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The old big cities should have done more annexations, which for them pretty much ended 100 years ago. Leadership, as usual, was short-sighted as cities in the east/midwest dominated at least until the Depression, the interstate highway system, and the rise of the Sunbelt to name a couple reasons.
Many of the Sunbelt cities and some smaller midwest cities were smart to annex lots of land to capture future growth coming their way.
This is a city population discussion so the posters here taking it to a discussion of metro size etc are only derailing the topic. Metro Phoenix went from about 1,000,000 in 1970 to about 5,000,000 today, so it's not just Phoenix capturing all the growth.
Philly has to attract population within the boundaries it created. It has to clean-up its act locally and get employers to relocate and get its current businesses to expand. Philly has the highest poverty rate among the top 10 cities so it has its work cut out for it and a high homicide body count. Isn't Philly heading for its all time high homicide count in 2021 after just missing that by like 1 homicide last year. Not a good sign at all.
Again, post-Covid cities will be interesting to watch.
Wasn't meant to contradict your point, only expand it some.
Why did you feel the need to make a new account? Why not say this on your regular account? Highest poverty rate and highest homicide rate, and yet we've seen the biggest population gain since the 50's. Apparently thats not stopping who can afford to live in neighborhoods that experience very little if any of the "issues" you bought up.
This section has been a magnet for trolls/haters lately, and it's probably the same person. Philadelphia lives rent free in your head.
The old big cities should have done more annexations, which for them pretty much ended 100 years ago. Leadership, as usual, was short-sighted as cities in the east/midwest dominated at least until the Depression, the interstate highway system, and the rise of the Sunbelt to name a couple reasons.
Many of the Sunbelt cities and some smaller midwest cities were smart to annex lots of land to capture future growth coming their way.
This is a city population discussion so the posters here taking it to a discussion of metro size etc are only derailing the topic. Metro Phoenix went from about 1,000,000 in 1970 to about 5,000,000 today, so it's not just Phoenix capturing all the growth.
Philly has to attract population within the boundaries it created. It has to clean-up its act locally and get employers to relocate and get its current businesses to expand. Philly has the highest poverty rate among the top 10 cities so it has its work cut out for it and a high homicide body count. Isn't Philly heading for its all time high homicide count in 2021 after just missing that by like 1 homicide last year. Not a good sign at all.
Again, post-Covid cities will be interesting to watch.
Do you think larger city limits would have really benefited Philadelphia? I can imagine that it would have changed which suburbs became most affluent, etc., but I don't think it would have prevented all of the disinvestment we saw in the mid-to-late 20th century.
Yes, Phoenix, even the metro, is growing faster than Philadelphia. But its metro -- obviously a much better measure of size for all of the reasons previously discussed -- still has a long way to go to catch up to us. It is hard for me to imagine with all of the climate challenges they are enduring out West, that this unfettered growth will sustain. We shall see.
Yes, we absolutely need to address both poverty and violent crime here in Philadelphia. But, the solution is much more complex and multi-layered than people would like to acknowledge, no less act upon. Obviously Philadelphia is not the only big city struggling with violent crime, and many cities, from Chicago to NYC, are seeing a major increase. I really hope our leaders have the courage to address the problem in a multi-faceted way, and make it a top priority to drastically reduce crime and usher in jobs that pay a living wage to our existing residents in the next decade. I completely agree that lasting solutions would elevate Philadelphia.
Why did you feel the need to make a new account? Why not say this on your regular account? Highest poverty rate and highest homicide rate, and yet we've seen the biggest population gain since the 50's. Apparently thats not stopping who can afford to live in neighborhoods that experience very little if any of the "issues" you bought up.
This section has been a magnet for trolls/haters lately, and it's probably the same person. Philadelphia lives rent free in your head.
Don't know what you're getting at here; I found this thread by way of the census and really like Philly.
Imagine what Philly could be if, in fact, it grew a pair and addressed the gun violence and poverty issues instead of doling out $$ to disguised as political paybacks to the garden variety of community groups that exist there (and in many of these types of cities).
