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And my perspective is apparently skewed because "not all of Brooklyn looks like Williamsburg," yet the prime examples of Philly urbanity that people literally CLING to in nearly every thread are the same gentrified areas that are not representative of the rest of the 128 sq. miles of the city. I'm not even going to play the Google maps game tonight.
I've thrown in several not-gentrified neighborhoods in this tangent.
Wanna do the Germantown/Mt. Airy walking tour I put together in the current issue of PhillyMag? (We have a feature aimed at locals on experiencing the city like a tourist.)
Nobody wants to come out and say it, but they are talking about trendy neighborhoods--or neighborhoods that are at least trending that direction even if they have a working-class element--that draw lots of foot traffic and have bars/restaurants more appealing to upper middle class people. I don't hear people going on about the wonders of Nicetown.
I think it's a matter of both scale (size) and intensity. If you're talking about how Philly stacks up against NYC--or the parts that transplants of NYC transplants are migrating from--Philadelphia can give you a somewhat similar experience for about 1 square mile. It arguably mimics NYC better than any other city, but we're talking a very small area here. Anyone walking out of Center City will instantly notice that the buildings are shorter and there's far less pedestrian traffic. It's almost 98% SFH rowhousing with fewer commercial corridors.
Just from an urbanity standpoint, the experience is closer to Baltimore than it is to Brooklyn.
Fewer healthy commercial corridors, yes, but proportionally speaking, there probably are about as many here as in NYC (North 22d Street, 52d Street, most of the length of Germantown Avenue, Frankford and Kensington avenues, Castor Avenue, Cottman Avenue between Roosevelt Boulevard and Castor Avenue, North Fifth Street, Torresdale Avenue in Tacony, 60th Street, Ridge Avenue, Oregon Avenue, Washington Avenue, and the more suburban big-box strips like South Columbus Boulevard, Aramingo Avenue, and Grant Avenue in the Far Northeast, and I've still left several off).
The percentages are off, but the sentence I bolded and the one following are accurate: Rowhouses make up a higher percentage of Philadelphia's housing stock (about 60 to 65) than they do any other US city, with Baltimore a close second. They are the reason this city has long had a higher level of homeownership than most US cities — and homeowners in their own single-family homes tend to be homebodies more as well.
But when you get to that, that's also one reason Brooklyn IMO makes a better fit for comparison to Philadelphia than the Bronx does: The latter borough is dominated by mid-rise walk-up (or elevator) apartment buildings, a house type in short supply in Philadelphia. OTOH, as Duderino posted above, you can find lots of rowhouse neighborhoods in Brooklyn that would not look out of place in Philadelphia.
The average rent in the Bronx is about half what it is in Brooklyn. The point is that if you're a true starving artist, you're more likely to be in Riverdale than in Williamsburg.
Historically, actual artists in NYC have lived in some incredibly hard-hit neighborhoods. It's not like they were moving into lofts with Thai restaurants and farmers markets around every corner. The way some people view the Bronx now is the way some people viewed the LES/Bowery as recently as the 90s/00s.
My recollection is that Riverdale is the upscale part of the Bronx, with lots of high-rise apartment towers set amidst trees.
Sure that's where the starving artists are going to live?
And when you say that a Brooklynite will be "sorely disappointed" by the QOL, level of amenities, and so on in Philadelphia, you are indeed selling the latter city short.
You left out a key part of what I said. I said that you will be sorely disappointed if you are expecting it to be "Brooklyn at Philadelphia prices." In other words, you are paying less, but you are also giving up a lot in terms of transit access and street vibrancy, which I suspect many New Yorkers actually care about (which is why they chose to live in New York in the first place). There's a big tradeoff here.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MarketStEl
The extra people will make a difference in how one experiences the place, but they won't make the difference between joy and despair.
You're changing the topic from "Brooklyn at Philadelphia prices" to "Yeah, but all that extra street vibrancy won't necessarily make you happy"?
Quote:
Originally Posted by MarketStEl
As a whole, New York is the outlier among large US cities, but the true outlier is Manhattan. The other four boroughs differ from other large US cities more in degree than in kind (though local cultures will differ dramatically).
