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Philly - New York's Next Borough


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The New York Times is referring to Philly as their Next Borough

From the article: Philadelphians occasionally refer to their city - somewhat deprecatingly - as the "sixth borough" of New York, and with almost 8,000 commuters making the 75-minute train ride between the cities each weekday, the label seems not far off the mark.

Attracted by a thriving arts and music scene here and a cost of living that is 37 percent lower than New York's, according to city figures, a significant number of youngish artists, musicians, restaurateurs and designers are leaving New York City and heading down the turnpike for the same reasons they once moved to Brooklyn from Manhattan.

"We got priced out of Manhattan, and we moved to Brooklyn," said John Schmersal, 32, of the three-member band Enon; two of them migrated here in January. "Then we got priced out of Brooklyn. Now we're in Philadelphia."

Interesting read...

New York Times Story

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The New York Times is referring to Philly as their Next Borough

From the article: Philadelphians occasionally refer to their city - somewhat deprecatingly - as the "sixth borough" of New York, and with almost 8,000 commuters making the 75-minute train ride between the cities each weekday, the label seems not far off the mark.

Attracted by a thriving arts and music scene here and a cost of living that is 37 percent lower than New York's, according to city figures, a significant number of youngish artists, musicians, restaurateurs and designers are leaving New York City and heading down the turnpike for the same reasons they once moved to Brooklyn from Manhattan.

"We got priced out of Manhattan, and we moved to Brooklyn," said John Schmersal, 32, of the three-member band Enon; two of them migrated here in January. "Then we got priced out of Brooklyn. Now we're in Philadelphia."

Interesting read...

New York Times Story

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I will agree it is Interesting....BUT,

I don't think the NY times should even suggest such a thing. I used to live in Philly (well actually Blue Bell) and I can assure you that Philly can hang on its own and does not need ties to NYC to feel important. Not that I think that they are truly knowcking Philly, per se, but I feel as though the two cities are entirely set apart. Both hold a significant role in our country's past, present, and Future. I just think that suggestive remarks that tie Philly to NYC by being its burrough make NYC superior (in a sense) to Philly, which it is not. JMHO.

A2

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There are two points really from this, Philadelphia is it's own metro with it's own seperate history and heritage, BUT the 21st century will be one of the Megapolis. The Boston-NYC-Philly-Balt-DC metro areas are slowly melding into one huge interdependent metro area. It would be similar to 1905 when Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens and Jersey all with semi seperate orgins and histories and even seperate sports teams slowly melded into one huge metro--just now its on an even grander scale. The trend has been going on for decades the California refrain of the "southland" with San Diego, Los Angeles, Riverside, OC, and Santa Barbara all melding into one huge megalopolis.

This is why I feel the states will eventually take a lesser and lesser role in our political system, with increased urbanization and the melding of regional urban areas. Pittsburgh is aligning itself more and more with Cleveland, Akron, Youngstown, Eire, Morgantown, Wheeling and in a lesser extant, Columbus and even Buffalo/Toronto/Rochester/Syracuse. Pittsburgh International is trying to be the "regional" airport for people as far away as Cleveland, Columbus and it already serves most of Northern West Virginia.

The debate is an endless one, and although I am proud to be a Pennsylvanian and not an Ohioan or West Virginian, I feel Pittsburgh's industry, science and infrastructure is tying much more into Cleveland, Akron and W.V. then it is with Philly/NY/DC.

I think presently Philadelphia and Pittsburgh have very seperate identities and power bases then the mega metros that they will eventually become part of. I like to think of it as 1905 where Pittsburgh and New York and others started to gobble up their chief suburbs, by 1920 we were for the first time in our history a majority urban nation. By 2020 I think we will be a majority megametro nation.

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There are two points really from this, Philadelphia is it's own metro with it's own seperate history and heritage, BUT the 21st century will be one of the Megapolis.  The Boston-NYC-Philly-Balt-DC metro areas are slowly melding into one huge interdependent metro area. 

I still think theya re three separate megalopolises. Boston is on its own. DC-Baltimore form a duopolis. NYC-Philly is becoming another duopolis.

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I will agree it is Interesting....BUT,

  I don't think the NY times should even suggest such a thing. I used to live in Philly (well actually Blue Bell) and I can assure you that Philly can hang on its own and does not need ties to NYC to feel important. Not that I think that they are truly knowcking Philly, per se, but I feel as though the two cities are entirely set apart. Both hold a significant role in our country's past, present, and Future. I just think that suggestive remarks that tie Philly to NYC by being its burrough make NYC superior (in a sense) to Philly, which it is not. JMHO.

