-
Bring Fenty Back
July 11, 2012 | 63 comments
-
Mitt W. Bush
May 7, 2012 | 29 comments
-
Education’s Medicaid Problem
January 11, 2012 | 39 comments
-
The NEA’s Progressive Turn
December 9, 2011 | 13 comments
-
Taking Over Lousy Schools
December 2, 2011 | 29 comments
Political Hay
Motown Philly
Is Philadelphia on its way to being another Detroit?
If you are a sports fan — or just a follower of such woe-begotten teams as the New York Mets, New Jersey Devils and my Washington Redskins — you would think Philadelphia residents would have plenty to celebrate. After all, the city’s sports clubs are on a winning streak unseen since the late 1970s, when Mike Schmidt, Bobby Clarke, and Ron Jaworski were scoring their ways into the hall of fames of their respective teams.
But for residents of the City of Brotherly Love, the news of lopsided victories and championship contentions are mere distractions from the headlines of murder, corruption, and fiscal malaise on the front pages. And Mayor Michael Nutter, who was elected three years ago on a platform of cutting crime, reforming government, and keeping the city on a fiscal even keel, isn’t making any headway on any of these problems.
The bludgeoning of Nutter’s own neighbor, Robert Lancaster, in his home earlier this month, and reports of a possible serial killer strangling three women (one of whom survived) were reminders that that Cheesesteak city’s streets remain as bloody as ever. Although Nutter’s efforts — including a two-year-long effort to confiscate illegal guns through a controversial “stop-and-frisk” effort — have reduced some crime, the city’s homicide rate of 23 per 100,000 in 2008 (the latest year available) is still the highest among the nation’s 10 largest cities; for six years running, it also has had the highest violent crime rate among the nation’s big cities. Philly is just one of two top 10 cities (Houston being the other) that has seen its homicide rate increase between 1999 and 2008.
The city’s spate of corruption became more apparent last month when the Philadelphia Inquirer revealed that the city’s public housing agency diverted $300,000 in fees collected from Section 8 landlords ostensibly intended for training into a lobbying fund.
The agency’s executive director, Carl Greene, was fired a month earlier over allegations of sexual harassment. The city’s police department has also been rocked by corruption, including the arrest earlier this month of a police inspector, Daniel Castro, by the FBI for alleged bribery and extortion related to a $90,000 real estate investment.
As for the city’s fiscal condition? It’s in tatters. The other week, Moody’s cut the city’s bond rating from A1 to A2 because the city must make long-delayed contributions to its defined-benefit pension fund. The downgrade comes as the city plans to issue $268 million in new general obligation bonds. As for the pension? Its $3.5 billion in assets only covers 45 percent of the annuity payments it must make to retiring civil servants, according to Joshua Rauh of Northwestern University and University of Rochester economist Robert Novy-Marx in a study released last month; under Rauh and Novy-Marx’s scenario, the pension may go bust in the next five years.
Meanwhile Nutter isn’t winning any battles anywhere. His decision to enact a 10 percent property tax increase (among the many tax hikes he has pushed through during his tenure) hasn’t done him any favors. He has managed to revamp some of the city’s operations — but without much help from the corrupt city council, with whom he is sparring. He is also fighting with his scandals-plagued predecessor, John Street, who maintains a strong (and inexplicable) influence on local politics. In September, Street stepped up his attacks on Nutter (and his penchant for race-baiting) by declaring that Nutter was merely “a mayor with dark skin.”
But Nutter’s problems — and the sparring among Philadelphia’s politicians — are just endemic of a sclerosis that has made it difficult for the city to revive itself in the way New York City has done in the past three decades. Certainly Philadelphia isn’t the only city struggling to deal with its fiscal, governance, and quality of life issues. It isn’t even Detroit, the poster child for systemic urban failure. But at one point, Detroit was in the same position as Philadelphia before its slide into abject decay. Unless it learns from Detroit’s failures and from the successful revivals of cities such as New York, Philly will become Motown with a Liberty Bell.
Philly’s reputation as one of the nation’s grittiest urban centers has long-belied its nickname. After all, this is the home of the nefarious Black Mafia — whose Nation of Islam-sponsored sprees of graft and murder reached as far as D.C. — notorious police chief-turned-mayor Frank Rizzo (whose law enforcement tactics could be just as vicious) and infamous fans of the NFL’s Eagles, who earned infamy for pelting Santa Claus with snowballs — and have embraced controversial quarterback Michael Vick with equal glee.
The presence of Fortune 500 companies such as cable giant Comcast, insurer Cigna and pharmaceutical GlaxoSmithKline has helped Philly stave off the kind of urban decline that has turned its sister city, Pittsburgh, into a shell of its former glory. So has Philly’s longstanding grip on power over Pennsylvania’s state government, which has helped the city get state funding for some of the city fathers’ pet projects; for the past eight years, it could count on help from the statehouse in the form of Ed Rendell, a former Philadelphia mayor.
But in the past two decades Philly has gone from simply maintaining to a slow slide. It began with Rendell, whose reputation for running a squeaky-clean administration belied growing fiscal incompetence. While Rendell managed to bring down crime, he engaged in such misadventures as pouring $70 million in taxpayer money into a proposed urban theme park that was supposed to be operated by entertainment giant Walt Disney. The site remains a parking lot.
He also helped usher in the city’s deferred retirement option program, or DROP, a pension curiosity in which a government employee forgoes raises and incremental pension contributions in his final years of employment in exchange for a lump-sum payment upon retirement. Although the move was supposed to help the city reduce its pension burden, the DROP plan has actually added $258 million (and even more thanks to a loophole that allows city workers to double-dip, i.e. come back to work on the city payroll after having retired). Among the big-check collectors: Members of Philly’s city council including council president Anna Verna, who can pick up a lump-sum payment of $580,000. This explains why Nutter hasn’t succeeded in getting the council to roll back the annuity plan.
A pension bailout by the state, technically still on the table, is unlikely to happen, while Republican statehouse victories — including capture of the governorship after eight years of Democrat control and the state’s lower house — all but ensures that there won’t be any help coming soon. Meanwhile Philly’s crime problem isn’t getting much relief from district attorney Seth Williams, who teamed up with local judges to drop charges against 19,400 fugitives — including alleged rapists and robbers.
