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Rebranding Philadelphia into a more Pennsylvania centric mindset would 100% benefit both the city and the state, as there is an unfortunate lingering mentality that Philadelphia is still lost and burning by many in Harrisburg and other people throughout the state.
Even our metro area is called the Delaware Valley, (which was not coined until the 1960s) which just reinforces this lack of cohesion of branding and economics to empower both Philadelphia and Pennsylvania.
Before this, it was always. Greater Philadelphia. And there was definitely a pride by all to be from PA and therefore resources were aligned appropriately.
My question is. How can we bridge Philadelphia + Pittsburgh + Harrisburg.
3 strong performing metros. Which all (as with all of the state) think entirely independently of each other and therefore end up fighting each other, rather than working together.
Thoughts. Ideas. Insights.
The goal is to create a One Pennsylvania mindset that builds acknowledgment of opportunities, resources and value to start investing smarter statewide, which obviously includes a more positive connotation of Philadelphia and Southeast Pennsylvania.
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I dislike responding first because everyone judges the first person who answers first more. IMO Philadelphia is and always will be the big cheese in Pennsylvania, but not without a decent contender in Pittsburgh. As a city Philadelphia is far from perfect (homicide, corruption, and drugs are major problems). But it does have tremendous assets, wealth, and recognition. Improvements do need to be made however to stay on the right trajectory.
Philadelphia is far more cosmopolitan than any other PA city, and therefore it has a totally different identity than the rest of the state. Some people resent it because there is a major rural/urban divide, with PA having one of the largest rural populations in the nation. Philadelphia leaders have successfully pushed some socially liberal ideas (public injection sites, sanctuary city, restrictive gun laws, de-criminalizing marijuana, which some other cities have done), and these ideas are quite different or non-existent in the rest of the state. I am not starting any political debates here, but if you removed Philadelphia from PA, we might be more like Tennessee, that's how conservative the rest of the state often is. I will say Philadelphia's location in the far Southeast corner also adds to the disconnect felt from the rest of the state (this goes for Erie too, and to a lesser extent Pittsburgh). Another Problem is that Philadelphia and MontCo share possibly a bit more in common culturally with Southern New Jersey than say for example Central PA (Appalachia).
Pittsburgh is somewhat remote in actuality, and has its own unique culture and following that resonates throughout the state (and West Virginia), not just Western PA. Pittsburgh competes with Philadelphia to some degree despite the two being in different leagues. I get a sense that Pittsburgh has a slightly better reputation as a city despite being much smaller than Philadelphia across all metrics. There is some degree of rivalry between the two. Pittsburgh is a really cool city, it has the bones of a larger city that it is.
Harrisburg holds the state political power and a small/midsize metro, selected mainly for its central geographic location. People come here for state government business and because it is centrally-located for interstate travel, and also happens to be near the geographic center of population of the state. Probably would have helped Philadelphia significantly if instead it was the state capital. Far more so if it had remained the national capital.
You also have the Lehigh Valley, Erie, Lancaster, Scranton, Reading, Williamsport, York, State College, Altoona and many other cities in the mix too. These cities have their own identities and influence over their respective regions. In many cases these cities are more relevant to local life than Philadelphia or Pittsburgh are since they are much further away geographically.
I love my state. Lived here my whole life and do not really plan on leaving. Neat that we are simultaneously urban and rural and a swing state too. Would be nice if we rallied behind one city to make it truly beloved, probably aligned synergy to be gained (2+2=5). But I don't see that happening overnight, if ever since PA is still a very large state after all with many differing opinions. Nationally, Philadelphia can be overshadowed by NYC and DC infrequent sometimes, but the city should still be able to shine in its history, wealth, size, and many assets. Philadelphia, and all of Pennsylvania really has unrivaled historical assets. I think focusing on quality rather than quantity may help Philadelphia in the long-run. Emulating a more walkable, vibrant European-style city, focusing on its mass-transit system (by leveraging PA's only real underground subway system), and generating tourism should serve as a model of success. Cleaning the streets and helping to make people feel safer would help too. I would say no more dirt bike gangs, or maybe planning a certain day a few times a year for that sort of activity. Also, if Pennsylvania can increase its private wealth, improve the state budget finances, and improve its overall standard of living, which is already very high, that will help elevate Philadelphia as well. You are probably correct in your presumption that one benefits the other (city and state, and vice versa). If Philadelphia can find a specialty industry that could be a game changer too. Just my two cents. I don't have much experience so please do not take this all too seriously. I am not an expert by any means.