A2

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

New Yorkers will always have a suprioristic attitude towards anyone or anything not from New York. Its like now Parisians see the rest of France, only here New Yorkers feel they are superior to the 280 million or so other people in the country, including those from LA and Chicago. The New York mentality is that the country is New York and a bunch of areas that support New York. By calling Philly New York's "6th borough", I'm sure the New Yorkers thought they were giving a compliment since it said that Philly was "New York worthy". That's a compliment they bestow only upon Boston, Philly, and maybe Chicago. In the New York state of mind, only New York, Philly, and Boston count as cities (and the later two are seen by New Yorkers as counting only because they are seen by them to be satellites of New York and the coolness being injected not by locals but by NY transplants). Then there's Chicago which is a "wannabe New York" but too Midwestern to really hack it. Then there's LA and Houston which are just big suburbs. Miami is seen as "New York in Florida". DC is a city of bureaucrats working for the sake of supporting New York. The rest of the country? Its jsut farmland. Forget the Empire State. In the minds of New Yorkers, "The City" is the Empire City.

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The debate is an endless one, and although I am proud to be a Pennsylvanian and not an Ohioan or West Virginian, I feel Pittsburgh's industry, science and infrastructure is tying much more into Cleveland, Akron and W.V. then it is with Philly/NY/DC

This is the only place where I see this come up. Pittsburgh is a Northeastern city - period. Since it's on the western border of the Northeast, it has relationships and similarities with nearby Ohio cities - it's only logical.

The sprawl and outragious cost of living in NYC makes it obvious that people would seek cheaper places to live. This has been happening for decades. Philly will always be Philly, but the interdependence with NYC isn't a bad thing, in fact it's proximity to NYC with cheaper everything is a win win.

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The sprawl and outragious cost of living in NYC makes it obvious that people would seek cheaper places to live.  This has been happening for decades.  Philly will always be Philly, but the interdependence with NYC isn't a bad thing, in fact it's proximity to NYC with cheaper everything is a win win.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I think the article is very positive. As a life long Philadelphian, I use to feel our proximity to NY was a hinderance to our city. But now people have taken notice, monster developments that for years skipped Philly are now common place.

Here is an article from the Asssociated Press on the move into Philly...

...Nick Buss, a senior vice president for Pittsburgh-based PNC Real Estate Finance, said Philadelphia hasn't seen a building boom like this since the 1970s...From 1995 to 2004, Philadelphia County saw a 488 percent increase in building permits, the highest in the state, according to the Pennsylvania State Data Center.

building boom from AP

Here is an article in response to the NY Times story from a Philly paper.

hip to be square

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This is the only place where I see this come up.  Pittsburgh is a Northeastern city - period.  Since it's on the western border of the Northeast, it has relationships and similarities with nearby Ohio cities - it's only logical.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Mj, although you know how I stand on the "catagorization" of Pittsburgh, I wasn't trying to beat that dead horse again, just pointing out that I do see stories in the Pittsburgh Business Times and Post-Gazette on tech partnerships with Universities and companies in Akron and Cleveland and Youngstown as well as Wheeling. Citizens Bank, National City and PNC all draw a line between the Pittsburgh/WV/Oho and Philly/DC/NYC areas. I saw Howard Hanna recently expanded--into Cleveland. In a way I guess your right it does kind of go back to the old issue of wether we are more northeast or midwest. My only point in bringing that up though is that if Pittsburgh ever did emulate Philly in the megaopolis area our natural fit would be with Wheeling, Youngstown, Cleveland, Johnstown and Morgantown. That two hour distance would develop much faster then the nearly 6 hours it takes to get to the east state--and Philly is already orbiting around NY's glow tough to pull it back in. I just think that by 2020 most Americans will not live in a metro area but a megapolis made out of several metros strung together. If that does come about Pittsburgh will drift away from the northeast, again just my opinion. Interested in hearing yours.

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This thread has been a great read.  DC-Baltimore has long been a duopolis.  I'm still not sold on NYC-Philly as yet being a duopolis metro.  They just aren't oriented enough to one another socially, economically, or politically just yet.

I've been arguing for years, however, that it would only be a matter of time before the populace at large "rediscovers" Philadelphia...  NYC/Chicago style urban living and civilization without many of the hassles or (for now) costs of those metros. 

I'm glad to hear that Philly is getting some monster development now.  It's been too long.  Too bad it's still a miserable place, I've heard, for doctors to practice, or I'd be considering heading there...

