How Much Cheaper is Philly than Boston?

[Recchia]

Yea right. pfffft. philly is building the second tallest building right out of Chicago. Bunk that. Plus dozens of condos.

yeah I wanna hear more about this. I love Philadelphia, looking for jobs there as we speak...

[*Sweetkisses*]

Im sorry, phillys building the tallest outside of NEW YORK and Chicago lol:)

The job situation in philly is pretty shaky. A lot of the jobs are located in the suburbs. Mainline, montgomery etc. It still has jobs, but... you know.Nevertheless I still think Philly is still a great city. Its coming up and Im proud of it. its been down too long.

[Garris]

yeah I wanna hear more about this. I love Philadelphia, looking for jobs there as we speak...

You're not coming to Providence Recchia??

My understanding is that the Philly situation is like Providence's X 10... There's a huge residential downtown boom happening without a huge expansion of the job base... Basically a redistribution of population.

Has anyone lived in both Boston and Philly recently? How do they compare to one another? What are their respective strengths and weaknesses?

- Garris

[*Sweetkisses*]

Ive never lived in Boston but my perception of it is that it has more wealth. Since Boston is much smaller than Philly, it was able to weed out the poverty or keep it to a small extent.

Philly has more areas of poverty. But it also has very beautiful areas. As Ive said before, center city is expanding towards lower north philly so there is a lot of gentrification going on in that area. Its expanding westward towards university city so in the next few years they should come together as one.

I dont know Bostons weaknesses because ive never lived there.

[monsoon]

I have heard that Boston suffers from racially segregated neighborhoods. Also I have heard it said from several forumers they felt Boston's public schools were dangerous and of poor quality, and for that reason they moved to the suburbs to keep their kids out of theses schools. Is there a truth to any of that?

[BostonGuy501]

Really? Is this true? I'm not that up on Boston development, but I was under the impression that there are few Northeast cities with the flurry of major projects proposed that Philly has...

- Garris

Providence, RI

Sorry, I didn't mean to make it seem like Boston is better than Philly. I was referring to all the rennovation and new projects that are going on due to Big Dig re-development.

[Cotuit]

I have heard that Boston suffers from racially segregated neighborhoods. Also I have heard it said from several forumers they felt Boston's public schools were dangerous and of poor quality, and for that reason they moved to the suburbs to keep their kids out of theses schools. Is there a truth to any of that?

Not any more or less true than the gross generalizations one hears about the south.

[monsoon]

Not any more or less true than the gross generalizations one hears about the south.

This was told to me by people living in the Boston area.

[Steve-O]

I have heard that Boston suffers from racially segregated neighborhoods. Also I have heard it said from several forumers they felt Boston's public schools were dangerous and of poor quality, and for that reason they moved to the suburbs to keep their kids out of theses schools. Is there a truth to any of that?

What major city's public schools are of excellent quality?

[Cotuit]

This was told to me by people living in the Boston area.

And I've had southerners tell me generalizations of the south.

[eltron]

And I've had southerners tell me generalizations of the south.

While Boston is not as diverse as other cities, there are no neighborhoods that are "segregated", and the schools are certainly no better or worse than other big city public school systems. Boston is far from perfect, but it is not as bad racially as legend has it.

[Recchia]

You're not coming to Providence Recchia??

That and Boston will be number one choices of course. Gotta go wherever I find a job first though, as long as that place is a city in the northeast or midwest that is...

Boston DID have a lot of racially segregated schools, with a bunch of segregation lawsuits in the courts. I beleive that has all passed, thought I am not familiar with anyone who has attended Boston public schools.

[tocoto]

Some of the best public schools in the state are in Boston. Some of the worst too. Boston has plenty of diversity, I don't know why people think it doesn't. It's population is about 25% black and 51% minority.

[TheBostonian]

Don't all big metros have a minority inner city and a bunch of white suburbs? Aren't inner city public schools generally crappy?

I figure I would need at least a little familiarity with other metros in order to know where to look to see whether they all have white suburns like Boston has. Boston seems to have a whole bunch of 95%+ white suburbs.

Some examples:

Melrose, MA: 95.16% White

Needham: 94.82% White

Reading: 96.47% White

Wakefield: 96.94% White

Lynnfield: 96.73% White

Compared to...

