'hood (and Philly, for that matter) some good press.