Is anyone thinking of leaving/moving out of the city? Why? (Philadelphia: renting, house)

[selhars]

This is not to bash the city.
Given that there could be any number of reasons, I really just would like to learn from the reasoning of people who are thinking about leaving the city.

Some reasons might have nothing to do with the city per se, such as grad school elsewhere, career advancement, job transfer, back to home town, to be closer to relatives, move to take care of elderly parents, etc.

As for me, sure, I think (dream?) about leaving, but realistically for financial reasons I don't see it happening ever. I'm a native Philadelphian, have a paid off house here, most family/friends here, and am nearing retirement, so I doubt I'll ever leave. I was away for a job for 21 years, and moved back. To be honest I do sort of feel trapped. If the paid off house weren't here, I don't think I'd have moved back to the city proper. Maybe a suburb, but not the city. Anyway....

I'm just curious about why others are thinking about/planning/pondering moving....and to where.

Thanks

[Pennsport]

Well, a lot has to do with individual situations, but personally, I'm feeling completely opposite of where you are at the moment. I personally can't imagine living in a bland suburb (I've done that and it is definitely not my speed). I'm actually waiting for the market to slow a bit so I can buy more properties in the city.

The only areas my wife and I would consider other than an east coast city would be ocean-front outside of the hurricane belt (which we are seriously considering in the coming years). Otherwise, I'll take the city over the burbs any day.

What exactly were you thinking would be your ideal situation selhars?

[briantroutman]

As a counterpoint to your situation: I don’t own a home and have no family in Philadelphia. And I’m self-employed and could relocate wherever I wanted at any time. So I’d say I’m practically the opposite of “trapped”. Yet I have no desire to leave. I moved to Center City last year from Media and remain very happy here.

[thedirtypirate]

I don’t have any interest in leaving. I love it.

[FamousBlueRaincoat]

We left Philadelphia about a year ago - after living there for 9 years. We moved to a small city in the Midwest (really a small town compared to Philadelphia's size - but a city compared to the size of the town I grew up in).

We left for a bunch of reasons. We found the Philadelphia big city experience underwhelming compared to the last big city we had lived in (Minneapolis - my wife being a St. Paul native) - especially in the walkability, transit, commute area. More than that we just aren't interested in the trajectory American big cities are taking right now and were interested in a smaller community.

There were also financial considerations. I'm sure you make a ton of money in the professional class type jobs in Philadelphia - with plenty of opportunities that don't exist in smaller towns. For blue collar work though, Philadelphia wages don't match the cost of living. We make the same amount of money where we are now as we did in Philadelphia and cost of living is a fraction of the cost. Currently renting a house, about to buy, in nice, quiet, tree-lined, traditionally built neighborhood, minutes from where we work (my wife is able to walk to work, even). Hundreds of dollars per month less than we used to spend to live in an attic in Mt. Airy (which we were even getting a good deal for and was pretty nice).

Like I always said when I lived there, Philadelphia is an interesting city with a lot of problems. Looking forward to visiting again one day.

[PHL10]

Originally Posted by FamousBlueRaincoat

...the Philadelphia big city experience underwhelming compared to the last big city we had lived in (Minneapolis - my wife being a St. Paul native) - especially in the walkability, transit, commute area.

To each his/her own but I would have to think this is more about perception than fact. It's totally fair to prefer Minneapolis but I'm not sure you can realistically say it has better transit/walkability.

[Duderino]

Originally Posted by PHL10

To each his/her own but I would have to think this is more about perception than fact. It's totally fair to prefer Minneapolis but I'm not sure you can realistically say it has better transit/walkability.

My thought, too--Minneapolis seems like a great mid-sized city with a lot to offer (and from which I'm sure Philly could take a few notes), but it's clearly at least a tier below Philadelphia on both walkability and transit.

Philly's walk-score (79) and transit-score (67) are notable higher than Minneapolis (70 and 57, respectively). That's also considering Philly's much, much larger scale:

https://www.walkscore.com/

[Fireshaker]

My wife and I have owned a home in eastern Point Breeze for four and a half years now, and as much as we like city living, we will move out to the suburbs at some point within the next couple of years.

There are several reasons for this:

The commute. My wife is a teacher in Radnor, and her travel to work is absolutely hellish. It takes her over an hour and a quarter each way, and it's not something she can physically keep up long term. And while my commute is easy for now, my job will be moving to Newtown Square next year, so we're both going to be looking at hour-plus commutes. That's just not doable.

Safety: Not that we've encountered many issues, even in PB, but my wife works many insanely long days and often comes home late at night from rehearsals, concerts, etc. She has to struggle to park (which is a whole separate issue), and then try to lug bags and instruments from the car to the house. She's not comfortable doing that alone (obviously), so I have to help her do it. It's a much more stressful ordeal than if we had our own dedicated space in another area.

Space: Speaking of space, our house is very small (we literally don't even functioning closets), so if we want to grow our family, we'll need a house that can support it. And we aren't able to spend the kind of money we'd need to spend to get a bigger house in the core.

Trash: This city is disgusting. Our neighborhood is littered with garbage 24/7, and no matter how hard we try to clean it up and keep our property clean, it just accumulates. There is no will from either the city or the other residents to address this problem, and it's frankly embarrassing anytime we have guests over. Like, people will even throw trash and animal feces in the flowerpots outside our house.

I get the suburbs aren't perfect and they have their own issues, and I understand and respect those who can stay within the city long-term. There are definitely things I will miss, but our needs will require us to live elsewhere at some point.

[Redddog]

I hear you about the commute. My job just relocated from Rittenhouse Sq to Conshy - it's the stuff nightmares are made of.

It would take a LOT more than that to get me to leave the city.

[PhilliesPhan2013]

I have no plans to leave Philly. I love the direction in which this city is heading. Growing up here in the 2000s, this city has gone through a tremendous amount of change in a relatively short period of time. The only complaint I have pertains to the number of jobs in my field (finance) that exist outside of the city, but I've managed to find a very good job in Center City.

At this point, the only thing that would compel me to leave this city is my girlfriend. We're both young (I'm 24 and she's 23), but I know that we'll be together for the foreseeable future. Part of being with her, is accepting the fact that she'll want to attend grad school at some point. The program that she wants to participate in is super specific, and none of the Philly area universities have what she's looking for.

Even if we do leave Philly, we'll still stick to city living! Both of us agreed that we refuse to live in the suburbs, even when kids (I think it's too soon for us to consider that, but it's still something nestled in the back of my mind) become part of the equation.