What, in your mind, is the difference between a difference in degree and a difference in kind as far as cities are concerned?
Getting back to the topic, will the Bronx surpass Philadelphia in "coolness" within the next 20 years?
I suspect a lot of the pushback here--and the willingness to align with Brooklyn rather than the Bronx--is because Brooklyn is seen as trendy, fashionable and cool (a relatively recent perception) whereas the Bronx is seen as impoverished, maligned, and "not cool," and since Philly is trying to fight off the "not cool" reputation itself, the comparison to the Bronx seems to bristle some people. That's NOT the company they want to keep.
If anything is being undersold here, it's the Bronx. Saying that comparing the Bronx to Philly is like comparing Philly to Staten Island demonstrates a willful ignorance of the Bronx.
You left out a key part of what I said. I said that you will be sorely disappointed if you are expecting it to be "Brooklyn at Philadelphia prices." In other words, you are paying less, but you are also giving up a lot in terms of transit access and street vibrancy, which I suspect many New Yorkers actually care about (which is why they chose to live in New York in the first place). There's a big tradeoff here.
You're changing the topic from "Brooklyn at Philadelphia prices" to "Yeah, but all that extra street vibrancy won't necessarily make you happy"?
What, in your mind, is the difference between a difference in degree and a difference in kind as far as cities are concerned?
BTW, my original phrase was "they were paying New York prices for the Philadelphia experience," not "they were seeking Brooklyn at Philadelphia prices."
That said, despite the obvious differences in scale and intensity, and the obvious differences in the way people relate to their respective places (I often tell people that Philadelphia is "a small town masquerading as a big city" because of the everyone-knows-everyone-else nature of so many of its social, business and professional circles (a fact I had driven home once again at the Pen & Pencil Club last night) — a phrase I would never use to describe Brooklyn), I'd still maintain that the vibes of Philadelphia are more like those of Brooklyn than they are like those of any other NYC borough, and vice versa (the vibes of Brooklyn are more like those of Philadelphia than they are of any other large city in the Northeast), and it seems to me that the Brooklynites who have moved here feel similarly.
A difference of degree is, say, that between an urban commercial district in a walkable neighborhood where foot traffic is something like 100 persons per hour past a given point in it and one where that traffic is 1,000 persons per hour past a given point in it.
A difference of kind would be between a walkable commercial district in an unwalkable suburb (e.g., Chestnut Hill, Ardmore, Belmont or Scarsdale) and a walkable commercial district in a walkable neighborhood (e.g., Bed-Stuy, East Passyunk, Harvard Square, or Adams Morgan).
A difference of degree is, say, that between an urban commercial district in a walkable neighborhood where foot traffic is something like 100 persons per hour past a given point in it and one where that traffic is 1,000 persons per hour past a given point in it.
A difference of kind would be between a walkable commercial district in an unwalkable suburb (e.g., Chestnut Hill, Ardmore, Belmont or Scarsdale) and a walkable commercial district in a walkable neighborhood (e.g., Bed-Stuy, East Passyunk, Harvard Square, or Adams Morgan).
Sure, so then why would Manhattan be different in kind from other cities as opposed to being different in degree?
I'd still maintain that the vibes of Philadelphia are more like those of Brooklyn than they are like those of any other NYC borough, and vice versa (the vibes of Brooklyn are more like those of Philadelphia than they are of any other large city in the Northeast), and it seems to me that the Brooklynites who have moved here feel similarly.
And by "vibes," you mean upper middle class, college-educated people walking to yoga and brunch?
Isn't that how you're defining Brooklyn? I don't think anyone here made that assertion.
Where did you get that idea from? I am asking him whether "Brooklyn vibes" means upper middle-class, college-educated people since these are the people moving from Brooklyn to Philadelphia after all (at least the type he's likely encountering).
Quote:
Originally Posted by Duderino
Brooklyn is much more socioeconomically diverse than the caricature you're painting, just as Philadelphia.
Thank you so much, Duderino, for teaching me so much about the place I have called home for a decade plus, and also for teaching me so much about the city I grew up in.
Could you also teach me about being Black in America?
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