<p>I will probably get my green card (become permanent resident) within the next few months and I will be able to change job location. I just started to think about where I want to live afterwards. I live in LA and would like to move to a more urban looking city with decent to great public transit and more affordable housing (as compared to Boston, SF, LA, NYC). Philly, being the 4th most populous, is on my radar screen. I have never been there though and don’t have any friends there. </p>
<p>Another city that’s high on my list is Chicago. I used to live there and like most things about it except the winter and the fact that it’s all alone by itself (I don’t care much about St. Louis and it’s not even that close anyway). I went to Northwestern; strong alumni network is a plus there. On the other hand, it’s pretty easy to visit NYC, DC, or even Boston from Philly. </p>
<p>Wikipedia says “about 18.4% of families and 22.9% of the population were below the poverty line in Philly”. I also read that “statisticly you are about 4 times more likely to get murdered in Philly than NYC”. I just asked a friend living in NYC about Philly and the first word from him was “crappy”. All cities have their crappy areas and ghettos but I wonder if Philly has larger portion being them or looks more run-down overall than cities like Chicago, NYC, SF, or LA given the data and what my friend said. My friend did say Broad St is nice; but when asked about Chicago, which he visited recently, he said Chicago was much better to him. He thought Chicago was well-maintained and pretty with the lakefront.</p>
<p>I have read nice things about the downtown. Being gay, I was glad to see the largest concentration of gay-own and gay-friendly business happen to be in the downtown area. What are the apt rent or condo cost like? What other areas are bustling (not really into anything that looks suburban) and safe besides downtown? </p>
<p>I have heard the city has some sort of revival and revitalization and many young professionals move there. Is it true? In what areas are they happening? How’s the job market there?</p>
<p>downtown has a lot of young professionals, and its great for gays. If you live in downtown you’ll really have no need to go to other parts of the city unless it were fairmount park.</p>
<p>North and West Philly are turning around when it comes to crime and stuff. Most of Philly’s wealth is in the suburbs.</p>
<p>A lot of that poverty is on the periphery of what is considered Philadelphia.</p>
<p>It’s like New York. Think of the central area going from University City (where Penn is) east all the way through Center City, Old City, and to the waterfront (Penn’s Landind). This area is like Philadelphia’s version of Manhattan. Very nice. The rest of Philadelphia is like Queens, Brooklyn, Staten Island…</p>
<p>I’m not gay but I hear it’s great for the LGBT peeps.</p>
<p>The Advocate actually rated Penn as the #1 gay-friendly university in the country (tying with USC).</p>
<p>Wait, are you a high school student applying to Penn, Northwestern, NYU/Columbia?? I’m a little confused…</p>
<p>If you are, don’t be concerned about the housing situation. My brother lives off campus near Spruce street and says that the situation is fairly secure. Moreover, don’t be concerned about hate crime if you are homosexual. Penn has a very strong GSA group and even offers specialized housing for the GLBTQ students. </p>
<p>Northwestern really isn’t quite similar to Penn, speaking relatively in terms of location. To be truthful, NU is located in Evanston, a suburb of Chicago, and it’s campus is surrounded by Lake Michigan. Travel into downtown Chicago isn’t onerous, but it doesn’t seem as accessible as getting into downtown Philly from Penn. Evanston, moreover, isn’t really “equipped” like a college town, it’s more like an area where people come to work and then the scene kind of dies down for the night. Penn, on the other hand, is surrounded by a really vibrant neighborhood. I think that it is one of it’s greatest assets. </p>
<p>Either way, you can’t go wrong. Good luck with your endeavors.</p>
<p>Hmm, I sense some bias here… Penn students like to trumpet Philadelphia but it really isn’t all that great. The city is extremely poor and very disorganized, unlike NYC. It has a huge population of African-Americans.|Old city" is pretty lame. Unlike historic buildings elsewhere, the ones here are more like shanties than anything. The “financial district” seems to be lagging behind somewhat. I can’t even find where downtown is
The only good part of the city IMO is franklin parkway…</p>
<p>i cannot believe you consider “a huge population of african americans” to be detrimental in any way to the character of a city, in and of itself.</p>
<p>Sam Lee is considering looking for a job in Philly. Penn is in Philly (you should know that by now) and wants to ask people currently living in Philly what it’s like. He cross posted in the Parent’s Cafe to get adults to answer too, but hearing what people not too far from his age think about Philly is also valuable (assuming Sam Lee is a recent grad of NU).</p>