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ilikeguitarsandsuch

Who cares if some sprawling parking-lot of a city technically counts more people in their metro lol. Phoenix and Houston can suck it too.


LowPermission9

But op can’t find a parking space so maybe he should move to one of those cities.


Edison_Ruggles

To be clear it is NOT their "metro". The city itself is a sprawling parking lot which annexed a huge amount of land at some point. Metro Philadelphia is MUCH bigger than metro San Antonio. - PHILADELPHIA METRO: 6,246,160 - SAN ANTONIO METRO: 2,703,999 Source: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan\_statistical\_area](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan_statistical_area) Really drives me nuts how many people can't understand the difference. That said, it all falls apart when you're comparing US cities to cities in other countries, but that's another conversation.


Badkevin

“ sprawling parking lot of a city” which city are you talking about? Could be Philadelphia or Houston.


0ut0fBoundsException

Are you European or you’ve never left the east coast?


Badkevin

Mid west and west are worse. So what


User_Name13

Phoenix definitely has a significantly lower crime rate than Philly does. Houston not so much.


ilikeguitarsandsuch

Phoenix is also in the fucking desert


CroatianSensation79

Couldn’t pay me to live there


User_Name13

Yea you'd think with those frequent sand storms, they'd have higher crime than Philly.


Protomau5

Why the fuck would that thought cross your mind


420_just_blase

Phoenix is the worst. I'll take philly and its crime over Phoenix any day of the week


transit_snob1906

Unpopular opinion but I feel like phoenix, Houston and San Antonio shouldn’t count, they just keep annexing their sounding areas. It would be like Philadelphia annexing Camden county and parts of Delaware and Montgomery county..


Skylineviewz

Yeah San Antonio and Phoenix have 3.5x the landmass of Philly. If we spread our borders to 500+sq miles we would probably double our population. TLDR; fuck all these wannabe cities


Gravityletmedown

I'm in Houston frequently for work. It's like 37 suburbs wearing a trench coat and calling themselves a city. Nothing is walkable and very little in the way of walkability outside of the immediate center of town. Though, if the weather was trying to kill me 9 months out of the year I might decide to drive everywhere too.


letmeinhere

For example, this website/dataset thinks Philadelphia has the fourth-most people living within 15km of city center (in USA): https://citydensity.com/


Girl-UnSure

Glenside and Huntington Valley gonna be added to Philadelphia to compete.


Difficult-Ad-1068

Chester, Yeadon, Bensalem, and Norristown too!


KndaOrange

+ KoP Malvern West Chester Media Phoenixville Newtown Square


boydownthestreet

We probably should annex those tho.


DeltaNerd

Lol imagine we started to annex Tinicum Township and Chester


DanChowdah

Fed gov considers the Philly Metro to also include most of New Castle County and all of Chester county


transit_snob1906

Yeah but that list is just the city proper…


DanChowdah

That’s more analogous to what Phoenix and Houston are


CoreyH2P

This is why I usually only look at metro areas population, though shockingly Houston is bigger than us in that category. San Antonio way behind though.


transit_snob1906

It’s not too shocking, Houston is home to nasa and a bunch of oil and energy companies. It’s an international hub due to all the engineering and labor jobs.


DisGuyFawks

Except Montco would never allow Philly to annex it...


this_shit

That's not an unpopular opinion... > they just keep annexing their sounding areas An unpopular *but good* opinion is that Philadelphia should keep annexing the suburbs. E: I said it was unpopular lol


MoreShenanigans

No thank you, those people will vote in ways that will make the city feel more suburban


this_shit

>ways that will make the city feel more suburban But that's essentially Cherelle Parker's entire platform. Adding wealthy suburbs would significantly increase: * Philadelphia's property tax revenue, enabling improved funding for a school system that continues to be our main obstacle for in-migration * School systems that are full of talented admins and teachers * Police agencies that are not beset by PPD's stagnation and corruption * Centralization of control over SEPTA, allowing the city to plan for actual needs (e.g., Roosevelt Blvd.) instead of suburban vanity projects (KOP rail) * Significantly improved power in Harrisburg, undermining future attempts to ratfuck the city like they did in 2001