Other long-term problems continue to mar Philly’s future. The city’s public school system, which have been as much an exemplar of systemic academic failure as better-known failure mills as Detroit and Cleveland. Since a takeover of the district by the state in 2001, the district has gone through an array of overhauls, including the hand-off school operations to outfits such as Edison Schools, and even the hard work of reformers such as Paul Vallas (who began Chicago’s successful school reform effort).
But the district still remains one giant dropout factory; just 60 percent of the city’s Class of 2009 made it from middle school to senior year of high school, versus 74 percent of students from the graduating class eight years ago. The superintendent, Arlene Ackerman (a well-traveled school official whose previous stints in D.C. and San Francisco ended acrimoniously) hasn’t won over residents, teachers’ union bosses or even some school reformers. Ackerman gained even more enmity in June when she blocked information on administrative salaries after it was revealed that she took a four percent raise even as the district faces a perilous fiscal future.
Nutter and other city fathers will need to take to heart the lessons learned by officials in the Big Apple and other cities that have seen revivals — including a focus on improving quality of life and addressing crime with more than stop and frisk tactics. Until then, Philly residents will have to move out or stick to reading about the latest Flyers game while chomping down on Geno’s (or, if one prefers, a Pat’s cheesesteak, wit-out).
About the Author
RiShawn Biddle the editor of Dropout Nation , is co-author of A Byte at the Apple: Rethinking Education Data for the Post-NCLB Era. He can be followed at Twitter.com/dropoutnation.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (70) | Leave a comment
More Articles by RiShawn Biddle
More Articles From Political Hay
http://spectator.org/archives/2010/11/29/motown-philly
Follow us:
ADVERTISEMENT
Current Issue
- The End of the Castros?
- Ailes: A Voice for the Silent Majority
- We Have Her Example
SPONSORED LINKS
FLASHBACK TO: 1995
-
Pope Culture
A man of faith in a godless age is hitting Americans where it hurts.
-
Why the GOP Does Not, Like, Totally Suck
Mr. and Mrs. American Spectator Reader, let P.J. O’Rourke talk sense to your kids.
-
Dames at Sea
-
In the Absence of Guns
In Britain, defending your property can get you life.
-
The Metaphysical Martini
-
Counting the Costs of Clintonism
The debacle of this president’s administration is both a cause and a symptom of the decline of American values. Unless Congress impeaches him, that decline will go on unchecked. An eminent jurist surveys the damage and assesses the chances for the recovery of our culture.
-
Chuck McHagel
It won’t take long for conservatives to scratch this presidential wannabe off their 2008 scorecard.
-
The Legacy of Old John and Mother Fresh-Roasted
-
It’s the Best Time of the Year
The American Christmas, like the songs that celebrate it, makes room for everybody under the rainbow. Is that why so many people seem to be hostile to it?
-
The Bush Crack-Up
Was the President done in by the economy, or by the politics of the economy?
Clip of the Day
ADVERTISEMENT
JimH| 11.29.10 @ 6:30AM
Admittedly the Devils have hit some speed bumps in the last few years, but it hasn't been so long ago that they were a major power in the NHL. I have some hopes for the Mets with the new GM, but their financial situation and new manager makes me think it will be a long season.
Bob K.| 11.29.10 @ 7:41AM
JimH,
People like you are mentioned in the author's 2nd paragraph, in case you didn't notice.
JimH| 11.29.10 @ 8:15AM
The fact that I chose to comment upon a admittedly peripheral point of the authors does not make me unaware of larger more serious issues. Have I ever seen you posting any objections here to the various articles about sports, drinking, fine dining, art or other amusements which are obviously beneath such a high minded serious individual such as yourself and serve as opiates to the great unwashed? You sir are rude in your presumption and likely not much fun at a party.
Stormzeye| 11.29.10 @ 10:16AM
Well said! I appreciate the irony and sense of the absurd that your comments evoke. One can only take so much of the utter corruption and decay spelled out in the piece. Your comment provided some relief from the writer's description of the despair that comes from liberal/progressive policies designed only to clothe their constituency in the robes of victimhood. These will provide false comfort as they slide down life's chute into the abyss of crime, drugs, alcohol and despair.
Bob K.| 11.29.10 @ 11:48PM
Well said indeed Jimbo!
Now aren't you glad I gave you the opportunity to show that you aren't a complete nitwit?
Lullabys, Legends and Lies| 11.29.10 @ 7:35AM
The City of Philadelphia has had a string of nine Democratic Mayors in a row, dating back to 1952, and you're surprised that the City is corrupt, and is in decline? I'm sure one or two of them were okay, but nine in row, no City can survive that!! Detroit is the future of every major City in America, until the day (that most likely will never come), that the residents stop voting for the De(struction)mocratic Party.
They shall remain sad little Islands of Blue, in a Sea of Red!! Get out while you still can!!
Bob K.| 11.29.10 @ 7:53AM
Right you are! And one of them is PA's outgoing Governor Ed Rendell who never saw a tax he didn't like!
Eric Cartman| 11.29.10 @ 10:57AM
I think you found the underlying cause of Detroitification, L Cubed. Nine Democrats in a row running the place. is the key ingredient. Next stop, the United States of Detroit if it doesn't stop.
Expel "The Ruling Class"!| 11.29.10 @ 11:04AM
L,L, &L, you nailed the biggest problem Philadelphia has & I am one of those who got out while I still could. Philadelphia isn't on it's way to becoming Detroit. It's nearly there.
MacDaddy| 11.29.10 @ 11:33AM
Amen, L,L &L...the dirty little secret is coming out....Detroit and all of Michigan has been reduced nearly to rubble by the Democratic-Union domination of state and local politics...and yet the voters...completely un-educated and made almost totally dependent on government to provide even basic needs for themselves (Sec. 8 hovels, food stamps, gov't provided cell phones.....etc.) blindly keep voting Democrat, much like the junkie keeps jabbing a needle of Heroine into their arm.....Einstein's definition of insanity reigns in Detroit. If it were up to me, I'd line up 3,000 bulldozers side by side roughly along I-96, all facing east, and push the mess into Lake St. Clair.
