Why is Philly so often overlooked?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I feel like when you think of East Coast Cities, it's Boston - NY - DC.

Philly is lots of fun but somehow seems to fall beneath the radar, despite being a pretty large and vibrant place. How come?

If you're a criminal, especially violent.

Fun!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm totally ignorant what is the folding over thing that you can see people doing in the video they are standing but acting like they are touching their toes what is that??

That looks like a zombie apocalypse.

Synthetic opioids literally turn these people into zombies. There’s also some other synthetic street drugs circulating that have horrible effects.

The synthetic drugs seem to get worse and worse. Natural heroin is no longer found on the street, as it is too expensive and can’t compete with the synthetic narcotics.

This is why I’m a big proponent of heroin legalization. Let the government sell and regulate it. Addicts are going to turn to other stuff as we see in this video.

Wait - what?

Legalize heroin ???

Seriously???? Anyone else have an opinion on heroin legalization ??

Maybe this topic deserves its own thread. PP - mind creating a new thread on heroin legalization?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This video is of one of the worst streets in the entire city.

It’s a huge city with some large poor parts and also some very nice parts.

This. I mean that is terrible but it’s in no way representative of typical street scenes. The areas around Penn, Drexel, Center City, Old City etc look like any normal area. And I have been to all of them repeatedly in the past 4 months for family and work visits. Perfectly safe normal areas.

West Philly neighborhoods around Penn and Drexel do not look like perfectly safe normal areas. And have you been in South Philly around Christian St or the Italian Market area at all?

I’m sorry, because I loved what Philadelphia used to be, but it has been on a downhill path for a very long time. And it keeps getting worse. The drug problems, the violent and non-violent crime- I don’t know how the city can come back from the depths it has sunk into.

People who live there don’t see how dramatic the change has been because changes have happened gradually over time. It’s when you’ve moved away and come back to visit that you really see the extent of the changes. Also, when you have lived in other places, you realize how much better your daily qualifications life can be and that there is no need to live the way you do in Philly. There are so many better places to live, but they don’t know it because they have spent very little time living anywhere but Philly.

The funny thing is thar I lived in West Philly 20 years ago, and it's FAR better now than it was then. I don't think people really remember how bad Philly used to be. Things are declining in big cities since the pandemic, but saying that West Philly has been nothing but declining for the past 20 years is just untrue.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This video is of one of the worst streets in the entire city.

It’s a huge city with some large poor parts and also some very nice parts.

This. I mean that is terrible but it’s in no way representative of typical street scenes. The areas around Penn, Drexel, Center City, Old City etc look like any normal area. And I have been to all of them repeatedly in the past 4 months for family and work visits. Perfectly safe normal areas.

West Philly neighborhoods around Penn and Drexel do not look like perfectly safe normal areas. And have you been in South Philly around Christian St or the Italian Market area at all?

I’m sorry, because I loved what Philadelphia used to be, but it has been on a downhill path for a very long time. And it keeps getting worse. The drug problems, the violent and non-violent crime- I don’t know how the city can come back from the depths it has sunk into.

People who live there don’t see how dramatic the change has been because changes have happened gradually over time. It’s when you’ve moved away and come back to visit that you really see the extent of the changes. Also, when you have lived in other places, you realize how much better your daily qualifications life can be and that there is no need to live the way you do in Philly. There are so many better places to live, but they don’t know it because they have spent very little time living anywhere but Philly.

The funny thing is thar I lived in West Philly 20 years ago, and it's FAR better now than it was then. I don't think people really remember how bad Philly used to be. Things are declining in big cities since the pandemic, but saying that West Philly has been nothing but declining for the past 20 years is just untrue.

+1 West Philadelphia is a community of working families. The discussion on this thread demonstrates such a surface knowledge of Philadelphia. People sitting 150 miles away looking at YouTube videos.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How do the nicest neighborhoods in DC and Philly compare?

There is not a single acceptable zoned public high school within Philly itself.

This is not true. My sister and I went to Girls' high and my brother went to Central

Central isn’t zoned.

So you don't deny it is a good school.

I never said it wasn’t. But I said, There is not a single acceptable zoned public high school within Philly itself.”

Please define "zoned" because I grew up in Philly and never heard of this expression. Your use of it makes it sound like there are no good schools at all..period. The fact that you have to use this qualifier makes me suspect of you. You are misleading everyone.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How do the nicest neighborhoods in DC and Philly compare?

There is not a single acceptable zoned public high school within Philly itself.

This is not true. My sister and I went to Girls' high and my brother went to Central

Central isn’t zoned.

So you don't deny it is a good school.

I never said it wasn’t. But I said, There is not a single acceptable zoned public high school within Philly itself.”