Rebranding Philadelphia into a more Pennsylvania centric mindset would 100% benefit both the city and the state, as there is an unfortunate lingering mentality that Philadelphia is still lost and burning by many in Harrisburg and other people throughout the state.
I think Philadelphia as a city and metro would benefit the most if the political climate of the state and Harrisburg changed. There is a lot of hope, mostly from this last election, and I think PA will start to skew more liberal on many issues in the coming decades.
Anyways besides politics, I couldn't really care less about the rest of state minus the major population centers (Pittsburgh, Lehigh Valley). I would rather Philadelphia focus on building its region into a strong cohesive unit. Having Montgomery, Chester, Delaware and Bucks counties intertwined with the city is far more important to me than anything happening in Franklin County. Frankly, most of PA is useless to Philadelphia's growth (minus Harrisburg for political reasons), and they have no knowledge or respect for the region that keeps the state afloat.
It is a shame that Pittsburgh is so far since its a great city and a powerful economic player, and because of that I don't see Philly and Pittsburgh intertwining in the near future, they are both pretty much their own identities, and they are very far apart with no direct train line in use.
At least the Harrisburg area has remained connected to Philadelphia due to the frequent Amtrak trains (which are very heavily used).
My post is kind of all over the place, but my point is that I think Philadelphia should focus on itself and its region and work on Harrisburg, the rest is not going to change.
I also think it would be more beneficial for Philadelphia to have relationships with New York and DC, those are the cities that will benefit Philadelphia from an economic and social standpoint and Harrisburg from a political standpoint. Not shade to Pittsburgh, but Philadelphia is a top dog city and should get it together so it doesn't fall into the mix as other cities grow.
Finally, I think the Delaware Valley should 100% be called Greater Philadelphia, something as simple as the regions nomenclature would do a lot to unify the suburbs and city.
Last edited by cpomp; 03-26-2019 at 07:33 AM..
Reason: added thoughts
I always thought of Philadelphia as more a member of the Northeast Corridor then as a part of Pennsylvania. Lets face it, the rest of the state (minus Pittsburgh, State College, and a few others) is embarrassingly conservative and backward. There is good reason they call it Pennsyltucky. Just look at Daryl Metcalf as a prime example of how rural people in this state think. Those kinds of people are never going to like us, despite the fact our money keeps their lights on and their welfare checks coming in.
Like cpomp said, we'd do much more for ourselves if we put our efforts into strong connections with the rest of the Northeast Corridor. I've lived in and around Philadelphia for almost 9 years now, and I never thought of myself as a Pennsylvanian, but rather just a Philadelphian.
Rebranding Philadelphia into a more Pennsylvania centric mindset would 100% benefit both the city and the state, as there is an unfortunate lingering mentality that Philadelphia is still lost and burning by many in Harrisburg and other people throughout the state.
Even our metro area is called the Delaware Valley, (which was not coined until the 1960s) which just reinforces this lack of cohesion of branding and economics to empower both Philadelphia and Pennsylvania.
Before this, it was always. Greater Philadelphia. And there was definitely a pride by all to be from PA and therefore resources were aligned appropriately.
My question is. How can we bridge Philadelphia + Pittsburgh + Harrisburg.
3 strong performing metros. Which all (as with all of the state) think entirely independently of each other and therefore end up fighting each other, rather than working together.
Thoughts. Ideas. Insights.
The goal is to create a One Pennsylvania mindset that builds acknowledgment of opportunities, resources and value to start investing smarter statewide, which obviously includes a more positive connotation of Philadelphia and Southeast Pennsylvania.
As long as Donald Trump is POTUS, with his base of supporters being part of the reason PA flipped red in the presidential election in 2016 after it had been blue for about 30 years prior, this can't happen.
