“Nothing good comes easy in Philadelphia, but Philadelphians seem to accept that.”
That’s one of my favorite lines from Philadelphia 2009: The State of the City, the Pew Charitable Trusts report that was released recently.
It’s a must-read.
To be honest, I am obsessed with reports like this that tell me how exactly my city is faring.
It helps that this one was written by Tom Ferrick Jr., whose columns I’ve long-enjoyed reading. The writing in this report is fluid. Very easy to read and understand, as all good research reports should be.
Things I learned/already knew:
- “When asked if they would be willing to pay higher
taxes so the city could hire more police, 72 percent
of respondents said “yes.”‘ - “When asked whether the city would be a better place to live five
years from now, optimists outnumbered pessimists by a ratio of nearly five-to-one.” - “Despite gains in many job sectors, Philadelphia suffered
a net decline in jobs between 2000 and 2008.
When the decade began, there were 695,900 jobs in
the city. At the end of 2008, there were 661,300—a
loss of 34,600.” - “There were bright spots in job sectors in
the decade, with educational and health services
leading the way. “Eds and meds” now constitute
30 percent of the jobs in the city. The manufacturing
sector shrank 38 percent between 2000 and
2008.” - “Crime is not spread out evenly. Nearly
60 percent of the major crimes are committed
in 10 of the city’s 25 police districts.” - “Another way to interpret those numbers, though, is to
say that student performance in the Philadelphia public
schools has gone from disastrous to poor. Despite
the reforms, most students still cannot do math or
read at basic levels.” - “All of the data on wages and wealth in the city can be boiled down to a single declarative sentence. Philadelphia has a lot of poor people.”
- “Philadelphia is not the picture of good health.
Consider that 64 percent of adults are overweight or
obese and 27 percent smoke, a percentage that
appears to be on the rise.”
Okay, I should stop quoting so much. I don’t want to get sued.
Check it out yourselves, folks.