Please define "zoned" because I grew up in Philly and never heard of this expression. Your use of it makes it sound like there are no good schools at all..period. The fact that you have to use this qualifier makes me suspect of you. You are misleading everyone.

“Zoned”=you live in X neighborhood, therefore you are entitled to go to Y school. Otherwise known as an open-enrollment public school. Not hard to understand.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This video is of one of the worst streets in the entire city.

It’s a huge city with some large poor parts and also some very nice parts.

This. I mean that is terrible but it’s in no way representative of typical street scenes. The areas around Penn, Drexel, Center City, Old City etc look like any normal area. And I have been to all of them repeatedly in the past 4 months for family and work visits. Perfectly safe normal areas.

West Philly neighborhoods around Penn and Drexel do not look like perfectly safe normal areas. And have you been in South Philly around Christian St or the Italian Market area at all?

I’m sorry, because I loved what Philadelphia used to be, but it has been on a downhill path for a very long time. And it keeps getting worse. The drug problems, the violent and non-violent crime- I don’t know how the city can come back from the depths it has sunk into.

People who live there don’t see how dramatic the change has been because changes have happened gradually over time. It’s when you’ve moved away and come back to visit that you really see the extent of the changes. Also, when you have lived in other places, you realize how much better your daily qualifications life can be and that there is no need to live the way you do in Philly. There are so many better places to live, but they don’t know it because they have spent very little time living anywhere but Philly.

The funny thing is thar I lived in West Philly 20 years ago, and it's FAR better now than it was then. I don't think people really remember how bad Philly used to be. Things are declining in big cities since the pandemic, but saying that West Philly has been nothing but declining for the past 20 years is just untrue.

I was on Baltimore Ave. today near the former University of the Sciences. It was filthy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All i'm going to say is that clearly 95% of the people replying to this live in the wealthy DC burbs and have lost touch with the reality of what's happening in their own City. Have you looked at the tents popping up everywhere downtown. Have you paid attention to the gun violence and the uptick in crime? I know those of us in petworth are *painfully* aware.

Downtown Philly has its problems, as do all cities, as many have mentioned right now.

But, if you have 1M in Philly you can buy a beautiful LARGE home, in a REALLY good school district, just a few minutes outside of the city --- good luck finding that in the DMV. Plus -- The schools aren't county run and are all half the size.

I do not go downtown. I know it’s turned into a dangerous dump.

But I also know there’s zero gun violence, because DC banned guns long ago, proving gun control works.

So you’re a scared suburbanite got it

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How do the nicest neighborhoods in DC and Philly compare?

There is not a single acceptable zoned public high school within Philly itself.

This is not true. My sister and I went to Girls' high and my brother went to Central

Central isn’t zoned.

So you don't deny it is a good school.

I never said it wasn’t. But I said, There is not a single acceptable zoned public high school within Philly itself.”

Please define "zoned" because I grew up in Philly and never heard of this expression. Your use of it makes it sound like there are no good schools at all..period. The fact that you have to use this qualifier makes me suspect of you. You are misleading everyone.

“Zoned”=you live in X neighborhood, therefore you are entitled to go to Y school. Otherwise known as an open-enrollment public school. Not hard to understand.

Yes but surely there are zoned schools that ARE good then.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How do the nicest neighborhoods in DC and Philly compare?

There is not a single acceptable zoned public high school within Philly itself.

This is not true. My sister and I went to Girls' high and my brother went to Central

Central isn’t zoned.

So you don't deny it is a good school.

I never said it wasn’t. But I said, There is not a single acceptable zoned public high school within Philly itself.”

Please define "zoned" because I grew up in Philly and never heard of this expression. Your use of it makes it sound like there are no good schools at all..period. The fact that you have to use this qualifier makes me suspect of you. You are misleading everyone.

“Zoned”=you live in X neighborhood, therefore you are entitled to go to Y school. Otherwise known as an open-enrollment public school. Not hard to understand.

Yes but surely there are zoned schools that ARE good then.

No high schools that are.

There are about four elementary (k-8) schools that are. Penn Alexander School is lottery-based and has been for quite some time now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We lived there briefly. It's very race and class divided. The race part is common to most cities but it's easy to forget certain cities are also very socio-economically segregated. You'll be pigeonholed into your niche pretty quickly. Nitty gritty is fun for a while then it becomes tiresome because the nitty gritty population is just too large. A lot of crap happens in Philadelphia that rarely happens in DC. Center City is wonderful and there are a few other gorgeous neighborhoods but much of the city is dreary and much of the new infill housing is shockingly ugly. Transportation by car around the whole region is a nightmare, including the suburbs.

Philadelphia is still living off past glories and no number of modern new developments hides that it's one of the great 19th century cities still living in the shadows of its history. It's not where the energy or innovation is these days. Its claim to fame is being cheaper than NYC. But I will also say the dining scene is excellent, both high and low. It's perhaps the only thing I miss about Philadelphia.

