Fyi: I moved to the burbs after almost a decade in the city. The final straw what having a bomb go off and shake my whole house in the middle of the night during the riots. Also right before lock down I got jumped on the el for no reason from which I still have unhealed injuries. So please just keep your self righteousness to yourself.

Also here’s another great example of violent felons not ‘getting decades upstate’ after pleading guilting to horrendous crimes: https://www.inquirer.com/news/philadelphia-district-attorney-larry-krasner-us-attorney-william-mcswain-feds-charge-ak-gunman-20190228.html

My pessimistic sentiment is based in reality. Really wish I could live in your delusion though. Probably more pleasant to be that far out of reality.

This asshat beat a man to death with a traffic cone for fun and was let out to roam the streets without even notifying the family of the victim: https://www.fox29.com/news/family-elderly-man-traffic-cone-beating-james-lambert-blindsided-teen-suspect-posted-bail

For fact base news any of the local major network affiliates. For op ed and investigative reporting I would say WHYY. Some of the more topic specific sources like Philadelphia Business journal are also good.

Absolutely. Make a dedicate protected lane and run buses every 10 minutes. Spend the extra money building better pedestrian infrastructure to get to the busses. Maybe pedestrian bridges over the road at the busiest intersections.

Yes, but The number of PPD arrest for all shootings has gone up significantly since 2015 but can’t keep pace with the even more rapid rise in violent crime. This isn’t surprising since the number of officers and manpower has not corresponded with the increase in violent crime. But Philly has also seen a large increase in dropped and/or failed prosecutions of the apprehended criminals. This is especially true for VUFA (gun possession charges). By 2020 almost 50% of gun possession charges were dropped by the DA leaving these criminals who are know to have illegal guns back out in the street to shoot and kill people. Also throw in that the DA’s office lost a really big chunk of their experiences lawyers under the kras (both by direct removal and voluntary resignation) and so you have baby lawyers prosecuting violent felonies who are way in over their heads and out matched to the seasoned defense attorneys. Also lawyers don’t want to go work there now because they know it’s a shot show that won’t benefit their careers.

I agree that there is a lot of nuance in these statistics and the causes of them can be argued from many angles, BUT it all adds up to the fact that a violent criminal in Philly more than likely won’t face significant penalties for their crimes.

Source of statistics: https://controller.phila.gov/philadelphia-audits/data-release-gun-violence-trends/

Lawyer loss: https://www.law.com/thelegalintelligencer/2021/12/07/phila-das-office-lost-over-130-staff-in-2021-records-show/

https://6abc.com/amp/philadelphia-news-district-attorney-larry-krasner-prosecutors-fired/2867602/

That makes sense.

No. They are garbage news. Use one of the work arounds to access the articles and give your money to better news sources.

I would like to know what busses you are taking because while they are better than the el there is definitely still a lot urine and crazies.

Spoiler alert: They won’t.

Evictions can get real ugly real fast. I’ve had the displeasure of attending several evictions, like this is the day you are dragged out by the sheriff’s office and your stuff moved to storage evictions. They can get really scary really quick. The officers who do this work tend to be some of the most even tempered with nerves of steel folks I’ve ever encountered. They also tend to give people a lot of opportunity to do the right thing before any escalation takes place. I’m not saying this particular office did the right thing here since we don’t know the full story. Rather I’m saying I couldn’t hack it one day doing that job and I’m glad these folks are willing to do it!

Tommy Up was well known to be a slime ball in every way.

Also he Didn’t pay his bills: https://www.phillymag.com/foobooz/2017/05/05/tommy-up-yachtsman-bankruptcy/

He even asked for donations to open up his for profit business in the first place which pissed off a lot of people: https://www.phillymag.com/foobooz/2014/04/22/fishtown-tiki-bar-the-yachtsman-kickstarter-tommy-up-pyt/

That being said I had lots of fun at the Yachtsman back in the day. If it had been run better and made it to current levels of Fishtown gentrification it would be all the rage.

RIP The Yatchtsman. If only you weren’t run by a total scumbag you may have still been with up. ::sigh::

Does anyone remember the pop up tiki bar incident in Fishtown where some a-hole tried to open a ‘private club’ tiki bar in her residential home. That was some hilarious shit!

I lived in Fishtown and port Richmond for a little over 6 years. During that time I had the H stolen off my Honda (WTF?), a woman who was high as a kite slam into the back of my car at a red light (unlicesened and uninsured so that was on my dime), a hit and run that smashed up the side of my car parked in front of my house (I found the MFer and made them cover the cost but it took a ton of my own time and effort), windows keyed, and, yea I know it’s minor but, someone kept stealing my dam tire valve caps! I also had a woman try to pry my window open at a Dunkin’ Donuts because I honked at her when she was about to crash into me. No obvious damage from that one but the window never quite worked right after that. So yeah… that’s why your insurance is high in fishtown. When I moved to the burbs my insurance went down by almost half.

https://www.fox29.com/news/police-investigating-morning-shooting-in-nicetown-neighborhood

Back in the day when I changed my registration from center city to Fishtown my rates doubled and that was just an intra city move. The explanation I was given is that Fishtown has high theft rates and also high rates at damage to cars. Lots of uninsured accidents too.

Call a broker. Have them shop for you. I wound up switching and only having about a 30% increase instead of a 100% increase.

Note: you are also likely going to get walloped with your homeowners insurance next renew since there are going to be major increases across the board. Shop around.

There is a Train store in Broomall.

Looks like the headline changed after the article was posted

It’s super regressive and drives business and middle, upper middle, and wealthy taxpayers out of the city. The city’s problems are aren’t going to get fixed until it’s wage taxes and business taxes are in line with the suburban business hubs it competes with.

If you are paying for private school and you don’t have to live in the city (like as a job requirement) it doesn’t make financial sense to stay in the city. Tuition at Roman Catholic is over $10k a year for one student. My property taxes in Delco for a 3k sq ft house on a quarter acre is less than that and have access to a top tier public school. And don’t pay any wage taxes. Why would you stay and pay more for less?

It’s honestly amazing that an administration that took over after a known habitual sexual harasser is somehow even more ethically fucked in. Ugg

I would hypothesize that a good number of the type of families who would previously be fighting for those charter spots just said fuck it during covid and moved to the burbs where their kids were garunteed to get a good education and not have to hope and pray that they were chosen in a lottery.

Remote work unchained a lot of middle class professionals from city life and many took advantage of that to get their kids to better school systems. And I’ve said it before and will say it again, all at a cost of living that is equal to or even possibly lower than being in the city. If the city wants to retain these families the tax burden needs to go down and services need to go up.

Isn’t the solution more public transit for everyone, not reallocation of public transit to serve a different limited population? I for one would love to see more money responsibly spent on public transportation so that even more people could have access. Higher state gas tax to fund it? Sounds good to me. Or something like NY where if you own a business in a county services by public transit there is a yearly public transit tax. Also a great idea (and something I would have to pay). Why focus on taking away instead of adding on? Especially for something like public transit that is truly beneficial to everyone (even if you don’t take it) in many ways.

Furthermore, not everyone who lives in the burbs is rich. Those same lines that service wealthier burbs also service less well to do areas like norristown, Camden, and lots of working class Delco neighborhoods. They also take workers to their jobs in those wealthier neighborhoods that otherwise wouldn’t have access to those jobs.