<p>Can anyone familiar with the area around campus comment on what it's like, especially in terms of safety? I haven't been there myself, and my daughter was able to visit briefly but didn't have the opportunity to explore the area. She liked what she did see and has already applied. Thanks.</p>
<p>Campus area is very nice + has lots of security folks walking and on bikes. They also have emergency phones every X yards; pick one up and you’ll be connected to security.</p>
<p>Regardless if D or S, they should use common sense regardless of what college they choose — travel w/ someone else at night. Get escort at night if female.</p>
<p>Off campus area gets sketchier in several directions, as it does in most major cities.</p>
<p>I’ve lived in the neighborhood for over 40 years. I’m careful and haven’t had problems. The biggest crime in the area is actually theft of unattended property (purses left open in grocery store carts or on restaurant chairs, unsecured bikes, unlocked laptops, etc.). </p>
<p>People do need to be careful, but the neighborhood is full of interesting places, from a bird sanctuary to free Shakespeare in the park one week a year to a late-night shuttle and escort until 3 am. (No, not that kind of escort service!) </p>
<p>Go to the University City District website and look for Close at Hand, the community directory. (Full disclosure: I did the updates for the most recent edition.)</p>
<p>Many of us came for school and stayed.</p>
<p>I lived in the neighborhood for over a decade, and still visit it fairly often. I can see it pretty well from my conference room.</p>
<p>Honestly, what Penn’s campus feels like is going to depend on your frame of reference. (And “feel” is the operative word in any of these discussions – no one ever cares about the statistics that tell you that you won’t be in any great danger there.) If your natural habitat is a pristine suburban environment with one-acre lots and gated communities, Penn is going to feel edgy and dangerous. If you are familiar with cities, and urban universities, Penn is going to feel perfectly familiar, and on the nice end. If you happened to be coming from Temple University, Penn would feel like a pristine suburban environment with one-acre lots and gated communities.</p>
<p>The fact is that a lot of transition happens through Penn and its neighbor, Drexel. On the east, they are bounded by a largely depopulated business zone that the universities are busy redeveloping into dorms, academic buildings, offices, and retail. Then there’s a highway, train tracks, a river, and some of the ritziest neighborhoods in the city on the far shore – all within easy walking distance of Penn. Going west, you have a sleepy, leafy, college-towny neighborhood for a little less than a mile, but it ultimately fades into ghetto. To the north, you have Drexel, but then there’s a very challenged neighborhood that starts only a few blocks from the Drexel campus. South there really isn’t anything – a huge hospital campus for Penn and Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, and then a curve in the river.</p>
<p>Bits of Penn are isolated from the surrounding urban hubbub, but for the most part it’s pretty open to the city. Big streets run through it, with lots of traffic. It is served by several subway/trolley lines, and an El, lots of buses, and the suburban train system. People traveling from the challenged neighborhoods to the west and north towards the gathering places of Center City may pass right through Penn, or be on the bus when Penn students get on. If that freaks you out, then you will have an adjustment to make at Penn. If you can’t make that adjustment, you won’t feel comfortable there. </p>
<p>It’s not unlike Brown, but bigger, noisier, more urban. It’s not unlike Chicago, but way closer to the center of the city, and with many, many more amenities (shops, restaurants, movie theaters). It’s not unlike Harvard, for that matter, except the streets are straight and more of the buildings are ugly,</p>
<p>Really, it’s fine.</p>
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<p>Which, incidentally, is one of the five new federal “Promise Zones” announced yesterday by President Obama, so here’s to a brighter future for that neighborhood (Mantua). And of course, the ongoing development boom in University City to the immediate south will certainly help.</p>
<p>It occurs to me that I should have said, positively, that the Penn campus itself and its immediate surrounding area are completely vibrant and exciting. It’s not beautiful everywhere, but it has lots of beautiful nooks and crannies, including some great old and new buildings. There is a pedestrian walkway that goes through the middle of the campus, so students don’t have to be on the streets with the cars all the time. The campus is very sprawly, and, as I said, open to the city, so there are plenty of parts that may feel a little threatening at 2 am if you don’t have a buddy to walk with, or an escort. But that isn’t true about the central part of campus at all.</p>
<p>W/re the “Promise Zone” – it is drawn to include, not just Mantua (which needs it), but also pretty much all of Drexel, and 30th Street Station, and the old 30th Street Post Office that is due for some major redevelopment, and the whole area between them and Penn/Drexel. John Fry, Drexel’s president, is a former Penn vice-president, and is a guy who knows how to get neighborhoods spruced and buildings built, for sure. The Promise Zone looks like it will be an enormous boost for Drexel and for the Cira center development along the river, which in turn will benefit the Penn campus, too.</p>
<p>^ Indeed, the development currently underway and soon to begin in University City is nothing short of astounding (at least to me :)), and the “Promise Zone” will only add to that. </p>
<p>And I heartily concur: all hail John Fry and his vision for Drexel and its surroundings!</p>
<p>She is used to a suburban/semi-rural area, and flatly ruled out a few large cities, so I was a bit surprised that she liked Penn. She applied to the engineering program as a cs major, if that helps narrow down what parts of campus she would be at most often. </p>
<p>Are students out and about on campus in the evening or is it pretty quiet?</p>
<p>Maybe the fact that she can be “in the city” or “on a campus” is why she liked Penn. DS looked at other city schools, but because they didn’t have a true campus, they didn’t appeal to him. He is also a semi-rural/suburban kid and is loving it there. From what I have heard, the campus is pretty active at all hours of the day and much of the night. One of the things he often comments on when he comes home is how it is never actually dark there. Not sure what that has to do with anything though.</p>
<p>That’s a function of being in the middle of a large city – there is a heck of a lot of ambient light, even at night. It can be disconcerting for people who are used to real dark. Ditto with noise/quiet.</p>
<p>In the fairly suburban part of Philadelphia where I live, at least you can see a bunch of stars at night. It’s not like being in the country, but you can see major constellations and planets. When my kids come home from Brooklyn and Chicago, they always comment that they haven’t seen a star at night since the last time they were home.</p>
<p>The Penn campus is active well into the wee hours of the morning.</p>
<p>The campus, the area within several blocks which is not a small area and center city are all relatively safe. I’d say they are very safe if common sense is used, like not taking a long stroll all alone at 2am for no reason at all. But even then, in he immediate area, you’re still relatively safe. Your biggest danger is you in that case.</p>
<p>I tried to teach my D some city street smarts. It’s up to her to use it. She knows some martial arts and knows to run and yell, not stand and fight unless it’s absolutely necessary. I would teach this kind of stuff to her if she was going to Nebraska.</p>
<p>Women are more likely to be attacked when they are alone in the dark, when drunk/stoned or be a victim of an abusive boyfriend. And that happens everywhere.</p>
<p>Also, know that Penn has a real campus, something that is not true for all city schools.</p>