You can’t be serious.

Because transportation by car around the DC area is so much better

We live in Baltimore after living in Philadelphia. It takes a lot longer to get around Philadelphia as the roads aren't as efficiently connected and some of the key links out of Center City are limited like the Schuylkill Expressway, which is backed up most of the time. Driving from Center City to the Main Line or back is time consuming because there is no direct expressway, just the train. Mount Airy and Chestnut Hill aren't easily connected outside trains either. By contrast, Baltimore is easy to navigate with the beltway and I-83 from the city to the northern suburbs. The world isn't just Philadelphia and DC, you know

i agree, i don't understand how philly can have so few direct highways to the places people want to go (are they still using goat paths from the colonial times??) But, I think the lack of an efficient highway system pushes people to public transit so that's a good thing. from many suburbs it is way easier to take the train than to drive into center city.

From NW Philly (Chestnut Hill/Mt Airy/East Falls/Manayunk), we often (if not usually) avoid the expressway by taking local neighborhood roads to East River/Kelly Dr to get to Center City. Of course there are traffic challenges at times, which is the case with any city, but it’s not always a big headache at all. Going to Center City should take about 20 mins using one of the drives during non-rush hour times. Most people I know don’t ever use the Expressway to get from NW Philly to downtown.

I grew up in a suburb west of Philly, and would always drive into Center City through West Philly. All the lights are timed on Walnut and Chestnut streets, so once I got on, it was usually a straight shot in (so long as you were in the center lane and didn't run into a double-parked truck).

When we were little my dad totally convinced us that he controlled the lights on Chestnut Street as he would command them to turn green, and sure enough, they would!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm totally ignorant what is the folding over thing that you can see people doing in the video they are standing but acting like they are touching their toes what is that??

That looks like a zombie apocalypse.

Synthetic opioids literally turn these people into zombies. There’s also some other synthetic street drugs circulating that have horrible effects.

The synthetic drugs seem to get worse and worse. Natural heroin is no longer found on the street, as it is too expensive and can’t compete with the synthetic narcotics.

This is why I’m a big proponent of heroin legalization. Let the government sell and regulate it. Addicts are going to turn to other stuff as we see in this video.

Wait - what?

Legalize heroin ???

Seriously???? Anyone else have an opinion on heroin legalization ??

Maybe this topic deserves its own thread. PP - mind creating a new thread on heroin legalization?

I’m not PP and I’m not in favor of it, but if you want to read more about the reasoning behind legalization from one of the orgs trying to make it happen, here you go: https://drugpolicy.org/Legal-Regulation-Safer-Supply

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm totally ignorant what is the folding over thing that you can see people doing in the video they are standing but acting like they are touching their toes what is that??

That looks like a zombie apocalypse.

Synthetic opioids literally turn these people into zombies. There’s also some other synthetic street drugs circulating that have horrible effects.

The synthetic drugs seem to get worse and worse. Natural heroin is no longer found on the street, as it is too expensive and can’t compete with the synthetic narcotics.

This is why I’m a big proponent of heroin legalization. Let the government sell and regulate it. Addicts are going to turn to other stuff as we see in this video.

Wait - what?

Legalize heroin ???

Seriously???? Anyone else have an opinion on heroin legalization ??

Maybe this topic deserves its own thread. PP - mind creating a new thread on heroin legalization?

I’m not PP and I’m not in favor of it, but if you want to read more about the reasoning behind legalization from one of the orgs trying to make it happen, here you go: https://drugpolicy.org/Legal-Regulation-Safer-Supply

Thanks! I will take a look at that. Maybe start a thread on the topic tomorrow.

To me, it seems to be an extremist position. but who knows what a thread on it might reveal?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Philadelphia suburbs have great housing stock at a lower cost than the DC area, fantastic public schools, and the regional rail system. There's a tech presence in the 202 corridor (King of Prussia, Chesterbrook, etc), pharmaceutical companies, and some finance (Vanguard), but not as much as you'd find in NYC/DC.

I was in Bryn Mawr and Haverford yesterday. They are not what they once were.

I live in Old Town Alexandria and feel the same way about it. The nuisance crimes are out of control.

This is a nationwide issue. It's like that in nice parts of Upper nw and close in burbs too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I've visited Philly twice with my kids. Once in January 2020 and once in May 2022. I could not believe the difference between those visits. Maybe they were one off experiences but 2020 was such a pleasant experience and 2022 was so bad I'm reluctant to return. So much trash everywhere. Syringes. Aggressive panhandlers. ATVs and dirt bikes all night, every night. It was like a post apocalyptic wasteland.

Have you been on Capitol Hill recently? All cities took a nosedive in the past two years.