Tim the Enchanter| 11.29.10 @ 1:23PM
What do you have against Lake St. Clair? What did it ever do to you to merit such punishment?
Kathleen Walker| 11.30.10 @ 11:20AM
Amen to Lullabys, Legends and Lies. Couldn't have said it better. Nothing in Philadelphia will change until we get a Mayor with the guts and vision of Frank Rizzo!!
MikeD| 11.29.10 @ 8:27AM
Having spent the first 40 years of my life in "Filthadelphia" this comes as no surprise to me. You forgot such wonderful 'galas' like Mayor Wilson Goode's (D of course) effort to burn down the whole city during his attempt to root out a black radical group called "Move" (on.org?). Then there's the ongoing process of collaboration with corrupt unions to spend BILLIONS to build and rebuild stadiums and arenas in a city that doesn't have the money to even buy text books for school kids.
Just imagine what the media would have said if a Republican administration had done any of these things. But, I guess they had Detroit for inspiration.
As long as the media has any influence in America; and as long as white liberal morons are driven by their long developed guilt, nothing will happen to improve things.
It is more important for the Black Community to stay in the Demoncrap fold; and more important for the Demoncraps to keep that control over the Black Community than it is to improve the quality of life in these "D" controlled cities. Look at the record. Every major city where the Demoncraps have had a monopolistic long term control on power is a complete $h*th0le. However obvious it is to anybody with a brain; it will never change as long as the Demoncraps, and their henchmen in the media, continually play the race card. And, as long as the Blacks slavishly vote Demoncrap and ignore the consequences; they will continue to survive in combat zones. They have only themselves to blame.
WRTolkas| 11.29.10 @ 9:14AM
Gentlemen,
From the above article, life in "Filthadelphia" hasn't changed much since my last visit in April of 1973. I just returned from two-years overseas duty and, with discharge papers in hand, took a bus from Ft. Dix to the main bus station downtown. This area was a grim sight. But when a group of combat veterans, just off of the bus, close together for mutual protection - that is sad. What is it like to live and work there?
The author brought back some old memories with this story.
Be safe,
WRTolkas
Harry Flashman| 11.29.10 @ 9:25AM
The last missed opportunity for Philadelphia occurred in their mayoral election of 2003. The awful incumbent black Democrat John Street found himself in a surprisingly close race with the white Republican Sam Katz, who enjoyed a well deserved reputation for personal integrity and fiscal responsibility. With a host of excellent policy ideas and the courage to implement them, Katz was viewed by thinking Philadelphians as their best hope to halt the continuing degradation of their quality of life. John Street's abrasive personality and reputation for incompetence were even affecting his poll numbers among his core constituents, who were largely apathetic toward the coming election.
In desperation, Mayor Street turned to a Chicago-based Democratic political operative for hire named David Axelrod, who had a well established reputation for successfully selling black candidates to white voters and whipping up black anger against the white establishment, as the situation required.
As it happened, the Street administration was the target of a secret federal investigation into widespread City Hall corruption, with allegations of bribery and influence peddling and various other typical urban government pathologies. When Street was tipped off to the existence of FBI listening devices in his office suite, the notorious racebaiter Axelrod saw that as their golden opportunity to turn the situation around and save Street's sorry ass.
You can imagine how Axelrod played his race card. The "man" is out to get our brother John. They never liked having a black mayor and now they're trying to set him up. Bush and Cheney are behind it. They want to take away what is ours. You all have to get out and vote for our mayor and stop this racist plot.
Needless to say, John Street was narrowly re-elected as Mayor of Philadelphia. The city treasurer Corey Kemp was convicted of corruption charges and jailed, along with several others. The alleged ringleader and close Street associate, Ron White, was indicted but died of cancer before he could be made to talk. John Street went on to enjoy a second term and the city of Philadelphia continued to sink into the abyss.
David Axelrod became the chief strategist for the 2008 Obama presidential campaign. Remaining true to form, he presented Barack Obama as a brilliant intellectual who would "transform" the culture of Washington and guide America into a harmonious "postracial" era because it was "time" for a black president, with the clear message for whites being that if you won't vote for Obama, it must be because you're a racist.
God help us.
Federalist10| 11.29.10 @ 9:39AM
I would dispute the accusation that Pittsburgh has turned into a shell of its former self. It has a vibrant tech and financial industry that is growing. It's crime is a fraction of what Philadelphia's has become. Corporations such as PNC, Dick's Sporting Goods, American Eagle Outfitters, and others all call Pittsburgh home. True, it's on the verge of bankruptcy due to unfunded public pensions (but, again, thank you to 50 years of democrat control and public sector unions).
Were we in the '80's with the steel mill closures, I could agree it was in decline. Now, in all areas except governmental fiscal responsibility, I would say Pittsburgh is on the rise.
NavyBrat | 11.29.10 @ 2:05PM
As a resident of "Da Burgh," I agree. I'm not a native, nor is this the most favorite of my places to live, but this city isn't TOO bad. Its certainly better off than Cleveland, Columbus, and, as you pointed out, Federalist, Philly.
Good point on the virtually non existent crime rate in comparison to Philly too.
P. Aaron| 11.29.10 @ 9:39AM
Detroit has fewer 'in-town' residents than Philly. So, there's less of a voter-mix to change things drastically where color may be a factor in how citizens vote.
The corruption is something that builds from the scelrotic nature of government processes and the greed of unions for power over as much as they can get.
Most folks in metro-Detroit voted with their feet...decades ago. That's why Detroit, in spite of the 'brotherly' pronouncements from Lansing, is an isolated & crumbling town. I could go on.
Doctor Right| 11.29.10 @ 10:09AM
Those who toil in America's most urban of urban zones get exactly the government they deserve.
Year after year, in election after election, these folks, most black, vote reflexively for Democrats.
