<p>"And it's not going to overwhelm the city and bring the whole place down."</p>
<p>I certainly hope not and believe not, but there can be a "tipping point" where cities go into a downward spiral from which they never recover or only many decades later - see Newark, Detroit, Camden, E. St. Louis, etc. In some ways Philly is very vibrant but in other ways it is a hollowed out city - the true shopping core where all the great department stores are is King of Prussia - downtown has Super K Mart in the Gallery, K of P has Nordstroms, Neiman Marcus, etc. It's really a very delicate balance and it doesn't take much to reach the point where people from surrounding areas avoid the city as much as possible instead of viewing it as a destination. </p>
<p>I don't mean to sound pessimistic but the reality is that the city (along with other big cities) has some real long term problems - a huge underclass, a lousy school system that is incapable of moving most of its members in an upwardly mobile direction, the result being multi-generational poverty and communities where the role models (the only ones with money) are gangstas and nine year olds can't wait to join the gangsta community.</p>
<p>I certainly hope not and believe not, but there can be a "tipping point" where cities go into a downward spiral from which they never recover or only many decades later - see Newark, Detroit, Camden, E. St. Louis, etc.
Philly is far--VERY far--from being like those cities, which essentially have few, if any, stable middle- and upper-income neighborhoods within their city limits. Philly is much more akin to New York, Chicago, Boston, etc. in terms of its economic demographics. And that's the point I am valiantly (if I do say so, myself ;)) striving to make. New York, Chicago, Boston, etc. all have crime problems, and while their murder rates at the present time may not be as high as Philly's, (although they have been in the not-so-distant past, if not HIGHER), they do have significant big-city crime problems. Yet no one is sounding the alarm that those cities are "bursting with crime", at a "tipping point", in imminent danger of imploding because of their "crime waves", etc., as has been implied about Philly to a greater or lesser extent in this thread.</p>
<p>As many of you know, the serious ongoing crime problems in Philly are pretty much limited to a few, relatively small geographical areas: the heart of North Philly (what has been called the "Badlands" for MANY years), Southwest Philly, and--unfortunately--a part of West Philly outside of University City (but not including, e.g., Overbrook Farms). Contrasted with this, Philly has many, many stable middle- and upper-income residential neighborhoods (Center City, Society Hill, Queen Village, Old City, Northern Liberties, Fairmount/Art Museum District, UNIVERSITY CITY, Manayunk, Roxborough, Mt. Airy, Chestnut Hill, the Northeast, etc., etc.) in which literally hundreds of thousands of hard-working, law-abiding citizens live, in which property values continue to rise significantly, and in which hundreds of millions of dollars of new and rehab development continues to occur (just wait til you get back to campus and see how high the Murano--42-story luxury condo building--has risen right across the Schuykill).</p>
<p>Philly has 2 main stabilizing pillars - Penn and the companies based downtown. These factors keep people living downtown despite the crime (this would be true for any city). Penn is not going anywhere. However, a significant loss of downtown jobs (which will hopefully never happen) would be problematic and have a domino effect. </p>
<p>Baltimore's pillars (Hopkins and downtown jobs) are not as large and may explain why it has a higher crime rate.</p>
<p>If and when GM goes bankrupt, Detroit will completely implode. Wayne State University is not enough to keep it going.</p>
<p>yea its kinda scary, im a 10th grader and go to HUP for a program and , i take the blue line on 34th and market, and i have to walk like 6 blocks. One day, i saw some ppl coming down the block , and yea the campus is pretty empty. So they were following this lady, and i just crossed the street to avoid em.</p>
<p>Russ said that Philly has two stabilizing pillars in Penn and Center Center businesses. That couldn't be more true. There is a lot of gentrification going on downtown that has started to expand closer to North Philly and down into South Philly. Penn is also expanding right up to the Schuylkill. That's how you clean up cities -- you start in a few key areas and let them grow outwards until they meet each other.</p>
<p>To posterx: what is your ****ing problem? It seems that all you do here is tell people how violent a city Philadelphia is in what appears to be an attempt to discourage students in applying/enrolling at Penn.</p>
Actually, only 60% of Center City residents work in Center City. Certainly a majority, but many of the people moving in during the past 10 years have done so to be closer to cultural amenities, restaurants, etc. (e.g., there are now more than 200 outdoor cafes in the relatively compact Center City/Old City districts), and a sizeable portion actually "reverse commute" out to the suburbs and other parts of the city for their jobs. If you're interested, there's an informative 10-page analysis of Philadelphia's recent and future residential growth in Center City, here:</p>
<p>Of course, a sudden exodus of Center City employers would hurt, but Center City employment hasn't been the only factor behind the residential boom there.</p>
<p>In terms of crime in Center City, while the crime rate there is certainly higher than in the average suburb (as it is in any city, as you point out), the recent spike in Philly's crime and murder rates has been pretty much limited to certain socioeconomically depressed neighborhoods that were already "high-crime" (as I noted earlier in this thread), which definitely would not include Center City</p>
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To posterx: what is your ****ing problem? It seems that all you do here is tell people how violent a city Philadelphia is in what appears to be an attempt to discourage students in applying/enrolling at Penn.
