Is anyone thinking of leaving/moving out of the city? Why? (Philadelphia: crimes, hotel)
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To the people who love the walkability of Philly, are you just talking about Center City? or any neighborhood that has certain amenities? In Center City or not....(And of course there's the separate discussion of what the boundaries of CC are.)
I ask because people who talk about walkability and proximity to things act like everything they're talking about is at a walkable distance (which of course various as to what is walkable for one person, another would think is too far).
If you live in certain parts of Philadelphia, yes, a grocery store is in walking distance. And yes, if you live in some parts of the city a pharmacy is in walking distance. But I don't know that even every neighborhood "river to river and Washington to Vine" has those things.
I'd choose Ardmore over Center City any day of the week. Clearly those of you you love living in town would not.
Sure, lots of people in the city walk to where they want to go. But a whole lot take an Uber/Lyft also. They may not OWN the car. But that doesn't mean they don't hire/rent/use one, even if it's just to get around in the city. So I don't know how convincing their "walkability" position is, if they Uber/Lyft everywhere they go.
Also, for me proximity can also be about time/convenience to run the errand. If a person in the suburbs and can drive to a CVS faster than a person who lives in the city could walk to a drug store or take Uber/Lyft to one .....then what does it matter about proximity.
For me, it was the walkability of the downtown area. Not just the convince of shopping, but also the activity, people watching etc. Then again in my old age I use walking as my main source of exercise. I could walk miles. When I lived at 12th and Locust on a nice fall, spring or summer night I would walk from the sports complexes all the way home. Loved that Broad Street walk.
Walking in the burbs is boring as hell, and even in a small town you see everything there is to see in a matter of minutes.
Even now on occasion I drive into the city, park at Front and Washington and walk into CC and back.
I feel like if you have to be convinced of the reasons to live in the city, you shouldn't live in the city. You have to value the things that you are exposed to. If not, it's hard to justify.
I can handle if there might be a piece of trash on my stoop. It doesn't really bother me. If it bothers you, you are gonna have an issue.
I find it amazing that I can walk around an historic city, as beautiful as any, for hours with my wife and stop at one of 100 cool places to grab a beer. Then head home, sip a glass of wine on the roof while staring at the Ben Franklin or Christ Church while the sun goes down before we meet friends for dinner at one of 20 reastaurants that may be on the best in the US list.
To me, it makes the other challenges - if you can call them that - of living in an urban setting worth it. If those things mean nothing to you, then the city isn't a good deal. For what you pay, the burbs are a much better deal.
I feel like if you have to be convinced of the reasons to live in the city, you shouldn't live in the city. You have to value the things that you are exposed to. If not, it's hard to justify.
I can handle if there might be a piece of trash on my stoop. It doesn't really bother me. If it bothers you, you are gonna have an issue.
I find it amazing that I can walk around an historic city, as beautiful as any, for hours with my wife and stop at one of 100 cool places to grab a beer. Then head home, sip a glass of wine on the roof while staring at the Ben Franklin or Christ Church while the sun goes down before we meet friends for dinner at one of 20 reastaurants that may be on the best in the US list.
To me, it makes the other challenges - if you can call them that - of living in an urban setting worth it. If those things mean nothing to you, then the city isn't a good deal. For what you pay, the burbs are a much better deal.
When Covid wasn't a thing I would take the Acela to Philadelphia maybe once a month, wander around Center City for a few hours, stop for a drink or snack, meet my friends for dinner and drinks and walk back to the train. Always so much fun and never gets old.
In New York, on a nice day I could walk around the entire day and stop at random places to eat and drink. The only think missing in Center City is Saks or Bloomingdales, I always end up at those when I take my New York walks.
The walk-able centers in the burbs are cute, but no comparison to the city in terms of things to do, food/drink, culture, experiencing different ideas and people, dressing nice, etc. But I respect it's not for everyone. My mom likes visiting the city but would never live there, my dad would move to CC in a minute, so they compromised on a new townhome right off downtown Media. (they used to be in the full burbs in Upper Providence).