And year after year, their cities decay. The infrastructure crumbles, schools deteriorate, crime skyrockets, whole neighborhoods become war zones, and wealth flees. Meanwhile, the corrupt politicians who are responsible for the rot, themselves also mostly black, grow fat off of the rampant graft, always promising solutions that are right around the corner IF ONLY more federal subsidies would flow into the city's coffers.
It's a downward death spiral, and it's the DIRECT fault of the very voters who are most imperiled by the situation.
And I, for one, am sick of hearing about it.
Is Philadelphia the next Detroit? Who cares??? Except for the tax dollars that are taken from my wallet to feed these rat-holes, it's not my problem.
Until black Americans are able to both address the problems within their own culture (unemployment, generational welfare, illegitimacy, crime, recidivism, etc) AND end their incessant, unrequited love affair with the Democrat Party, the problem of urban decay will never end.
That's the politically incorrect hard-truth, but it's the truth nonetheless.
Pat| 11.29.10 @ 4:14PM
Doctor Right, your name is appropriate and your assessment is dead on. And remember the Soviet Union and their 5 year plans? Russia’s citizens were promised “true communism” would be achieved at the end of the current “5 Year Plan” – but, for them, that same promise was made in each of the previous three 5 year plans. As each successive 5 Year Plan promise proved hollow, the citizens grew more and more cynical toward their government and their leaders. Our Democrats, along with the political commissars of our decaying, urban dung heaps like Detroit, are facing the same prospects – no one believes in the “empowerment” fairy tales anymore – no one over 12 years old that is.
The glorious achievements obtained by transferring wealth from the productive to the incompetent have proven as elusive here in America as they did within the old Soviet Union. And those dreams were so beautiful, too. But for how many decades can you peddle the same dream while witnessing continuous – and ever increasing - failure?
Why the taxpayers in Huntsville, Alabama or Helena, Montana would continue to fund the Democrats’ current 5 year plan for Detroit, Cleveland – or even Philadelphia - is a mystery to any thinking individual. Taking money from hard working Americans and giving it to people who haven’t yet mastered the complexities of self-government must be getting old by now, our taxpayers must be learning what citizens in the former Soviet Union knew toward the End of Days within that pathetic monument to corruption and “Idiot’s Guide to Communism” playbook for the average citizen.
White guy in the city| 11.30.10 @ 10:36AM
Judging by so many comments here, I seriously question how many people have ever been to Philadelphia, or Detroit or any other city for that matter. Believe me it's not without it's issues. Yes, there is cronyism, corruption and some quality-of-life issues and the schools are pretty bad. However this city has seen an amazing turnaround in the last 10-15 years and it continues even in the recession. I live in a neighborhood that I wouldn't even go into 10 years ago. Things still need to change, John Street was a terrible mayor and Katz probably would've been better, but it's not a Democratic thing and certainly not a "black" thing. But just cutting taxes isn't going to solve anything. The worst period in this city was not when Wilson Goode was mayor but when (R) Frank Rizzo, probably about as corrupt as an anyone you've seen, was mayor.
My advice, don't comment on things you know nothing about. Just stay holed up in you're little suburban McMansions, wait in line at that fine neighborhood establishment Appleby's and try to avoid the blacks. You all are why I can't even fathom living in the burbs.
Oh and enough of comparing Democrats to Communists. It just shows you watch too much Glenn Beck.
Yorktown Bob| 11.30.10 @ 12:35PM
Rizzo was a Dem when he served and only switched to R when he couldn't make it out of the Dem primary years later. Philadelphia is a frigging crap hole.
WG| 11.30.10 @ 1:06PM
Right you are, Rizzo was a Dem the first time. If only he had survived the election, he would've been so much better the second time around as a Republican. Remember, it's better to stay where everyone is exactly like you.
Spirit of 1776| 11.30.10 @ 6:20PM
Hmmmm... I think we sat next to each other at Penn graduate school. You were the blind and dumb one, I was the white Christian guy living on the Main Line, which is as close as I can stand to be to the now-decrepit city of my birth.
Yes, the Main Line is White, except for the lower rungs of the help. That's the point. My children can play outside and we can leave the doors (and cars) unlocked without worry.
Oh yes, Philthydelphians can leave their cars unlocked too... in the hope the burglars won't smash the windows as they loot it for drug money.
How do they say it? you're a putz.
Ciao and all that. See you at Verizon Hall some Friday night before stealing to my (genuine and not new) estate in the country with my blonde wife and two-point-zero hiers to my family's Mayflower heritage...
Spirit of '76
NavyBrat | 11.29.10 @ 11:30AM
This has been coming to Philly for a long time, as the author stated. Its sad to me, because I enjoy going there with the wife for a long weekend when the weather's nice (we live in Pittsburgh & she's got family there). We stay in Society Hill, right in the Old City, around the corner from Walnut St. There are TONS of great restaurants there, like Morimoto's place, Jose Garce's place, Amada, and about 6 other high end places that a foodie & burnt out ex chef like me go CRAZY for. And yes, there's the almighty cheesesteak, one of the gems of the culinary world.
My advice in going to Philly, stay where the nice touristy areas are, & try not to go 2 blocks in either direction from those areas. And bring your appetite.
What a shame. I kinda like the place.
Eric Cartman| 11.29.10 @ 1:33PM
That's the problem, NB. Detroit was once a pretty great city. The lakes, the boating, great restaurants (best coney dogs at Lafayette). Good schools, great music. Really great place. Then . . . . Democrats ran the place into the ground. Sorry, NB, Philly is next.
NavyBrat | 11.29.10 @ 2:06PM
And its a DAMNED shame too. Its such a cool place. It really breaks my heart.
Redstateboy| 11.29.10 @ 11:53AM
a crumbling old NE City run for decades by Democrats, Unions with teaming masses or welfare recipients is crumbling under its own weight... I'll alert the Media.
MikeN| 11.29.10 @ 12:36PM
Of course a lump sum retirement plan costs money, but you have to compare it to the money saved in not paying out pensions.
