"World-class museums, cutting-edge galleries, and ubiquitous street murals make this city a trove of creative riches." – New York Magazine
Philadelphia is one of the United States' most historic cities. Home to over 26 museums and countless historical landmarks, it is a cultural center of gravity that only seems insignificant in comparison to New York City in whose close proximity Philadelphia nonetheless thrives.
It has an incredibly vibrant arts district on South Broad street, expanding arts areas in its sprawling suburbs such as, Norristown, and Doylestown. Active theaters, music venues, comedy clubs, art galleries, street murals, concert halls, film festivals, and outdoor craft shows can all be found within and surrounding the city itself. There are open air shopping experiences such as those in Peddler's Village in Bucks County, and even a seasonal Christmas Village that pops up in Center City every winter.
Many treat the Philadelphia art and entertainment scene as a staging ground for entrance into New York's more prominent one, and to some extent this is true. Comedians workshop here, artists find residencies here, and hip hop artists from DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince to Meek Mill consider Philadelphia to be their point of origin, if not their home. It's a simmering stew of cultural and artistic influences from around the world, creating a unique crucible for creation of one's art and one's reputation.
"Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn." – Benjamin Franklin
The city and county of Philadelphia is home to an astonishing 115 colleges and universities, 300 public schools, and nearly 100 charter schools. This isn't counting the 60 catholic schools among the 235 private schools within the city limits. Taken altogether, Philadelphia's education infrastructure is some of the most impressive in the nation. It gets high ranks for its college programs and poor ones for its public schools. Its charter schools march in lock step with the strides of most of the city schools, only they do it without providing services to disabled students or those who speak English as a second language. For a city founded in part on the value of a good education, the test scores and outcomes across the whole of Philadelphia's public schools make it clear that is a value that only the affluent are permitted to cherish.
The universities in the region produce breakthrough technologies in medicine and chemical science, provide leading archaeologists to digs across the world, send attorneys to New York law firms and artists and performers to LA Soundstages. Drexel churns out the business leaders of the future, while Temple fills the regions hospitals with residents and nurses.
By gaining access and control in education, you open doors in the halls of government, win the focus of a hungry lens from the media, and tap the libraries and archives filled with stored knowledge and the laboratory resources of hundred million dollar science programs. The competition for grant money is fierce, tenure is hard to come by, and column inches in the journals of academia are bought with the future careers of the people you are beating to publication.
"Not only are there regular reminders that ethics are a forgotten art in Philadelphia, but the side effects of rampant waste, fraud and abuse are impacting the lives of working-class Philadelphians each day." – A. Benjamin Mannes, The Hill
The truth of the matter is that the City of Philadelphia is so deeply entrenched with the Democratic Party that it's nearly impossible for a Republican or independent to win a district seat on the city council, and there hasn't been a Republican mayor since the signing of the Home Rule Charter in 1952. Two At Large seats are reserved for minority party or independent candidates, and one of those is currently held by the Working Families Party. The consequence of this one party rule has been predictable. Decades of waste and corruption have resulted as city contractors receive sweetheart deals and no-bid contracts while the trade unions and developers cozy up to familiar politicians, bankrolling their campaigns and pet projects in exchange for access, concessions, and contracts.
Despite having one of the highest per capita tax burdens in the nation, Philadelphia's public pensions are facing a $5.3bn shortfall. And with money pouring in from federal, state, and municipal government the Sheriff's Department of Philadelphia somehow managed to "misplace" over $53 million dollars. The streets are a shambles, bridges are crumbling, the city's parks are deteriorating rapidly, and despite politician after politician, union leader after union leader, cop after cop being caught, outed, prosecuted, and punished? There is always a successor in line waiting to fill the void and exploit the power it offers them.
A movement is rising within the city's working class, however. Groups like Philly Socialists, the Working Families Party, Black Lives Matter Philly, and the Philadelphia Tenants Union have rallied behind candidates outside of the political mainstream, seeking to deliver urgently needed change to city hall.