- Garris

Providence, RI

PS: For recordkeeping, Boston isn't alone by any means...  There's a clear Boston/Providence, RI duopolis, as these two urban metros are becoming nearly continuous and fluid down the 95 corridor.  Some would even argue that a Providence/Boston/Nashua/Manchester metro megapolis is developing...

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

You can be the first to make philly un-miserable :)

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Too bad it's still a miserable place, I've heard, for doctors to practice, or I'd be considering heading there...

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

The medical malpractice issue is a state issue, not a Philadelphia issue. Yes, people complain that our elected officials in PA are in the pocket of large law firms but last year the Docs marched on Harrisburgh and Gov. Rendell has made it one of his target issues. They released $220 million for physicians and nurse midwives thru 2005. It is a stop gap measure, but working on bigger fix. Medical Malpractice in PA

Also, this link might be of interest to you. It says:Pennsylvania Doctors Not Facing a Medical Malpractice Insurance Crisis, Public Citizen Report Shows No Evidence of Doctor Exodus

Philadelphia's extensive health care community includes five medical schools, 22 nursing schools, two dental schools, two colleges of pharmacy, a veterinary school, a school of optometry, a podiatry school, almost 100 hospitals, and the third largest region in US for "hi-tech," biomedical and pharmaceutical companies.

Philadelphia ranks second in NIH Grants & produces one of every five physicians in the United States. And what a history...besides having the first medical school, first hospital, first eye hospital, first cancer center (FoxChase), first children's hospital, largest private medical school (Jeff) the list goes on and on.

Join us...misery loves company. You won't even notice it after a few months of following our sports teams, then you will know what it really feels like to be miserable.

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  • 3 months later...

I would say in the last 10 years, New York suburbia encroached beyond the 45 mile perimeter into southern Middlesex County in Plainsboro and in Mercer County, West Windsor/East Windsor/Princeton/Lawerenceville/Hamilton, overlapping the traditional northeastern Philadelphia suburbs near I-295. I think its safe to say that the two cities have overlapped each other for a while now.

I cant speak much about the New Yorkers moving into Philadelphia because i was :alc: allover the bars on South and Delaware Ave and since i heard little about this discussion while bar hopping, i cant comment much about it. :thumbsup:

Ive made a similar post about this in the Charlotte coffee house about this topic.

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New Yorkers will always have a suprioristic attitude towards anyone or anything not from New York. Its like now Parisians see the rest of France, only here New Yorkers feel they are superior to the 280 million or so other people in the country, including those from LA and Chicago. The New York mentality is that the country is New York and a bunch of areas that support New York. By calling Philly New York's "6th borough", I'm sure the New Yorkers thought they were giving a compliment since it said that Philly was "New York worthy". That's a compliment they bestow only upon Boston, Philly, and maybe Chicago. In the New York state of mind, only New York, Philly, and Boston count as cities (and the later two are seen by New Yorkers as counting only because they are seen by them to be satellites of New York and the coolness being injected not by locals but by NY transplants). Then there's Chicago which is a "wannabe New York" but too Midwestern to really hack it. Then there's LA and Houston which are just big suburbs. Miami is seen as "New York in Florida". DC is a city of bureaucrats working for the sake of supporting New York. The rest of the country? Its jsut farmland. Forget the Empire State. In the minds of New Yorkers, "The City" is the Empire City.

So true. People from the city itself scorn everything around them, people from Long Island think everyone else north of the city are hicks, people from the northern NYC suburbs think upstate is just farms, and everyone from the whole metro thinks the rest of the nation is just farms separated by a few second-rate cities.

This reminds me of a joke I just heard:

Four women were driving across the country. Each one was from

a different state: Idaho, Nebraska, Florida and New York.

Shortly after the trip began, the woman from Idaho started

pulling potatoes from her bag and throwing them out of the window.

"What the heck are you doing?" demanded the Nebraskan.

We have so many of these darn things in Idaho, I'm just sick of looking at them!"

A moment later, the gal from Nebraska began pulling ears of corn from her bag and tossing them from the window.

"What are you doing that for?" asked the gal from Florida.

"We have so many of these things in Nebraska, I am just sick of

looking at them!"

Inspired, the gal from Florida opened the car door and pushed the New Yorker out.

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  • 3 weeks later...

I just wish that humans would stop trying to always outdo others and stop trying to congeal everything into one. Everyone wants everything to be more inflated than it really is. Cities didn't cut it anymore, we had to have metros. We had to make them bigger and bigger, adding more and more to it. Now metro's aren't good enough. We have to add other metros to them and make them bigger still. Humans do this with everything. Why can't everyone just grow on thier own and accept what they are without trying to pull everyone else into them and inflate themselves? I don't want Philly and New York and Boston and Washington with Baltimore to be as "one." I want them to stay unique.

