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-"What is the Draw to Come to Philadelphia?"- As someone from the Northeast, not a whole lot. It's a surprisingly LARGE city, I'll give it that but compared to other cities in the vicinity it has history, sightseeing, a walkable bar scene (South Street), and OK food. Apparently the suburbs are pretty nice and somewhat more affordable than a lot of NJ.
No offense pal but this is the kind of hollow ,backseat critiquing that makes my head explode. Lot of inaccuracies.
Philadelphia doesn't have the worst perception problem.
It gets overshadowed by New York and has some abnormally rough areas inside the city and in its satellite cities (North Philly, Camden, Chester) etc. That being said its history is extremely rich, a multitude of leafy, affluent suburbs and big city amenities.
In the real world (not this forum) Detroit, Cleveland, Baltimore etc. definitely have worse perceptions deserved or not.
Let's turn the table and ask about cities where there's super positive perception.
Outside of niche urbanist circles, I think the point is that American society overall just doesn't value truly dense urban centers with an authentic urban lifestyle (I'm not talking about the disney-fied neighborhoods or cities that are actually only notable for scenery but have a relatively lackluster or unremarkable urban fabric).
So, again, it comes as no surprise that Philly might not be the cup of tea among many Americans. True urbanists, however, find the city to be a gem, especially in an American context.
Kool, I think our families represent some of the same neighborhoods. I lived on N 55th between Thompson and Master, through high school and had family in the surrounding neighborhoods including Overbrook, Overbrook Park.
Yes, I had family members who lived in Overbrook for decades. Part of that family is in another part of W. Philly today and my sister lives there as well.
I see that the old south has raised it's ugly head .
CD, for all intents and purposes, is Storm-Front lite; the racism just oozes off the tongue. It's most apparent in the P&OC forum, but shades of it pop up here too, even with these so-called Progressives.
CD, for all intents and purposes, is Storm-Front lite; the racism just oozes off the tongue. It's most apparent in the P&OC forum, but shades of it pop up here too, even with these so-called Progressives.
Pulling the racist card is only a small part in perceptions. Atlanta has a huge % as African-Americans. It gests FAR LESS negative stigmas. Its worst on C-D is in its sprawl.
levels of visible blight to or in areas visitors see and if streets are not as debris-free as one would prefer? Are what maintains stigmas despite what group lives in a city today. A city that appears cleaner or blight hid better or removed more? That ends these two MAIN perceptions soonest. So these are what a city needs to do better in as gentrification renews it.
I've seen it FAR WORSE in the late 70's to early 80's., with slight improvement in the early 90's but not by much... By 2002 when I returned from the west coast for a year I saw quite some changes, and even a much bigger change now. In another decade it'll be fine for the most part as long as the plans they have stay on course.
This short 2011 video illustrates how Philly progressed from its nadir in the late 80s/early 90s:
I feel like Philly has the biggest confidence problem.
I think to some extent that's true, but I think that stems from what is clearly a lot of ignorance about the place and not getting a fair shake, to a large degree.
Since there's a dearth of actual data on this thread, I thought this poll from 2014 was interesting. Perception seems to be very heavily tied to safety/crime, so this is some hard evidence that perception issues aren't particularly acute for Philly compared to several large cities:
In addition, this 2012 "big city" favorability survey shows Philly in the "middle of the pack," with only 22% negative perception--very much in line with most other large cities.
Quote:
The Pacific Northwest has a good reputation nationwide--the two most
popular of the 21 prominent cities we asked about in our national poll last weekend are
Seattle and Portland, OR. 57% of American voters see Seattle favorably and only 14%
unfavorably, edging out Portland (52-12) by three points on the margin. The most unpopular is Detroit, which only 22% see positively and 49% negatively.
Americans have net-negative impressions of only two other of these cities: Oakland, CA
(21-39) and Los Angeles (33-40).
Between the pack are Boston (52-17), Atlanta (51-19), Phoenix (49-18), Dallas (48-21),
New York (49-23), New Orleans (47-24), Houston (45-22), Salt Lake City (43-20),
Philadelphia (42-22), San Francisco (48-29), Baltimore (37-24), Las Vegas (43-33),
Chicago (42-33), Cleveland (32-25), Washington, D.C. (44-39), and Miami (36-33).
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