"The city of Philadelphia is all about the underdog." – Zach Ertz, Philadelphia Eagle
The old money in Philadelphia has more or less always existed along the Main Line, so named for the name of the railroad trunk that used to pass through it. Commuter rail still passes through the northwestern regions and suburbs of Philadelphia, although the locals refer to it interchangeably as the R5 or the Paoli-Thorndale line. The Gilded Age of the 1880s to the 1920s was the peak of prestige for the Main Line. Townships like Radnor, Wayne, Merion, Haverford, and Devon sprung up around the palatial country estates of Philadelphia's wealthy elites. Those days are long since gone, and the upper-middle class has filled itself in around the ever shrinking lots of the old mansions still occupied by the truly wealthy, but it remains an undeniable truth that the Main Line is where the wealthy and powerful of the region live and play. Money and power pour into this part of the region and rarely, if ever, flow back out again. The poor and the powerless may only catch a glimpse of these places through the frosted window of a SEPTA train, or when they show up to clean the toilets of the people that live there. And the residents are happy with that arrangement.
High Society in Philadelphia is quite subjective. The old money families with names like DuPont, Widener, and Lenfest still live at the gleaming tip of the diamond, admired for their history and achievements as much as their contemporary fortunes and influence. Yet the newly wealthy and powerful continue to make names for themselves, establishing their own nascent dynasties in technology, media, and the arts. The cosmopolitan nature of the city ensures that class is the true factor in these social circles. Race and religion are of vanishing importance where the solidarity of the wealthy is concerned. Wealth and its utility eclipse all other concerns. And in a town where whole hospitals can bear the name of a wealthy founder, vanity and charity are frequent bedfellows.
Are you old blood or new money? Do you wish to share your prosperity or build a higher wall around your country club? Or is your goal buying enough politicians and police officers to tear down the walls of someone else's and absorb their influence for your own? It's all there for the taking now. The Gilded Age has ended. And we're making America Great Again.
The Philadelphia Media Market is not limited to Philadelphia, nor even to Pennsylvania. It stretches as far north as the edge of the Lehigh Valley, east across the Delaware encompassing much of South Jersey, south to the edge of Wilmington, and west to the fringes of Amish country. It reaches the eyes and ears of millions in eastern Pennsylvania, Delaware, and southern New Jersey. It influences politics and elections in three states, and reports on topics vital to the local economy and politics. As with much in Philadelphia, it is compared unfavorably to New York City's media market, and is thought to lack the political impact of the DC media market. But in that comes a measure of freedom. The lack of national scrutiny and the enormous audience make it an excellent test market for new ideas, for better or for worse.
It is home to four major newspapers and countless smaller journals and imprints. There are dozens of terrestrial broadcast stations in reach of its homes. Endless local journals, small town papers, trade magazines, and cable stations clutter the airwaves and news paper racks of local gas stations. It's a constant battle for the attention of the public, most of whom just want to watch the game on Sunday.
"Hospitals will quote prices for parking, not procedures." – The Chicago Tribune
There are over 30 hospitals in Philadelphia proper, excluding entirely the satellite hospitals in the suburbs of Montgomery and Bucks counties. Most of these are owned by one of the large health care corporations which dominate the region. Many are operated on behalf of various religious groups, and still more are operated under the auspices of one of the many local universities. Health Care is big business in the Philadelphia region with companies like Merck and Johnson & Johnson developing drugs in the suburbs, and sprawling health care companies snatching up hospitals across the region in order to 'streamline care' which is typically corporate speak for maximizing profits.
Several universities in the region feature teaching and research hospitals where cutting edge procedures and technologies are being developed, and the city itself is home to the first hospital in the country dedicated solely to the care of children at the now famous Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. Overall, the quality of care is quite exceptional on an in-patient basis, while out-patient care and Emergency Room care are subject to all the ills of the US healthcare system. Long waits, mistreatment by doctors and staff, and poor outcomes.
People across the region need care and cannot afford it. This leads to forestalled treatment that makes chronic conditions into acute episodes, clogging the emergency rooms and leading to shoddy health outcomes, mounting medical debts, and loss of revenue for the hospitals themselves. In short, Philadelphia's health care infrastructure is symptomatic of the national need for immediate and profound health care reform.