All of Massachusetts: 81.9% White

Boston: 54.48% White

Lawrence: 48.64% White

Chelsea: 57.95% White

As with nearly every comparison of major cities, so much is screwed up by arbitrary city borders. In Atlanta or Houston, these municipalities might be neighborhoods within the city proper. Are demographics like those available for cities and towns available for neighborhoods within a major city? Does metro Boston look more segregated because it is cut up into little cities and towns, bringing these stats to light in ways they aren't as salient in metro areas dominated by a city with a much larger land mass?

[Recchia]

As with nearly every comparison of major cities, so much is screwed up by arbitrary city borders. In Atlanta or Houston, these municipalities might be neighborhoods within the city proper. Are demographics like those available for cities and towns available for neighborhoods within a major city? Does metro Boston look more segregated because it is cut up into little cities and towns, bringing these stats to light in ways they aren't as salient in metro areas dominated by a city with a much larger land mass?

This is a major problem when comparing cities, especially city proper to city proper. People in other parts of the country too don't realize how chopped up the northeast is, especially New England, when it comes to municipal boundaries. Of course this makes Boston look much more segregated than it truly is. When looking at the entire metro area, I bet it's similar to most other cities.

[TheBostonian]

This is a major problem when comparing cities, especially city proper to city proper. People in other parts of the country too don't realize how chopped up the northeast is, especially New England, when it comes to municipal boundaries. Of course this makes Boston look much more segregated than it truly is. When looking at the entire metro area, I bet it's similar to most other cities.

I only wonder if that is the case. But I don't know how to verify it.

[TheBostonian]

Look at how segregated Atlanta is. Anyone who can find a map like this for Boston wins a worthless prize.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6...ck_atlanta1.gif

Edit: The info page for that picture says: "Dark red indicates that the area is over 90% African American. White indicates almost no presence of African Americans.

This image is a self-generated thematic map from the U.S. Census Bureau's American Factfinder at http://factfinder.census.gov/"

I guess I can look there.

[runawayjim]

(didn't the Mayor order the national guard to attack some prision riot or seize by black activists during the 60's or 70's?)

he actually had a bomb dropped...

philly is very much cheaper than boston. my girlfriend has a large 1 bedroom apartment in a building with a parking space... $940 a month, includes heat, hot water, cooking gas ($40 is for the on-site parking space). she lives 3 blocks west of penn's campus. now it's not near a subway line, although it's a short walk to the surface/subway trolley thing (similar to the green line in boston, but actually moves at subway speeds underground), but she's got several bus lines nearby that will take her into center city.

[MadVlad]

My sister-in-law just moved out of Philly, she said it was very expensive. I know Society Hill specifically is REAL expensicve. Not sure about the comparison to Boston...

[runawayjim]

My sister-in-law just moved out of Philly, she said it was very expensive. I know Society Hill specifically is REAL expensicve. Not sure about the comparison to Boston...

i just read something that compares it to beacon hill in boston. most of philly is not like that.

where did she live in philly? with the exception of a few really nice areas, most of it isn't too bad. rittenhouse square in center city is expensive, but there are affordable rents to be found in center city (we saw soem for $800/mo that weren't bad). the areas around the colleges (mainly university city) are relatively inexpensive (aside from temple which is really cheap, but that's a nasty area). and then there's the other parts which are a lot cheaper, but not as nice.

it's also a very easy city to get around in, while i find boston to be more difficult. driving in philly is easy (we all know boston is a pain). there's cheap eats and cheap things to do as well... i don't consider it expensive at all...

[*Sweetkisses*]

My sister-in-law just moved out of Philly, she said it was very expensive. I know Society Hill specifically is REAL expensicve. Not sure about the comparison to Boston...

Are you kidding me? Philly is probably like the cheapest major city in all of the U.S.

[MadVlad]

She lived in Center City somewhere, I want to say near Drexel, but I'm not sure...

[runawayjim]

She lived in Center City somewhere, I want to say near Drexel, but I'm not sure...

drexel is in university city on the other side of the river. they do have a small campus (school of public health and i think the med school) in center city, but it's not one of the nicer parts of center city.

if she lived on the center city side of the river from drexel, it's pretty nice over there (not far from rittenhouse sq)... especially a couple blocks in...

[MadVlad]

I think it was near Pod, if that place is still open...