George True| 11.29.10 @ 2:02PM
Mike, I believe the problem is that the government worker gets both the pension AND the lump sum payout. Here in Arizona, a state worker can "retire" after 20 years, and then go back to work for the same state agency, doing the same job, but for a somewhat reduced pay. In the meantime, they are drawing their pension, as long as their age plus the number of years worked equals 80. (Newer workers are now on a system where age plus years worked must equal 85.)
Then after working an additional five years at somewhat reduced pay (while drawing their pension), they get a lump-sum cash payout of $300,000 to $500,000, or more, At that point, they can continue working or retire again, but in either case they continue to draw their pension for life AND they have a cool half million dollars in the bank for the additional five years of service.
As a result of government worker unions and lobbying groups, most states have an unfunded pension liability that is staggering. In Arizona, the state pension liability at this time is around 50 BILLION dollars. And that is at current interest rates. If interest rates go up over time, the liability could be double that amount.
And believe it or not, Arizona is better off in this regard than 42 of the other states. A day of reckoning is coming. Many states will be bankrupted by their pension liabilities. and then they will be coming to Uncle Sugar to bail them out. And then Uncle Sugar will seek to get it from all of us at the point of a gun.
George Barkman| 11.29.10 @ 1:37PM
Although I never lived in Phila proper I worked in center city for 20 years and a life long visitor to the city. What a shame to see it go the way it has. The city has so many great things, the "cheese steak" being one of them but the hidden culinary gem of Phila is the great Italian Pork Sandwich with sharp provolone and roasted peppers. There is nothing better.
Gbark
NavyBrat | 11.29.10 @ 2:09PM
Brother, you're killing me! That roast pork sammich almost steals the thunder from the cheesesteak! Now I find myself wanting to make the 6 hr drive from here in Da Burgh down the Turnpike to get my Tony Luke's & Jim's Steaks fix!
MoeBlotz| 11.29.10 @ 2:57PM
Don't yous see that Phluffya is OK as long as the bruthas and sistas are running the city? As soon as all that Federal cash trickles up to the city coffers,everything will be fine. Businesses will flock back to the city and create jobs that all the tax incentives can provide. As for Pittsburgh,yins should just say "thank you" to the EPA for getting rid of all those nasty,dirty,smelly,steel mills. The local roads are no longer clogged with those big,ugly steel hauling trucks that also spew filth into the atmosphere.
PattyMor| 11.29.10 @ 3:13PM
The same could be said for most of the DemoCrat run cities (Detroit, Philly, Chicago, NYC, Baltimore, etal.). They have large portions of citizens getting welfare and large pools of gov't unionized workers getting outsized pay & benefits. NYC and Chicago have financial sectors which have staved off bankruptcy for awhile.
But they have driven off most of the factories and buried everyone left behind in high taxes, red light cameras, and a pile of regulations which harass the few productive people still working there.
They will limp along until the day they collapse under the dead weight of liberalism.
Pat| 11.29.10 @ 6:31PM
PattyMor: You’re right about “limping along” but the Democrats believe it’s necessary to keep coming up with new variations on that old time religion of “From your pocket to mine” swindles. In Detroit’s case, this latest of swindles is “urban farming”. With 40% of Detroit’s geographical area an urban wasteland of deserted streets, abandoned homes and weirdly surreal landscapes showcasing houses heavily engulfed by vegetation, the City Leaders have hatched a new plan to shake down the American taxpayer. The Plan consists of two parts: Moving existing residents out of semi-deserted neighborhoods into more densely populated areas, thus eliminating the need – and expense - of police and fire services. And, the second part is turning the currently unproductive and un-taxable land into small truck farms.
Left unsaid is who will pay for this “inspired” plan. For residents who can’t hold a steady job and lack the literacy to fill out government forms unassisted, who will teach them the complex tasks involved in farming or pay for their “sharecropper” start-up grants? And who will pay for clearing the land in these days of stern environmentalism – testing and then removing the toxic wastes from the soil, leveling the land, removing traces of former urban development? If you’re guessing the American taxpayer will be the source of funds, you’re dead right. If you’re also guessing Detroit’s politicians plan to dip their beaks into each and every federal handout, ditto.
And the amusing part is no one actually expects The Plan to succeed, success in urban farming isn’t the point, the point is to pry more money out of you via Michigan’s and Washington’s Democrats. Burning down your own home no longer generates much sympathy nationwide or, more importantly, much federal funding – a new swindle is necessary to attract taxpayer dollars. But, in the end, the goal is “free” money, without working for it and with absolutely no guarantees these new and lofty promises will ever be kept.
Seek| 11.29.10 @ 4:08PM
This isn't really about "liberalism." Seattle and Portland, for example, have been run by liberal Democrats for decades and they are among the nation's most livable. They also have relatively small black populations. And therein lies the real issue: race. So long as blacks constitute a majority in Philadelphia, Detroit, Baltimore and elsewhere, their problems only will get more intractable. Given a critical mass, blacks destroy neighborhoods with their terrifying, murderous and thieving behavior.
Dustoff| 11.29.10 @ 4:36PM
You haven't been to Seattle lately have you. Both mayors have left the city broke and unable to even remove snow from the streets. Excepts for their streets. (mayors)
The gov of WA along with her fellow dem's have also left the state broke because of their spending.
Richard Clark| 11.29.10 @ 5:05PM
Two comments: First the introduction of the topic of race as a percentage of total population as an explanation for the state of deterioration in a city is superficial, and, quite frankly it is racist. There are good and bad neighborhoods in every major city and some of each are black and some of each are white or some other ethnicity.
Second, as a resident in the environs of Portland, Oregon I'll suggest that the deterioration of the city is only a matter of time. The tag "most livable" only covers certain criteria. Portland is not the most livable for the businesses who have been leaving at a steady rate because of taxes. It is not the most livable for the children sold into sex trafficking where Portland is the "headquarters." And it is not the most livable for home owners whose property taxes continue to rise. Give the one-party rule of that city and their public employee union pals a few more years and they'll take Portland down too.
Spirit of 1776| 11.30.10 @ 6:25PM
Richard Clark, you don't live around "African Americans", do you? (Oh I hear it now, "Why some of my best friends are African American!)
