>>1326889>125 KB JPG>Can anyone explain why this city went to shit? >It seemed to have a lot going for it.We're on an upswing, but we're fucking poor, man. I think we have the largest percentage of people living below the poverty line in any major city.
Philly used to work because it was a very blue collar city. Most of the people here still are. There isn't much in Philly's downtown like you'd see in Chicago or NYC. No big banks, no true shopping district, nothing that's inherently the "nice part" or the rich area. Comcast is our biggest employer and I'd wager union jobs are second.
That glut of union workers was well-compensated and mostly of boomer age. They're retiring, but their kids by and large took their place, and they were paid well, too. Then their grandkids, millennials, went to college despite being rock fucking stupid dirtballs. I've met these people. They were better off roofing and hanging windows. But now they're saddled with debt and no job. In turn, the Chinese are buying up property like crazy and then renting it.
They're banking on the city's revival, as Fishtown is now full of college kids under mom and dad's bankroll and hipsters.
Philly works in the exact reverse of every other fucking city in that we live in the city and work in the suburbs for some reason.
I'm really tired and a little high, and this was all going to be tied together somehow, but I need to give it up. I'll flesh it out later if I remember to.
But I will say that the city isn't bad. I'm a transplant of 3 years from the sticks, and I've only felt unsafe/uneasy twice in the city. That was after walking up several blocks further than I knew I should have in North Philly, and getting off the el at midnight with a drunk girl friend in Kensington.
