“Philadelphia's downtown residential population continues to grow during a year that has seen positive net openings of restaurants and retailers in Center City.Philadelphia's downtown population is the third largest in the U.S.

The report details that in October 2022, Center City residents were at 119% of the October 2019 population. Daily pedestrian foot traffic achieved three-quarters of pre-pandemic levels.”

But…but…people are leaving the city in droves because it’s so filthy and dangerous!! 🙄

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I’m really glad our retail is up. Having said that… market street is still sketchy AF at night.

We are talking about Center City here, not "the city". Rittenhouse is not Fairmount or Strawberry Breeze... yet.

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I would like a Strawberry 🍓 Breeze 🥤

I'm still missing several lunch spots that closed during the pandemic. I haven't seen many restaurants (especially quick service options) opening up.

It's not exactly not sketchy during the day too. Definitely some characters walking around at all times.

That said, I've never felt unsafe, but do have to pay attention more than like... 5 years ago.

I had to wait for a friend who worked at 8th and market and I said I’ll hang around nearby outside. It was at 5:30pm on a weeknight and I could tell you that I don’t blame anyone for not stopping and lingering and just going to their final destination. You could add all the electronic billboards you want but the crowd you want isn’t hanging around when it gets dark

I'm actually surprised people feel this way. It's usually quite busy when I'm over there, and when I lived at 13th and Chestnut I walked around East Market at night pretty often with no problems. The worst part I noticed was people hanging outside of the (now closed) Wawa. My errands never took me past like 10th and Market though.

Market Street was always kind of a dead zone at night.

Office occupancy is still around 1/2 of what it was pre-covid, so that definitely is a major reason, despite the fact that the population of CC has grown

I just wish more things were open at night. Nothing worse than going out and the only things open are bars.

Can i drink one in Point Mansion?

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Retailers wouldn't have a hard time finding employees if they paid them and didn't have skeleton crews.

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We’re very fortunate to have a dense urban residential core here. That population has been great for keeping local businesses open during and after the pandemic. Most US cities have core areas that are mostly commercial/office space. Those cities have seen catastrophic levels of business closures. Hartford, Dallas, Houston, Jacksonville, Columbus, to name a few. While many like to bitch and moan about how awful Philadelphia is, all of us (actual) residents should be thrilled with how well our city has navigated the effects of the pandemic. All those residential towers are still being built, even with economic uncertainty for a reason. People want to live in Center City, regardless of what the media and social media would like you to believe.

Fuck Dallas

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Lmao you clearly haven’t been to Fairmount recently, it’s bustling and more dense than ever. They’re putting up new apartments wherever they can.

Also do you mean point breeze or strawberry mansion?

Curious what defines "downtown". I assume #1 and #2 are NY and Chicago... but either way good news!

This is good news. Now let's get South Street and Fairmount back to life!

I combined those for humour.

I get a lot of confirmed alerts on the Ring app coming from those three, and Fairmount started sticking out recently, because I did not expect it to be ripe with random attacks (like the one on that dude who was walking to a show at UT and got jumped and almost killed) and gun related crime at that rate.

And I don't think I got a single one of those from where I am at in 19103, so I'ma go ahead and stay put.

Yea, we’re not exactly NYC where people leave the office around 7-8pm. It’s better than it used to be with the new apartments that have been added in the last 5-7 years. Should get even better as additional apartments go up.

It’ll be better once the Sixers build their arena there.

People probably are, just even more people are moving in!

has market ever been anything but dead at night?

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yeah, that's not why I live in a city. Part of the reason I live here is because things should be open later.

I’d move to CC if I could afford more than a 300/sf studio. It’s around what it costs me for a 4 bedroom 1700/sf home in Frankford. I get the appeal of living in CC but the cost is just way too high.

Since covid, there's a weird area which is a really dead zone between 7th and 10th, market to chestnut. It's just... odd. I understand it feeling weird, but not really unsafe.

It's annoying but I wish there were more stores similar to KoP mall there. I get why there isn't yet but it could be that good.

For real, it’s easier to find late night food options in suburban New Jersey than it is in the city these days.

I was waiting for my wife and saw a guy randomly grab a woman and slam her violently into the side of the building. Cops came and it took 4-5 officers to wrestle him into the back of the squad car.

This is kind of a core centric view.

I think most of the complaints about Philadelphia involve things happening outside center city.

For people who live and work in center city, it’s a pretty good place. To them, Center City is Philadelphia (plus a handful of other neighborhoods).

So you get a lot of “uggh, Philly crime is nuts!” met with “what?! center city is pretty good! That’s just ignorable stuff in the bad areas!” They just hand wave away about 60-75% of the geographic area that constitutes the city Philadelphia.

Those people typically don’t talk much about what’s happening in Frankford, Juniata, Olney, Carroll Park, elmwood park, or dozens of other neighborhoods they don’t personally go to. And there’s a lot of commercial arteries in those areas that are really not doing well, including spots along the subway/El that should be flourishing, but are instead some of the worst places in the entire country by any metric.

On the flip side, to use one your example cities, Dallas’s downtown has always been a cultural dead zone because, as you say, it’s not a residential area.

From a cultural perspective, how downtown Dallas is doing doesn’t matter much. The culturally relevant parts are Uptown, Knox Henderson, Oaklawn, Bishop Arts, Lower Greenville, etc.

From a govt tax revenue perspective it probably matters but in terms of where you live, eat, shop, and go out for the night, not really.

Philly’s core is great. It’s issue is that 2/3 of the non-core are some of the worst parts of the entire country.

Dallas is the opposite. It’s downtown sucks. But it’s got a lot of other great areas in the surrounding parts of the city full of great food, good shops, and fun bars.

But there’s a type of urbanist who immensely discounts and disregards all but the densest parts of a city. So Dallas sucks because downtown sucks. All it’s other cool neighborhoods are dismissed because they don’t have the desired density or walkability. They’re not “a real city” so they don’t count in comparisons.

And when you do that, you’re using a question that makes sense for one city and imposing it on others where it’s not really the right question.

But if you look at it from a more holistic view of the entire city, or even a comparison of the culturally important parts of the city, maybe the answer changes.

That is, the affluent Urbanite in Philly cares a lot about Downtown, and probably never goes to uptown. How Downtown is doing is all that matters.

The affluent urbanite in Dallas cares about Uptown and doesn’t care as much about Downtown.

And as a result, when you limit the scope of the question to just the “core” you’re kind of rigging the game. It’s a trick that writes off all the problematic areas of Philly, while only retaining its strength that also writes off the good parts of other cities while only retaining what’s often their weakest part.

Fuck Dallas

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