Whatever. It's death to your genes, not mine.
Richard Clark| 11.30.10 @ 8:14PM
No '76, my two best friends are old white guys like me. But I had a college room-mate who was African-American, a Marine veteran, and a man whose personal integrity I'd match against anyone. I have worked in large cities among and with African Americans. I have an adult child who lives in Philadelphia in the middle of a neighborhood that is racially mixed, but mostly "minority." I'm not without experience on the subject. I'm sorry your experience was so different. I'm not sure what that says about genes.
RCV| 11.29.10 @ 5:25PM
If anyone aside from despicable racists like Seek think the deterioration of these cities is due to race, then take a look at the decaying small towns in the midwest chronicled by Nick Reding in "Methland: The Life and Death of an American Small Town." Few blacks, same story. Drugs and economic deterioration will do the same regardless of the inhabitants' color of skin.
Seek| 11.29.10 @ 6:01PM
Every city, whatever its racial composition, has its share of problems. And I know all about the less than charming whites who cook meth for fun and profit. But pathology differs by type and magnitude. And the pathologies of all-black areas are simply far worse than the pathologies of white neighborhoods. I'll take you on a guided tour -- by car -- of Baltimore if you don't believe me.
Spirit of 1776| 11.30.10 @ 6:28PM
RVC and others are so far past "denial" that it is impossible for them to acknowledge even blatant reality when it comes to living with our African Americans. For such as these, the Soviet ideology of anti-racism is a neurosis, perhaps as psychosis, that blinds and confuses the victim, leading to a suicidal paralysis and eventual death of his line.
Good riddance. As their hero Stalin might have put it, "We shall have fewer Americans but better Americans".
jawin| 11.30.10 @ 7:44PM
Shame on you, Seek! Shame on you!
The pathology you write of is inherent in any group of people who are enslaved by an overbearing government. It matters not what is the skin color. Meth communities are no different than urban communitites. Urban communities, whether black as in the North, or hispanic as in the Southwest, or a mixed up jumble of colors as on the West Coast, are deplorable not for the color of skin living in those urban communities, but for the equally dismal, liberal policies heaped upon those poor residents -- of ALL COLORS!!! Liberalism is failure. That is the point and ever shall be the point of Conservatives.
pineapple1| 11.30.10 @ 11:14PM
My sentiments, exactly!
A.C.Guard| 11.29.10 @ 4:26PM
Philadelphia has already become Detroit. Crime, white flight, unions a council that doesn't care about those it governs and one party control for decades will do that.
GENE HAUBER| 11.29.10 @ 5:11PM
the citizens of philly should march, en masse, to city hall and lynch all who work there and then go into the ghettos and wards and grab all of those "leaders" and lynch them also. and when they are done, never elect another black politician again. they think that a coffer of public funds is their own little piggy bank.
Spirit of 1776| 11.30.10 @ 6:31PM
That's actually a good and time-honored American solution to crappy government. The problem is that any Philadelphian that actually cared about it concluded it was simply easier to move to the counties, leaving Philthydelphia for those that so capably destroyed it in the first place.
Surely they (the welfare class and their string pullers) have their reward.
Groad| 11.29.10 @ 5:23PM
Frank Rizzo was an Old Style Law and Order Demorat. During his terms the city began a revival of sorts. Call him notorius if you wish, but after the Wilson Goode disaster, had Frank Rizzo not died, he would have been elected as a Republican. The black community came to realize Rizzo was in their world. Bill Green whacked the fire and police departments to save money and the decline from Goode continued. Fast Eddy Spendell and his stealth taxes aided and abetted the white flight. John Street stated "the borthers and sisters now run the city". (BTW, Street's father was a white man.) He fine tuned to corruption and cronyism. It's been downhill since. The only bastions of remauining solvency are in South Philly, the Northeast and Old City and adjoining neighborhoods between the Parkway and Old City.
Fast Eddy Spendell went on to take his Philadelphia hacks to Harrisburg and screw up the state. That will cease as the State House has gone back to Republican and the state Senate has inceased it's R majority. With a new Republican Governor, maybe the Philadelhia crony corruption will fade on the state level anyway. It's a good guess as to whether the city can recover. Taxes and spending are killing it and Mayor Nutty isn' t doing anything about.
Groad| 11.29.10 @ 5:34PM
I forgot to mention how Fast Eddy and his Philly machine got spanked a few years ago on the Legislative pay increase. There was a blood bath politaclly for the Philuffya RINOs and the Democrats when an irate electorate forced a recinding of the pay raises. Fast Eddy tried to dodge any responsibility. It was a turning point before the Tea Party movement caught on, same idea though. DROP in next.
Voter fraud is still rampant. The New Black Panther thing isn't over yet. That will be looked at in the new Congress and Obama and Holter DOJ will have some 'splainin' to do.
Ed| 11.29.10 @ 5:48PM
It is NOT racist to recognize that black inner city neighborhoods are hellholes. It IS racist to attribute the awful state of those neighborhoods to the genetic inferiority of the inhabitants. However, it is NOT racist to recognize that inner city black culture is principally responsible for the plight of those neighborhoods.
Spirit of 1776| 11.30.10 @ 6:34PM
So it's racist to notice that blacks are at the bottom of the human totem pole, huh?
I suppose that makes you a Lysenkoist.
How's that working out for you? There is no end to the idiocy and self-delusion of the Trotskyite Baby Boom generation.
Oy.
Spirit of 1776| 11.30.10 @ 6:38PM
Oh I almost forgot:
While in one of my Penn graduate classes, a (Jewish) high-ranking city official commented with the understanding this was "not for attribution", that "Philadelphia has almost 200 African tribes present within city limits. We count ourselves lucky each day they do not go to war with each other. And yes, I mean 'war'."
Put that in your Soviet-style antiracism pipe and smoke it with that other good stuff you've got.
Clint| 11.29.10 @ 6:06PM
Philadelphia has such potential with a huge open spaced green Fairmount Park, The Boathouse Row, The Schuykyll River Trail to Valley Forge and beyond, Delaware River Front, The Champs Elysees designed Benjamin Franklin Parkway Boulevard, The Sports Complex, The Cultural Centers, The Medical Schools and Universities, etc.