I always thought of Philadelphia as more a member of the Northeast Corridor then as a part of Pennsylvania. Lets face it, the rest of the state (minus Pittsburgh, State College, and a few others) is embarrassingly conservative and backward. There is good reason they call it Pennsyltucky. Just look at Daryl Metcalf as a prime example of how rural people in this state think. Those kinds of people are never going to like us, despite the fact our money keeps their lights on and their welfare checks coming in.
Like cpomp said, we'd do much more for ourselves if we put our efforts into strong connections with the rest of the Northeast Corridor. I've lived in and around Philadelphia for almost 9 years now, and I never thought of myself as a Pennsylvanian, but rather just a Philadelphian.
Correct. Agree with you 100%. There was an interesting, though satirical article, in one of the long ago alternative Philly papers saying that SE PA should secede from PA and become the 51st state. It would have meant keeping all the money we currently send to
Harrisburg. It would mean that we Philadelphians would keep all the history of founding the USA to us since we're the ones in PA who care about it. Someone else wrote about doing something similar: seceding PA and joining NJ.
Row..., I have nothing in common with anyone in Erie, Scranton, Johnstown, Altoona, etc. So why would I want to get "closer"?
I like Pittsburgh so I would not like saying, "goodbye" to it.
Unfortunately the urban/rural divide in this state is just too stark to ever overcome. I grew up in Luzerne County, which, despite housing over 300,000 inhabitants and two densely-populated small cities (Wilkes-Barre and Hazleton) functioned more as a rural county in terms of ideologies. There was constant shade thrown towards Philadelphia---often with racially-insensitive undercurrents. Part of the reason why Lou Barletta was/is so popular in that area is due to misguided hatred towards immigrants. Currently the county is seeing an influx of distribution centers/warehouses paying $10/hr.-$15/hr., and the locals are celebrating these as "high-paying jobs". Despite President Trump now being in office for almost his entire first term Luzerne County looks and feels worse every time I visit.
If Luzerne County, which is highly-populated, thinks/functions this way, then I can only presume most even smaller counties are even worse with their hatred towards urban areas and minorities.
I mean the divide is SUPER sharp in Western PA, too. Allegheny County? An oasis of progressive thinking surrounded by many counties of very deep supporters of people like President Trump, Darryl Metcalfe, Rick Santorum, etc. The city of Pittsburgh is only ~300,000 people surrounded by 2,000,000+ suburbanites, many of whom do NOT share our mayor's progressive vision towards eradicating our contributions to climate change; increasing our network of bike lanes and "complete streets"; enacting legislation that protects the civil liberties of oppressed minority groups like the LGBT community; etc. You can see this in the social media commentary of any city-related article posted by local news outlets. For every one person lauding a progressive initiative there are 10 others name-calling and hootin' and hollerin' with improper English like a bunch of buffoons.
Our state has extremely liberal cities and extremely conservative rural areas and exurbs. The suburbs tend to be moderate. I don't think we can unify as a "One Pennsylvania" unless our urbanites and rural-dwellers can find some common ground.
Unfortunately the urban/rural divide in this state is just too stark to ever overcome. I grew up in Luzerne County, which, despite housing over 300,000 inhabitants and two densely-populated small cities (Wilkes-Barre and Hazleton) functioned more as a rural county in terms of ideologies. There was constant shade thrown towards Philadelphia---often with racially-insensitive undercurrents. Part of the reason why Lou Barletta was/is so popular in that area is due to misguided hatred towards immigrants. Currently the county is seeing an influx of distribution centers/warehouses paying $10/hr.-$15/hr., and the locals are celebrating these as "high-paying jobs". Despite President Trump now being in office for almost his entire first term Luzerne County looks and feels worse every time I visit.
If Luzerne County, which is highly-populated, thinks/functions this way, then I can only presume most even smaller counties are even worse with their hatred towards urban areas and minorities.
I mean the divide is SUPER sharp in Western PA, too. Allegheny County? An oasis of progressive thinking surrounded by many counties of very deep supporters of people like President Trump, Darryl Metcalfe, Rick Santorum, etc. The city of Pittsburgh is only ~300,000 people surrounded by 2,000,000+ suburbanites, many of whom do NOT share our mayor's progressive vision towards eradicating our contributions to climate change; increasing our network of bike lanes and "complete streets"; enacting legislation that protects the civil liberties of oppressed minority groups like the LGBT community; etc. You can see this in the social media commentary of any city-related article posted by local news outlets. For every one person lauding a progressive initiative there are 10 others name-calling and hootin' and hollerin' with improper English like a bunch of buffoons.