The garbage and poop does bother me though, but I have a lot of pet peeves
I find it amazing I can live in a safe, fairly clean, graffiti-free neighborhood, free of homeless hanging around, where I can walk to at least five bars, a Wawa, a post office, a small market, two good pizza shops and a drug store, while not dealing with foot traffic.
I also find it amazing we can get in one of our vehicles and take a stress-free drive to Main Street Moorestown in under fifteen minutes, where we can have a good meal in a nice place without having to deal with traffic, rowdies and undesirables.
I also find it amazing that we can get in one of our vehicles and be Downtown in under fifteen minutes to enjoy the Reading Terminal Market, Old City, Chinatown and everything else Center City has to offer.
We love our vehicles AND we love Center City.
I bought a used car for $1800, usually put $20 worth of gas in it a week and my insurance is $44 a month. Yes, there has been repairs, but it's well worth the convenience, comfort and most importantly the FREEDOM it gives me to move about the city, Bucks County and South Jersey.
Plus, I don't have to deal with public transportation and the sh*tshow that's sometime drawn to it. Yes, with all the idiots on the road, you're at risk every time you get behind the wheel, but I'll take my chances.
I could go on, but nobody gives a crap ... When the times right, we're heading for Clearwater, FLA because as I age, I'm getting less and less tolerant of the nonsense you have to deal with in the city and the people running the city.
Or we just might wind up in Maple Shade, NJ or North Wildwood. Or, if the neighborhood holds and we can tolerate our neighbors, we may just stay here and live CHEAP!
I find it amazing I can live in a safe, fairly clean, graffiti-free neighborhood, free of homeless hanging around, where I can walk to at least five bars, a Wawa, a post office, a small market, two good pizza shops and a drug store, while not dealing with foot traffic.
I also find it amazing we can get in one of our vehicles and take a stress-free drive to Main Street Moorestown in under fifteen minutes, where we can have a good meal in a nice place without having to deal with traffic, rowdies and undesirables.
I also find it amazing that we can get in one of our vehicles and be Downtown in under fifteen minutes to enjoy the Reading Terminal Market, Old City, Chinatown and everything else Center City has to offer.
We love our vehicles AND we love Center City.
I bought a used car for $1800, usually put $20 worth of gas in it a week and my insurance is $44 a month. Yes, there has been repairs, but it's well worth the convenience, comfort and most importantly the FREEDOM it gives me to move about the city, Bucks County and South Jersey.
Plus, I don't have to deal with public transportation and the sh*tshow that's sometime drawn to it. Yes, with all the idiots on the road, you're at risk every time you get behind the wheel, but I'll take my chances.
I could go on, but nobody gives a crap ... When the times right, we're heading for Clearwater, FLA because as I age, I'm getting less and less tolerant of the nonsense you have to deal with in the city and the people running the city.
Or we just might wind up in Maple Shade, NJ or North Wildwood. Or, if the neighborhood holds and we can tolerate our neighbors, we may just stay here and live CHEAP!
A little tid-bit. When I lived in Center City, I would often head out at 630am and drive to Phila Mills Mall. They use to open the doors at 730AM for walkers. Made a few friends with the regulars. One would run out to Dunkin and bring back coffee. They had these real comfy couches with tables at the center of the mall. Would hang around and shoot the bull till around 9. Did it every chance I could.
Now that I live 5 mins away from there, with Covid they no longer open the mall early for walkers. I miss it. LOL
A little tid-bit. When I lived in Center City, I would often head out at 630am and drive to Phila Mills Mall. They use to open the doors at 730AM for walkers. Made a few friends with the regulars. One would run out to Dunkin and bring back coffee. They had these real comfy couches with tables at the center of the mall. Would hang around and shoot the bull till around 9. Did it every chance I could.
Now that I live 5 mins away from there, with Covid they no longer open the mall early for walkers. I miss it. LOL
This has been going on for so along I'm starting to forget what I miss ...