Short sighted Democrat class warfare racial and union politics have interfered with business and gentrification growth.
Kenn| 11.29.10 @ 7:54PM
Take a look at Harrisburg itself to see another PA city going down the tubes........and why. Same voter makeup as Philly.
Spirit of 1776| 11.30.10 @ 6:39PM
Someone should ask a Harrisburg resident, especially a cop or other first responder type, the name of that (ahem) "neighborhood" that is off limits for its trigger happy anarchy.
Cow Rie| 11.29.10 @ 9:49PM
Let's see.... The States of California, Illinois, New York, and cities like Philadelphia, Detroit, LA, New York, Baltimore, & Washington, DC ... all going bankrupt and sucking the life out of America. All of them led by the Democrat Socialists and their Unions, like parasites clinging to the rest of us. Remember 2010 and get ready for the Election War of 2012. Get ready to Fight For America.
led display | 11.29.10 @ 9:58PM
All of them led by the Democrat Socialists and their Unions, like parasites clinging to the rest of us.
ConservativeTeamster| 11.29.10 @ 11:41PM
Years and years of Democrat control. When are people going to wake up? I guess all of the 'older' Dems have to die off . . . you know, the ones who think they are still voting for Roosevelt or Truman. Sadly, many of my own relatives fall into this category. It amazes me just how brainwashed people are. Democrats are for the ;little guy'. Republicans are for the 'rich'. Yea, right! When I ask my older relatives where they stand on social or fiscal issues most of them seem to take a right of center position. However, when they go into the voting booth they vote for the far left. I mean, how could they vote for one of those Republicans? Scary, huh?
Abdallah U Muhammad| 11.30.10 @ 9:27AM
I noticed that one can write a racist article about the city that have large Black populations and mostly Black mayors but fell to write about the cities that are majority white with the same crime and fiscal problems as Philadelphia and Detroit.
White journalist's have always tried to put a Black face on prostitution, drug use and other crimes in this nation and others while overlooking whites who commit the same crimes.
This whole nation has been fiscally mismanaged for generations but one could not get that from your article on Philadelphia.
Stop with the race baiting in your magazine to make sales. You do an disservice to and lower morale of all the Black men and women fighting in wars that have added to to the fiscal problems of this nation.
Spirit of 1776| 11.30.10 @ 6:45PM
First of all, NAME ONE OF THOSE.
Secondly, Ahmed or whatever your name is,
MY PEOPLE INVENTED AMERICA IN 1620 at Plymouth Colony. Yeah, the Mayflower.
They were Anglo-Saxon. They were White. They were Protestant. They were my forefathers and We the People are just like them as we are their children.
And we want it to stay that way.
So if you don't like it -- LEAVE. I don't recall asking you to come here in the first place.
all_me| 11.30.10 @ 10:04AM
This article is bias. It is only talking about all of the negative aspects of Philadelphia. No city is perfect but Philadelphia changed dramatically. Unlike Detroit, Philadelphia experienced its first population increase in sixty years. The Pennsylvania Convention Center, which opens this year and The Barnes Museum, which opens in 2012 will generate thousands of jobs. For the writer is ignorant to compare the crime between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. Philadelphia has a population of 1.5 million, while Pittsburgh has a population of 300,000; off course Philadelphia will have a higher crime rate. The Naval Base is being transformed into a hub for green jobs. Penn State is creating an energy innovation hub there, which will create 1,200 jobs and up to 100,000 jobs in two decades. If you are going to an article about any city, show both the positives and negative.
carnot| 11.30.10 @ 4:47PM
and the airport is really great too!
...not....one of the worst ground control agencies on the E. Coast
Spirit of 1776| 11.30.10 @ 6:47PM
The Barnes Museum, stolen from Lower Merion by an activist judge that simply nullified the clear and unambiguous will of Mr Barnes and his trust.
Typical for the Obama Generation that understands the utility of raw, naked power under the slogan of "yes we can because you don't have the balls to do anything about it."
Modie| 11.30.10 @ 5:08PM
Many of Philadelphia's, and other cities problems, can be traced to the flight of the middle class in the Fifties and Sixties. This flight left the city to the poorest of the poor. Not saying that the poor don't have some responsibility for their situation, but when there was a mix of classes there was more social stability - the middle class provided a standard of behavior and aspiration. What do you look up to when all you see is the lowest level of society. As for corruption, well, before the Demos took control of Philly in the Fifties there was the Republican-controlled sewer that flowed for decades. No party has a monopoly on rectitude. Still, it's time to get someone other than a Demo hack into government, which is what Sam Katz attempted a couple of times. This city deserves leaders with vision, rectitude, and honesty.
Modie| 11.30.10 @ 5:08PM
Many of Philadelphia's, and other cities problems, can be traced to the flight of the middle class in the Fifties and Sixties. This flight left the city to the poorest of the poor. Not saying that the poor don't have some responsibility for their situation, but when there was a mix of classes there was more social stability - the middle class provided a standard of behavior and aspiration. What do you look up to when all you see is the lowest level of society. As for corruption, well, before the Demos took control of Philly in the Fifties there was the Republican-controlled sewer that flowed for decades. No party has a monopoly on rectitude. Still, it's time to get someone other than a Demo hack into government, which is what Sam Katz attempted a couple of times. This city deserves leaders with vision, rectitude, and honesty.
Philadelphia resident| 11.30.10 @ 6:25PM
It is difficult to imagine a more out-of-touch hit job on Philadelphia. This very same article has been written in 1965 and 1978 and 1982 and 1990 and 2003, and always, the writers miss the point of how a city gets by from day to day and year to year.
I'm young, well-educated, and after living in New York City and Washington, DC, I moved to Philadelphia, because I found it to be a beautiful, vibrant, affordable, and exciting place to live. I grew up in the Philadelphia suburbs, and recalling the city in the 1990's and early 2000's, my parents and I have seen large scale changes in the quality of life and the vibrancy of the city as a whole. Entire neighborhoods have been reborn - with private investment and new construction. Unlike Detroit, Philadelphia is no longer shrinking - it has added population since 2000, and this is a key factor in its resurgance.
