Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:He will most likely be safe but that area is not safe. Drexel and Upenn are in a terrible location (I’m from philly). They are great schools in the midst of a challenged neighborhood. But for the most part they are in their own little world and he will he fine.
This isn’t true any more, sounds like you haven’t been back in decades. Penn and Drexel have bought up most of the surrounding area and it is safe. I wouldn’t wander a mile or so away in certain directions but wouldn’t have any concern about the safety of my student on campus.
Ha ha, I am west Philly born and raised. My dad and sister went to Penn. My family has been in Philly for generations. I was just there this weekend and my sisters car was stolen from 42nd and Walnut Street! Much like DC the campus neighborhood has been gentrified but with a larger low income population than DC the benefits of gentrification have not trickled down. I’m African American and certainly not afraid of “urban environments”. Philadelphia including University City is worse than when I was growing up. I said the campus was in its own little bubble and they would be fine. But lets not pretend that crime in Ucity is magically gone because the campus has expanded. I’m black and my family and social groups have a different lived experience than PPs so I have a different perspective.
I'm white and grew up next to Clark Park, at 43rd and Baltimore. Also not afraid of "urban environments." My family left University City (our gentrifier's name for what people called our part of West Philly in 1988, so obviously it's been a minute. But I've kept up with the neighborhood over the years. Don't get me wrong, I still love it. It's beautiful. I had a fantastic childhood there, but I'm also not blind. And things have happened since that have shook me to my core.
The pp is right. Things are worse.
One thing growing up in West Philly taught me is sometimes it's the spaces where affluence rubs right up against poverty that can be the most dangerous. I have hair-raising stories that happened to friends in my old neighborhood, murder and rape among them. These stories cut across all levels of affluence and culture.
Something telling: no one from my childhood stayed in University City. We all left. Our parents all left, too. Decamping to the main line, or Bucks County, or New Jersey, or another state. Our neighborhood was always in a state of gentrification flux. Philadelphia is a place where families stay for generations in the same neighborhoods... except where it isn't. I can tell you from personal experience that West Philly was up and coming when we moved to 43rd Street in 1976, and it's "up and coming" still. Maybe it's true of all college towns, there's an impermanence. Or maybe not. Maybe it's just white peoeple, cosplaying being urban pioneers. Generations of them. I don't know.
I'm reading this thread because my kid just applied to Drexel. On one hand, Id love her to go there for selfish reasons--I love the area. I love the geography, the walkibility, the Philadelphia-ness where we all universally understand that the eff word can mean hello, goodbye, and go away--
On the other hand, I don't think it's safe.
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