PS: My history books all state that New York was the first capital of the USA, not Philly. I couldn't find anywhere else to mention this. Which was it?

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PS: My history books all state that New York was the first capital of the USA, not Philly. I couldn't find anywhere else to mention this. Which was it?

New York. Philadelphia was where the Continental Congresses met. However, from NY was the first official capital. Philadelphia was capital from 1790 to 1800, after which Washington became the capital.

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^^ not to go on a tangent but didn't York and Lancaster Pa., Baltimore, as well as a town in Jersey serve as capital for a few months? If I remember correctly the CC was running for their lives every 6 months during the Revolution, thus the rich history of "congress slept here" signs sprinkled from Maryland to New York City.

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^^ not to go on a tangent but didn't York and Lancaster Pa., Baltimore, as well as a town in Jersey serve as capital for a few months? If I remember correctly the CC was running for their lives every 6 months during the Revolution, thus the rich history of "congress slept here" signs sprinkled from Maryland to New York City.

Yes, PGH is right...we actually had 7 capitals in the early days. But Philadelphia is still the first and the longest home to the capital before Washington was built. The federal government is now re-building the first President's house in Philadelphia. Here is the site. http://www.ushistory.org/presidentshouse/

Check this out for more info on the 7 capitals.

http://www.senate.gov/reference/reference_...ited_States.htm

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Yes, PGH is right...we actually had 7 capitals in the early days. But Philadelphia is still the first and the longest home to the capital before Washington was built. The federal government is now re-building the first President's house in Philadelphia. Here is the site. http://www.ushistory.org/presidentshouse/

Check this out for more info on the 7 capitals.

http://www.senate.gov/reference/reference_...ited_States.htm

I think most history books generally refer to NY being the first capital, however, because it was the first capital under the Cosntitution. Thus the capitals were: New York (1787-1790); Philadelphia (1790-1800); and Washington (1800-). Prior to 1787, there wasn't a formal capital since Congress (as we know it today), the Presidency (as we know it today), and the Supreme Court (as we know it today) were not yet established and the "capital" moved around to just about everywhere the Congress (as it was then) convened - including places like York, Princeton, Trenton, etc. This was because, prior to 1787, the country was a much looser confederation of more or less self-governing states - I picture it being kind of like the modern EU or like the medieval Holy Roman Empire and federal authority was much much weaker.

Interestingly, among the proposed sites for the permanent national capital was Morrisville, PA (across the Delaware from Trenton). That would have made things interesting - to have another would be major metropolis sandwiched between Philadelphia and New York (I think if that would have happened, I-95 through NJ would have actually been completed :) ).

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I just wish that humans would stop trying to always outdo others and stop trying to congeal everything into one. Everyone wants everything to be more inflated than it really is. Cities didn't cut it anymore, we had to have metros. We had to make them bigger and bigger, adding more and more to it. Now metro's aren't good enough. We have to add other metros to them and make them bigger still. Humans do this with everything. Why can't everyone just grow on thier own and accept what they are without trying to pull everyone else into them and inflate themselves? I don't want Philly and New York and Boston and Washington with Baltimore to be as "one." I want them to stay unique.

PS: My history books all state that New York was the first capital of the USA, not Philly. I couldn't find anywhere else to mention this. Which was it?

Sorry Gandhi, didn't mean to upset you

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  • 1 month later...
  • 5 months later...

This has to be the most honest post I have ever read, concerning NYC. Thanks for the feedback urbanophile. I guess that mentality will NEVER change. That is just the way it is. I remember feeling inferior when I rode the streets of NYC, with my PA plates. I was always told by my parents that New Yorkers look at anyone who lives in Philly as second rate citizens. Just think if I were to go to NYC now with my NC plates, I can only imagine what kind of hell I would get. :P

A2

I drove NYC with my NC plates all the time when I lived in NJ. I gave em hell. You learn to hang pretty quick.

Having said that, I always sorta looked down at PA drivers too, esp in NJ. They were all sooooo slow. I never thought of them as having anything remotely to do with Philadelphia though, I always assumed that that slow Penna driver in front of me was from Scranton or Bethlehem. :D

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Sorry Gandhi, didn't mean to upset you

No kidding. I understand the author's gripes, but I felt like singing "Kum ba ya" after reading that.

Growth will occur, unless of course we want to off a couple hundred million people a year. It's the shape of that growth that has lead to the erosion in civic identity.

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