Btw, this is Philly's greatest population gain since the '40s, not the '50s...the 1950s began Philly
's population decline. You may want to get your facts straight instead of some instant emotional response; then again, we live in the age of emotion over fact, which always ends badly.
Is the line about people who can afford to avoid the ''issues'' mentioned supposed to be some ground breaking theory? Thanks for the Sociology 101 lesson but who doesn't know this by age, oh, 10?
It's black males killing black males in black neighborhoods...with the now occasional incidents, for example, by airbnb renters wildly spraying gunfire in areas people can afford to live in like 13th/Pine-Lombard on a WSunday night at 11pm...or dude having ''mental health crisis'' also known as meth freaks driving onto Center City sidewalks running down a 32 yo women walking home from work at 2am (then turns around and kind of grinds her with stolen car).
So, it should be an interesting analysis post-Covid (whenever that actually starts) and post-Census how are legacy big cities going forward.
Before anyone gets triggered, as usual in this Age of Emotion over Fact, the City of Philly has targeted black males 16-34 yo for these ''violence interrupters'' community groups. Isn't Philly pouring up to $150 million to these ''stop violence'' community groups? Is Philly really a city geared for progressive experiments?
Just under 80,000 population growth is good and Philly has held onto #6 top 10 cities. Philly needs to step it up in the age of remote work.
Do you think larger city limits would have really benefited Philadelphia? I can imagine that it would have changed which suburbs became most affluent, etc., but I don't think it would have prevented all of the disinvestment we saw in the mid-to-late 20th century.
Yes, Phoenix, even the metro, is growing faster than Philadelphia. But its metro -- obviously a much better measure of size for all of the reasons previously discussed -- still has a long way to go to catch up to us. It is hard for me to imagine with all of the climate challenges they are enduring out West, that this unfettered growth will sustain. We shall see.
Yes, we absolutely need to address both poverty and violent crime here in Philadelphia. But, the solution is much more complex and multi-layered than people would like to acknowledge, no less act upon. Obviously Philadelphia is not the only big city struggling with violent crime, and many cities, from Chicago to NYC, are seeing a major increase. I really hope our leaders have the courage to address the problem in a multi-faceted way, and make it a top priority to drastically reduce crime and usher in jobs that pay a living wage to our existing residents in the next decade. I completely agree that lasting solutions would elevate Philadelphia.
I was only commenting on the posters taking offense (as usual) that cities like Phoenix cheated or it's unfair...blah blah blah.
This is supposed to be a discussion of city population, not metro size etc. Seems that people forgot or most likely didn't know that many legacy big cities were annexing adjacent towns and land for growth up to about 100 years ago, followed by the new big cities with Phoenix being the poster-city for this today. Columbus OH annexed adjacent communities in part by threatening to disconnect Columbus utility services.
Current leadership doesn't have the courage to address Philly's social woes, otherwise they would. Job creation is crucial; but what kind of jobs is Philly's embedded underclass qualified to do for this ''living wage''?
Radian is moving out of Center City to vastly smaller space out near K of P due to the success of remote working and although residential construction is currently good, the only new commercial building going up east of the Schuykill is the small building at 22/Market for a single tenant law firm; the fact that this is the only class A commercial building going up in Center City the past 30 years is astounding (the Comcast buildings, while huge complexes, were built and are Comcast properties). I'm talking about developers building and owning commercial buildings for rent to single or multiple-nixed tenants.
Climate change may have an effect on a place Phoenix, or not. What will have an effect on everyone, including the already decimated working class, is AI. AI is real and is going to cut deep into the middle class.
Philly needs to add 180,000 this decade and get growth rates on par with NY and DC, two cities that were dead or death spirals less than a few decades ago. Philly can do it, if it really wants to.
I mentioned the potential Philly could have it addressed its homicide and poverty issues and am called out for being a troll, hater...the usual responses from the fragile class in the Age of Emotion.