I like both options; a place like Center City, and the walkable suburb. As an urban planning and walkability nut, I have come to land someplace in the middle. I love big cities and walking all day and night, exploring and eating/drinking. However, you sacrifice some quality of life when you live in a big city. The same is true of the walkable burbs. Better quality of life for raising a family, still walkable to key assets, but it does not have the vibrancy or variety that a place like Center City has.
I have kids and personally have come to believe that walkable small town America provides the best QOL. I have a dozen restaurants/bars, multiple gyms, hair salons, game stores, boutiques, coffee shops (not Starbucks), my kids' schools (HUGE), and many other things (e.g. boutiques, olive oil store, etc. etc.) within a 5 - 10 min walk from my SFH. I know all my neighbors, the crossing guards, the shopkeepers, and there are many small town events like music in the local town square. And I have two SEPTA RR stations within a 10 min walk of my home. For us, it's really an amazing QOL. No poop or litter. Some vibrancy. Some quiet. And I can be in CC in 30 mins on train when we (rarely) get out without the kids.
The problem is that walkable small town America does not exist in many places. We are lucky here in the Philly metro that we have that and our train system.
I like both options; a place like Center City, and the walkable suburb. As an urban planning and walkability nut, I have come to land someplace in the middle. I love big cities and walking all day and night, exploring and eating/drinking. However, you sacrifice some quality of life when you live in a big city. The same is true of the walkable burbs. Better quality of life for raising a family, still walkable to key assets, but it does not have the vibrancy or variety that a place like Center City has.
I have kids and personally have come to believe that walkable small town America provides the best QOL. I have a dozen restaurants/bars, multiple gyms, hair salons, game stores, boutiques, coffee shops (not Starbucks), my kids' schools (HUGE), and many other things (e.g. boutiques, olive oil store, etc. etc.) within a 5 - 10 min walk from my SFH. I know all my neighbors, the crossing guards, the shopkeepers, and there are many small town events like music in the local town square. And I have two SEPTA RR stations within a 10 min walk of my home. For us, it's really an amazing QOL. No poop or litter. Some vibrancy. Some quiet. And I can be in CC in 30 mins on train when we (rarely) get out without the kids.
The problem is that walkable small town America does not exist in many places. We are lucky here in the Philly metro that we have that and our train system.
There were more of them once, before the cities and suburbs sucked the life out of them. Consider just about any Midwestern county seat of 5,000 or more residents. I had relatives who lived in one of these, Edwardsville, Ill. (pop ~15,000), which also had the advantage of a commuter bus to downtown St. Louis. It was a very agreeable place to live: Carnegie public library in the city park, movie theater on the courthouse square downtown, easy to get around on a bike, small lake in the residential district to downtown's south, 1960s Southern Illinois University branch campus on the southeast edge of town with a cool outdoor summer music festival.
I've said in the past that the American Small Town is perhaps the ideal urban form. Yes, it does lack the variety and vibrancy of a big city, but it has most if not all of the other positive attributes one might want from an urban place. Most of our highly prized suburbs, none more so than Media (which, I might point out, is a county seat), have that American Small Town character to a greater or lesser degree.
There were more of them once, before the cities and suburbs sucked the life out of them. Consider just about any Midwestern county seat of 5,000 or more residents. I had relatives who lived in one of these, Edwardsville, Ill. (pop ~15,000), which also had the advantage of a commuter bus to downtown St. Louis. It was a very agreeable place to live: Carnegie public library in the city park, movie theater on the courthouse square downtown, easy to get around on a bike, small lake in the residential district to downtown's south, 1960s Southern Illinois University branch campus on the southeast edge of town with a cool outdoor summer music festival.
Edwardsville sounds very idyllic. I feel like, pre-COVID, a lot of classic small towns, even in many rural areas, were actually starting to find their footing again after years of languishing.
I only hope we can get that economic momentum back sooner rather than later.
To paraphrase a famous saying.... safe is in the eye of the beholder.
I did a quick search and didn't find Philly on any "safest cities" lists. (No I didn't see every group's list that was ever compiled.)
I did see some safest neighborhood's in Philly lists.
I'm not sure how safe I think Philly is -- overall. Some parts are relatively safe. Others are not.
Safe? What's "safe?"
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