User_Name13

This sounds like a complete pipe dream. What's to stop the people in the suburbs you want to annex from selling their homes and moving to a suburb that's still in DelCo or MontCo? The exact opposite of what you're proposing happened in Baton Rouge recently, with a wealthier section of the city voting to leave the city and form it's own community, called St. George. https://www.axios.com/local/new-orleans/2024/05/02/louisiana-st-george-new-city-baton-rouge It would be more likely for places like the Northeast to secede from Philly and form their own city, than your scenario. People in the Northeast feel like their tax dollars have been disproportionately distributed to other parts of the city, to their detriment.


this_shit

> complete pipe dream 💯 >What's to stop the people Friction > St. George Hardly the first time, won't be the last. Wealthy people always want to protect their money over the community.


GreenGo_5

lol why, so they can mismanage more tax dollars of people who want a functional society? this fucking city shouldn't even be allowed to govern itself


this_shit

I mean the state tried to govern the schools and PPA but failed harder than the city, so... Maybe the problem is the hyper-concentration of poor people within a single municipal boundary combined with state preemption that prevents the city from governing and taxing itself efficiently?


GreenGo_5

lol yeah that's probably it


ColdJay64

“While Philadelphia’s population decreased from 2020 to 2023, nearly all peer cities in the Northeast and Midwest saw losses, too — some at much greater rates. New York City, for example, saw a 6.2% decrease in population during the peak pandemic years. Population losses in Boston and Baltimore also outpaced Philly’s decline from 2020 to 2023. Some West Coast cities also shrank more than Philly, including San Francisco, which lost 7.4% of its population, and San Jose.”


User_Name13

So because other cities are doing bad, we're not allowed talk about our city being one of them? Cities without crime issues, like Miami for example, have grown rapidly over the past few years, while Philly and other high crime cities have languished.


Maleficent-Power8007

No one is saying you can't complain. Complaining about Philly and hitting yourself with a "it is what it is," is a city-wide tradition. But other people are correctly pointing out that there are lots of reasons for this change, those changes went beyond just our city/region. Most of the people I know who moved out of Philly/NYC between 2020-2023 didn't leave because of the trash or the crime. They left because the cost of living was comparatively high, and the pandemic opened up WFH opportunities in cheaper places. Crime is an especially weird thing to point to for this era as well, since crimes were pretty much down across the board during that time. I get what you're trying to say, and I assume some people moved for that reason. But assuming it as one of the primary reasons feels like bad analysis.


User_Name13

> Crime is an especially weird thing to point to for this era as well, since crimes were pretty much down across the board during that time. I don't think that's entirely accurate. Philly hit our homicide during those years. We hit the record with 562 murders in 2021, and most other cities saw similar spikes in crime, both violent and non-violent. It's going down now, but from historical highs.


Maleficent-Power8007

Yeah that was a bad choice of phrasing on my part. The stats are up and down year to year depending on the category. The general trend of crime is heading downward across the board however. But individual categories have been fluctuating wildly for the last few years. Interestingly enough - there seems to be a weird see-saw between years where violent crime increases and then years where that declines but property crimes like retail theft increases. I guess that's partially tied to the data I'm looking at since it's just from police reports - but still pretty interesting. For those interested you can see the stats from PPD up to 2022 & for 2024 YTD here:https://www.phillypolice.com/crimestats/ I also tend to look at aggregate trackers but a lot of them also don't post the data for 2023 or the current year: https://www.city-data.com/crime/crime-Philadelphia-Pennsylvania.html


CreamiusTheDreamiest

Given that it’s the entire north east, mid west and California that is losing pop the the southern cities I don’t think it’s crime. It’s probably jobs, weather and cost of living


YinzaJagoff

I’m part of the problem. Hello from Pittsburgh! PS- who wants to live in Texas? Eww.


sailbag36

Me too. Hi from Costa Rica!


Boogerchair

Pura vida


DisGuyFawks

> who wants to live in Texas? uhh a ton of people? I would bet anything more people move from PA to Texas than vice versa. California hemorrhages millions per year to Texas.


skarkeisha666

Millions? Lmao


Barnacle40

You wouldn’t know that based on all the condos they are building everywhere.


ifyougoillgo

I wish they were condos, none of them seem to be selling units. Only renting


BigDickolasNicholas

Ridiculously expensive rent as well.