Biddle seems worried that people will start to move out if things don't change. What? Did he miss the years 1960 through 2000, when 25% of the population fled to the suburbs? This already happened, en masse. Many still move out every year, but - as the numbers now show - a greater number move in. The people in Philadelphia now are choosing to be here, to undertake the serious work of making the city a better place.
Of course, Philadelphia has major problems. The 25% poverty rate is a disgrace, the public schools are ineptly administered, the crime rate is lower than Biddle claims, but still high, and entrenched one-party rule can be blamed for much of the inaction on these pressing issues. Contrary to Biddle's assertions, the state does not assist Philadelphia in meaningful ways. State-funded cosmetic improvements happen here as anywhere, but Harrisburg consistently refuses to give Philadelphia the latitude to address its serious problems.
Mayor Nutter spent over 100 days of his first year in office in Harrisburg, pleading with the state legislature to allow Philadelphia to raise its sales tax by 1% - a move affecting only Philadelphians and overwhelmingly supported by city residents as a way to close the recession-caused budget deficit - but Pennsylvania legislators turned their backs and forced the city to teeter on the brink of financial meltdown. The same legislators refuse to allow Philadelphia to make and enforce its own gun laws, when guns terrorize whole neighborhoods and enable crime as the easiest path to financial gain in poverty-stricken areas. Basking in their self-righteousness, legislators imperil Philadelphia at the cost of their districts and their state.
13% of Pennsylvania's residents live in the city of Philadelphia. We pay for the roads in Somerset County, and the bridges in Williamsport, and as the largest municipality in the state, and 9th largest urban GDP in the world, we deserve the full attention of Harrisburg legislators.
While conservatives love to say that America is exceptional within the world, they cannot acknowledge that Philadelphia - and cities like it - are exceptional within America. When Philadelphia prospers, Pennsylvania prospers.
Despite being isolated from Harrisburg, the city has reinvented itself nonetheless. Biddle should come to my neighborhood in South Philly, before he ominously suggests that resurgence may never occur. Ten years ago, my neighborhood was stangant, with a longstanding Italian-American population aging out gracefully. While real estate crashed in the sunbelt sprawl cathedrals, rowhomes on my modest, tree-lined block have increased in value. The old timers are still here, but they're joined by new immigrants and yuppies. Dogs and strollers abound, and on the corners not already claimed by pasta makers and pasticcerias, hardware stores, new restaurants, tacquerias, and coffeehouses have set up shop. I take the subway to work every day. I eat food from all over the world at a world-class street market. In no small part, this rebirth is a result of the advocacy of a certain state senator who is now in prison. But hey, this isn't Tuscon.
All over the city, in Northern Liberties, Clark Park, Kingsessing, Fairmount, Fishtown, Kensington, Southwark, Queen Village, and Graduate Hospital, the same rebirth is happening. Each hood has better services, amenities, and more taxpayers than it had ten years ago. It needs to happen more. The city needs to cut the wage tax and retool the tax structure for an information economy, but the raw material for renewed life shows through a unique mix of residents, working for a better city. That's Philadelphia in 2010.
RiShawn Biddle should have spent a few days here for real, before leveling the lame Detroit analogy. Even Detroit isn't as bad as Detroit. There is a unique story to be told here - with equal parts promise and pathos.
Spirit of 1776| 11.30.10 @ 6:56PM
You have got to be kidding me.
I was born in South Philadelphia as my father (and my mother father) were ordered there courtesy of the US Navy. They both left as soon as they could arrange it.
My wife, who fancied herself-image much like yours, at that time equally preposterous and delusional, lived a few blocks from the row home of my infancy.
It was lovely. The roaches only come out at night, the drunks from the bars joining them.
Hookers and drug dealers congregate under the I-95 that devastated South Philly for a highway that took twenty years to build.
Gunshots from the projects a few blocks to the west are a nightly occurrence while police helicopters run semi-monthly man-hunts for fleeing felons and worse.
This presumes you survive the drivers to get there, and that your car is not stolen while you sleep, parked three blocks away under said highway.
Oh but there are the String Bands, which honestly are the last gasp for a struggling White lower-middle class to maintain its traditions and heritage in the face of jerks who come there looking for "vibrancy" and "color" at the expense of human beings that actually live there.
Go back to Jersey. Take your vibrancy with you.
Philadelphia resident| 11.30.10 @ 7:25PM
Sorry Spirit, you're way off base.
I come from a white lower-middle class background, and I can tell you, I'm no more or less a "human being" than anyone else. Stop generalizing. I got educated, up and out, into a place where I can pay a decent rent for a nice apartment, and not need to own a car. I watch my back at night, but that's good advice in any city.
It sounds like its been a long time since you lived in Philly. It still gets rougher over by I-95, but my whole point is that much of the neighborhood has changed.
lbphilly| 12.1.10 @ 5:55PM
Spirit, I had no trouble at all riding my bike right through those projects you disparage and attending Emanuel Lutheran Church there. My husband and I moved our aged selves to 20th and Christian in 1996 and never regretted it. We're still here, happily car-free and enjoying the Mummers from the bleachers in front of the Union League. Yes, the city has some systemic and troubling issues but I don't struggle under the weight of an overwhelming feeling of impending doom every day.
Before this city was a Democratic machine town it was a Republican machine town -- I believe the last time there was any real two-party action was in the late 40s / early 50s, and before that it was Mayor Alexander Henry's election in, if memory serves, 1858.
I would have hoped that someone with Mayflower ancestry would have better manners than to disparage a city and its residents so thoroughly. I suspect my family's residence in Philadelphia may be of longer duration than yours -- I have kin buried in Christ Church Cemetery and Fair Hill cemetery, and my great-great grandfather was living at 4th and Moore in the 1850s, earning a living as a dealer in hog bristles.
I do wish people would quit calling my neighborhood Graduate Hospital, though. It's South Philly -- or, more properly, St. Charles Parish.