If cities truly exist to “poison and mar their surrounding environment,” as they do according to Ian Bourland, then the question “Why rate a city?” in his diatribe “Philadelphia does not deserve to live” (March 14, 2002) quickly becomes all the more puzzling. Bourland truly comes up empty-handed in his examination of Philly, missing every fact that could support his argument.
Philadelphia charges the highest bus fares in the United States and operates with a laughable subway system. It has lost close to a million inhabitants since 1950, due to not only racism but also city wage taxes. The state just enacted a hostile takeover of the pathetic local school system.
However, since the beginning of the Clinton era, the city seems to have stopped falling. North Philadelphia ended its consuming love affair with crack and heroin. A new stadium rose next to I-95 in the heart of South Philly, thanking the Eagles for their playoff performance. West Philadelphia is fostering a better relationship with its resident Ivy League school. The New York Times took a trip south to laud Center City’s second restaurant renaissance. The economy’s so good, a Prada store has opened.
People now visit Philadelphia in droves. The historical district just got a new Visitors’ Center and a home for the Liberty Bell. The area is one of the greenest and ritziest in the city, where guides in colonial garb herding tourists meet concierges in white gloves. Bourland’s need to take the sludge-colored glasses off is most apparent here, as he describes the district as bearing a “Sarajevo look.” The convention center hosted the Republican National Convention last year amid non-violent, healthy protesting in the Democratic town.
The president just spoke at the gleaming new arts center. Three major theatres moved into new, larger spaces, and smaller improv, vaudeville and drama groups keep emerging from the arts network. The first Friday of every month is reserved for gallery openings and restaurant specials in Old City. Local music has exploded, offering not only the Roots, Eve and Josh Wink, but the budding Last Emperor, Jaguar and Bahamadia.
Philadelphians have been known to boo anything that won’t give them beer, such as their own team, Santa Claus, and even (gasp) “New York,” but they are not often violent without provocation. Only flashbacks from ‘Nam should equate walking from point A to point B with “the risk of being shanked in the kidneys.” And if someone’s friend gets “flagrantly punched in the nuts several times,” nine times out of 10, it was beyond provoked.
Do not go to Philadelphia if you seek a non-smoking bar, a yoga halftime show or a cheesesteak with mayonnaise. Then again, a bunch of Irish and Italian blue collar guys from South Philly parade down the streets in feathers and sequins twice a year, as the nationally acclaimed Mummers brigades. Prefabricated opinions are moot. If you insist on rating a city as you would a movie, why pay eight bucks if you’re convinced you’ll hate it?
Carey Huntington (CAS ‘02)