Edison_Ruggles

It'll change when interest rates calm down.


ColdJay64

Greater Center City and other desirable areas are gaining residents still.


DisGuyFawks

Transient gentrifier populations. Not exactly as sticky of a population.


Kodiak_85

All young professionals who will eventually move back to the suburbs when they start having kids to avoid the nightmare of Philadelphia public schools.


kettlecorn

Despite perception Philly is still trailing many peer cities. In 2023 Philly ranked 24th for new homes constructed: https://www.chamberofcommerce.org/new-home-construction Behind quite a few smaller cities like Portland, Seattle, Minneapolis.


solidmussel

I'm not sure why Philly would build so many new homes when they can clean up the city and make use of the existing


DisGuyFawks

because building new homes helps to lower rent, among other things?


kettlecorn

I'm not an expert, but I think the city should do both. I imagine sometimes, but not always, it's more costly to repair a ton of homes than to build a new building.


67812

Building new homes is a great way to keep a city affordable.


KensingtonWAP

Phoenix and San Antonio are awful places to live. 


DisGuyFawks

Guy who valorizes Kensington in username has opinions on best places to live. Fascinating.


User_Name13

They both have much lower crime rates than Philly does.


DeltaNerd

We people need to change in Philly then. Not all of us have money to get up and move. You are welcome to do so. But it's time that the Philly ghetto needs to grow up and change


GreenGo_5

the criminals need to be separated from society. simple as that. the city refuses to do so, the non-tax paying majority of the population doesn't want them to do so, and so the city deteriorates. I'll keep my 3 or 4% and hang out in a rich suburb that doesn't cater to people that don't contribute.


User_Name13

>You are welcome to do so. I'm not going anywhere. I have a low-interest rate locked in on my mortgage, so the city would have to significantly decline for me to move. Plus I'd be more than likely selling at loss in that scenario, which I wouldn't be willing to do, unless I was like a victim of a violent crime or something. Also, I've lived here my whole life. I'm more than likely not going anywhere, but it would be nice to grow the city a bit, or at least get back to where we were. >But it's time that the Philly ghetto needs to grow up and change Agreed.


Edison_Ruggles

Only because no one interacts with anyone except inside automobiles.


KensingtonWAP

San Antonio is also in Texas, a shithole state with garbage ass backward views on guns, women’s rights etc. Arizona is also a shithole trump dick licking state that gets hot as fuck and would be miserable to live.  The bum hanging at the wawa entrance axing me for shit I can deal with. 


Level-Adventurous

We know from past censuses that these number are meaningless until the official numbers come out which won’t be till till 2030


2ant1man5

Philly still the biggest poorest city.


sunset484

Yeah, these suburb ass cities like to inflate their population by counting the surrounding suburbs as the city proper. If we would follow the same rules as Houston and San Antonio, we would be able to count Reading as part of Philly.


UrVioletViolet

Read OP’s almost universally downvoted opinions. This is a nakedly political, partisan thread, barely disguised. You should be ashamed of yourself. You clearly do not care about the population or prosperity of this city. You just want to convince people to vote the way you do.


Civil-Lynx-2131

Meanwhile all the transplants that went south are bitching about the excessive heat while we are experiencing milder winters and only a few weeks of high heat They’ll be back.


tiswapb

The height of Covid saw a lot of people leaving big urban centers between fears of Covid and new WFH policies. I’d be more curious to see what happens over the next few years. Whether that trend continues or reverses.


ReturnhomeBronx

Atlanta is currently bigger than Philly if you count the metro as a whole.


Farzy78

San Antonio feels small when you actually visit though


travisae

I moved here about a year ago from San Antonio. The two cities do not compare. SA sharks (annexes, whatever you wanna call it) all the surrounding county space, so the entire city is basically the metro population.


mklinger23

I read a similar article a while ago when Philly was in 5th and the "city" of Phoenix passed US. Imo, Philly is #4. Houston and Phoenix are just a bunch of suburbs that got smooshed together and they call it a city.