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<p>I think it's good that PosterX mentioned the high crime rate in philly so many prospective students know what's going on. It's up to the reader to decide whether Penn is for him/her. </p>
<p>Anyway, I think this won't matter much to the number of students applying/enrolling at Penn. I mean Wharton is still no 1 undergrad business school right? Penn is still an ivy league school right? Why get so defensive/insecure if Penn is really a good school. Chill bro :)</p>
<p>It's one thing to give a "heads-up" to prospective applicants. But what posterx does is make posts and start threads with such a pathetically glib tone. He doesn't even go to Penn; he just comes to this forum to trash Philly (and by extension, Penn).</p>
<p>Look at his posting history: the guy is all over the place, he goes to the boards for every Ivy and seems to be perfectly nice on all of their boards. Maybe if he ever gave some kind of advice or had a positive thing to say about Penn, I'd be able to say he's providing a service for prospective applicants.</p>
<p>And I don't need to "chill, bro :)," but thanks for the concern.</p>
<p>^ The point is, a spike in the murder rate in North Philly, Southwest Philly, and even in West Philly not immediately near the Penn campus, does not endanger Penn's campus and students any more than a spike in the murder rate in East New York (Brooklyn), East Harlem, or the South Bronx would endanger Columbia's campus and students, or a spike in the murder rate in Anacostia or Northeast D.C. would endanger Georgetown's campus and students. Constantly citing the latest Philadelphia murder count in a Penn forum is akin to the worst form of sensationistic yellow journalism, designed to instill fear where none is justified.</p>
<p>I think you are overstating the case to say that the murder rate in the surrounding city has NOTHING to do with the Penn campus. The murder rate is like a barometer of the overall social environment in a city. Even if you as a Penn student are extremely unlikely to be a murder victim (they lose one in a robbery or other crime every few years so the risk is greater than zero but not significant), in a city that is filled with handguns and people willing to use them, your risk of being a victim of some other type of crime (assault, robbery, etc.) is also greater - being a victim of one of these crimes can be very traumatic even if you are physically OK. The fact that gangs of nine year olds are willing to assault pedestrians in the middle of campus in broad daylight shows a city that, while not yet totally out of control, is perilously close - if the social fabric is not completely shredded it is seriously frayed at the edges - a place where little kids can't wait to grow up and be gangstas as their highest goal. No matter how many cameras Penn puts up, there's a limit to what they can do if outside the (imaginary) walls of the campus chaos reigns in the city.</p>
<p>Now the environment in Philly is not yet intolerable in gentrified areas but the trend is undeniably toward the "getting worse" side. I wouldn't say that you should reject Penn over any other big city campus based on the difference in crime rates at this time (but I'd say that your safety from crime at a rural school would be significantly better, counterbalanced by greater risk from automobile travel and also the fact that most rural places are dull and boring compared to big cities). It's fair though to weigh crime as one factor in your overall decision if not the overwhelming factor. It's also appropriate for people to realize they are living in a big city and act "street smart" and not walk around in an ipod haze without any awareness of their situation - that's asking for it.</p>
<p>"counterbalanced by greater risk from automobile travel"</p>
<p>I'd say more than counterbalanced. Although, of course, there are a few students at Penn who drive often and a few students at rural schools who don't.</p>