Btw, this is Philly's greatest population gain since the '40s, not the '50s. So you may want to get your facts straight instead of some instant emotional response; then again, we live in the age of emotion over fact, which always ends badly.
Take it easy tiger. The 1950 census allows us to determine the growth since the previous census. So the 1950 census count measured that growth but sure, that growth took place during the 1940s but that's just semantics. I think we all know what Muinteoir meant.
Radian is moving out of Center City to vastly smaller space out near K of P due to the success of remote working and although residential construction is currently good, the only new commercial building going up east of the Schuykill is the small building at 22/Market for a single tenant law firm; the fact that this is the only class A commercial building going up in Center City the past 30 years is astounding (the Comcast buildings, while huge complexes, were built and are Comcast properties). I'm talking about developers building and owning commercial buildings for rent to single or multiple-nixed tenants.
Well, it was one of those "lucky accidents" that Center City never overbuilt its office market. Yes, it largely missed out on the office jobs boom that benefitted other cities during the 2000s and 2010s, but given remote work trends, which were always going to intensify long-term--pandemic or no pandemic--Philly has actually made itself more much more economically resilient relative to commercial real estate.
It has one of the most thoroughly mixed-use downtowns in the US, which is a critical component of vibrancy and stability. With its still overwhelmingly affordable urban real estate (for a large, East Coast city), walkability, robust public transit, and cultural vibrancy, it is primed to attract urban-minded remote workers and tons more opportunities for adaptive re-use flex office space.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MPK21
Climate change may have an effect on a place Phoenix, or not. What will have an effect on everyone, including the already decimated working class, is AI. AI is real and is going to cut deep into the middle class.
Climate change is a far more pressing issue at the moment than AI. Frankly, I'm skeptical that AI will ever be able to replicate the intricacies of the human mind, but that's a whole other thread topic.
What's going on climatologically not just in the American West right now, but also across the globe, is very concerning, and it will have dramatic impacts on livability for substantial parts of the world. At the moment, aside from the obvious heat waves, Philadelphia seems to be on the lesser-impacted side. Let's all hope its stays that way.
Before anyone gets triggered, as usual in this Age of Emotion over Fact, the City of Philly has targeted black males 16-34 yo for these ''violence interrupters'' community groups. Isn't Philly pouring up to $150 million to these ''stop violence'' community groups? Is Philly really a city geared for progressive experiments?
If this ProPublica feature is to be believed, those "progressive experiments" that sought to divert young men from activities that could lead to violence and defuse tense situations that might have done the same actually were making a difference in the violent crime rate along with smart policing and other strategies.
As Muinteoir said, the solutions to the problem, like the problem itself, are more complex and multifaceted than most people believe they are. Those "prevention" groups play a role too, just as preventive medicine and diet help keep us from getting sick.
Take it easy tiger. The 1950 census allows us to determine the growth since the previous census. So the 1950 census count measured that growth but sure, that growth took place during the 1940s but that's just semantics. I think we all know what Muinteoir meant.
Maybe learn how to follow the posts, Tiger. Muinteoir didn't state factual errors, didn't have anything to do with this misplaced point you're feebly trying to rationalize away.
How is it semantics when someone says Philly has seen this much population growth since the '50s? Sorry, but that's incorrect. The poster meant the '50s, so not sure how its semantics when it's plain old wrong.
If someone meant the '40s, he/she/they would have stated so.
Just another example of how people weasel their way out of and can't accept being wrong. Yet another example of The Age of Emotion; no one can ever be wrong when he/she/they makes an incorrect statement. ..cue the crying, anxiety, depression, or the famous mushroom cloud reactions....or any other assorted ''head issues'' people manipulate to not be responsible..lol.
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Highest poverty rate and highest homicide rate, and yet we've seen the biggest population gain since the 50's. Apparently thats not stopping who can afford to live in neighborhoods that experience very little if any of the "issues" you bought up. 