Our state has extremely liberal cities and extremely conservative rural areas and exurbs. The suburbs tend to be moderate. I don't think we can unify as a "One Pennsylvania" unless our urbanites and rural-dwellers can find some common ground.
That is very common, I have heard it myself when I had to travel across the state for various reasons. They also (still) have this impression that Philadelphia is a ghetto void of opportunity and Montgomery County is filled wealthy elites who keep everything for themselves.
When in reality, the 5 county Philly region hands out more than it takes in and provides 1/3 of the states economy so rural PA can have paved roads and running water. And that doesn't even touch the whole social aspect which you mentioned.
And from a national standpoint, the Northeast corridor and California essentially keep the country afloat, same logic on a bigger scale, minus Texas which is pretty much independent.
Thank goodness Philadelphia is surrounded by generally liberal/moderate suburbs and areas like the Main Line with deep economic, social and culturally connections to Philadelphia and New York. Pittsburgh unfortunately does not have that.
Daryl Metcalfe is a disgrace to the human race, and whats a bigger disgrace is how anyone could support his radical ideologies and negative hateful remarks toward groups of people, most notable the LBGT community. Remember that whole embarrassing debacle when Rep. Matthew Bradford touched his arm and Darrel said he doesn't like men, and hes still in office.....
And not to say there aren't conservative strongholds around Philadelphia (you can find that anywhere), but the general logic and thought process is extremely different and much more "big city" than anywhere else in PA, minus Allegheny County.
It does seem that the more liberal/moderate views of Philadelphia are inching westward toward Lancaster and the Lehigh Valley, but after those counties, its a hard stopping point, and that will not change.
As kyb01 mentioned, there have been articles in the past suggesting the Philadelphia area should succeed from PA, mostly satirical, but there is some validity in that claim. I would be all for it, and I know many people in my hometown of Media, PA would be all for it too.
Unfortunately the urban/rural divide in this state is just too stark to ever overcome. I grew up in Luzerne County, which, despite housing over 300,000 inhabitants and two densely-populated small cities (Wilkes-Barre and Hazleton) functioned more as a rural county in terms of ideologies. There was constant shade thrown towards Philadelphia---often with racially-insensitive undercurrents. Part of the reason why Lou Barletta was/is so popular in that area is due to misguided hatred towards immigrants. Currently the county is seeing an influx of distribution centers/warehouses paying $10/hr.-$15/hr., and the locals are celebrating these as "high-paying jobs". Despite President Trump now being in office for almost his entire first term Luzerne County looks and feels worse every time I visit.
If Luzerne County, which is highly-populated, thinks/functions this way, then I can only presume most even smaller counties are even worse with their hatred towards urban areas and minorities.
I mean the divide is SUPER sharp in Western PA, too. Allegheny County? An oasis of progressive thinking surrounded by many counties of very deep supporters of people like President Trump, Darryl Metcalfe, Rick Santorum, etc. The city of Pittsburgh is only ~300,000 people surrounded by 2,000,000+ suburbanites, many of whom do NOT share our mayor's progressive vision towards eradicating our contributions to climate change; increasing our network of bike lanes and "complete streets"; enacting legislation that protects the civil liberties of oppressed minority groups like the LGBT community; etc. You can see this in the social media commentary of any city-related article posted by local news outlets. For every one person lauding a progressive initiative there are 10 others name-calling and hootin' and hollerin' with improper English like a bunch of buffoons.
Our state has extremely liberal cities and extremely conservative rural areas and exurbs. The suburbs tend to be moderate. I don't think we can unify as a "One Pennsylvania" unless our urbanites and rural-dwellers can find some common ground.
The irony wrt guys like Barletta is that he's an Italian-American whose family were immigrants to this country from sh@thole towns in Italy without papers( the negative description of those people is WOP( without papers)) more than likely.
But now he wants to limit people who want to come without papers.
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