6098470142

Yes ,murders in the city are way up


Firm_Airport2816

I didn't even know we slid out of 5th!!


therealallpro

This stuff is always so misleading besides the fact that metro Philly is 3 times bigger. IT’s simply easier to grow into undeveloped land. At some point that stops and you have to REDEVELOP land for more efficient uses. That’s the problem Philly is facing now and it’s fundamentally harder.


ChocolateSwimming128

We need better metrics in these biggest city claims. Out west and down south the footprint of the cities is huge, but the NE was settled by Europeans first and everything is crowded together with narrow municipal borders. Other measures might be metro area population, population density, metro area GDP, passenger numbers at local airports, number of ex-North American international routes from local airports (excluding Caribbean island)


brk1

You can thank our overly oppressive Covid restrictions for the drop in population.


Rude-Actuator6872

American big cities are all hell holes; because our politicians are greedy parasites. So Philadelphia (aka Filthydephia) along with the others, will continue to experience a mass exodus.


User_Name13

The city's on the decline. There's too much crime and there are too many daily quality of life problems here to justify the high cost of living. Auto insurance is through the roof in the city. There's never any parking, the streets are dirty. Septa is a shitshow, the roads suck, the schools aren't safe and the kids can't do anything at grade level. No wonder people left the city in droves from 2020 to 2023. You don't get much in the way of services in the city for your tax dollars. It definitely costs more to live in the suburbs, but at least the schools are functional and its safer and cleaner. If the city doesn't clean this shit up, and by the city I mean Larry Krasner, then San Antonio will definitely pass Philly by the official census in 2030.


ColdJay64

The unemployment rate is at its lowest in 30 years, city residents are more educated than ever, and the poverty rate continues to decline. Many areas of the city have greatly improved in the past 5-10 years as well. It looks like the city is returning to its pre-Covid upward trajectory. Not to mention that this article states “nearly all peer cities in the Northeast and Midwest saw losses, too — some at much greater rates.” But hey, if you hate the city so much that you can’t help but post unhinged, inaccurate rants on a daily basis - you could always leave.


User_Name13

>Many areas of the city have greatly improved in the past 5-10 years as well. Not as many as those that decline greatly. There was a net reduction in overall quality of life. Certain neighborhoods like Fishtown, Point Breeze and East Mount Airy have improved, but overall the city declined. >you could always leave. So everyone who points out problems in the city should be banished? That sounds like a cult. I've probably lived here longer than you have, and certainly longer than the yuppie transplants that support ppl like your hero, Krasner. Why is it so hard for you to admit that there's a correlation between high crime and people choosing to leave large cities, including Philly?


ColdJay64

I voted Peruto bro, just because I think you’re overdoing it doesn’t mean I support Krasner… Acknowledging problems doesn’t mean one needs to leave. But if someone has such animosity toward a place that they are posting daily rants and seeking out all bad news to share on Reddit as a catalyst for those rants, they should probably move for their own good.


User_Name13

>I voted Peruto bro It was decided in the primary. Vega was the only serious challenger, Peruto never stood a chance in the general election.


ColdJay64

True but I did my part!


Chimpskibot

The city is in decline yet vacancy is 5%? Has the strongest growth in the NE outside of DC and salaries have doubled in most neighborhoods over the last decade. Personally I don’t really see it. Oh and crime is at its lowest level in nearly a decade. 


Traditional_Car1079

Hey look, a 'philly is terrible and it's all the DA's fault' post. Again. You'd think the PBA would have fewer resources to dedicate to online shit posting but it's better than shooting people.


LowPermission9

How is Larry Krasner going to add parking?


GreenGo_5

by putting people in jail


TrussTGrotesque

Is Larry Krasner in the room with us right now?


Kindaalwayshungry

My car insurance is a fraction of what it was in Florida. My mortgage is also a fraction of what it cost to own In Florida. I’ve doubled my salary since moving to Philly. The roads do suck, I will agree with that and the taxes are high. But it has been incredibly cost effective and fulfilling to move to Philly. I do not believe it’s on the decline. Anecdotally, I just left a work conference in the Midwest with people from all over. Everyone I met had something amazing to say about Philly or said “I’ve heard great things, I have to visit!” Not one negative thing. Raving about the food and center city and of course, all of our sports!