<p>OK, I’ll bite. I moved here 23 years ago while my wife finished law school, planning to leave in 9 months. We never left.</p>
<p>Philly has its drawbacks, but on the whole it is a great place to live and raise a family. It is definitely more affordable than Boston, NYC, Chicago, Washington, etc. Depending on where you live in the city, you can still probably get a decent house in a decent, middle-class neighborhood for around $200,000, and in the fancy neighborhoods (Center City, Chestnut Hill, Society Hill) for $500-$700,000 (less for a small condo, much much more for something big). Fancy suburbs and those with great schools are more expensive, others not so much more expensive.</p>
<p>Center City (including the “Gayborhood” southeast of City Hall) has had a tremendous revitalization in the last 5-10 years. A lot of old office buildings have been converted to high-end condos, which means that there are people around – affluent people, and the businesses that cater to them – 24-7. Lots of good energy on the street. The city population has actually increased slightly, after 30 years of steady decline. </p>
<p>There has been a lot more turnover in population than in the past, and outsiders are no longer as excluded as they once were. People have basically gotten over that. But there are still a lot of natives who hang around, and that lends a nice flavor, too. And immigration has exploded in the last 20 years. Not so many Hispanics – until a year ago, there wasn’t even a Hispanic radio station in this market. But lots of Eastern Europeans and Asians.</p>
<p>There are huge areas of blight and depopulated neighborhoods. At its height, the city’s population was 50% higher than it is now, and it had a huge industrial base that is almost completely gone, leaving acres of brownfield properties. This mainly affects the north-central part of the city, which is ghettoized (Black or Hispanic, depending) and sparsely populated, lots of abandoned properties, except in a few nice microneighborhoods. There, and on the edges of that neighborhood, is where a lot of the crime happens, and where there is a constant drug problem. Other parts of the city are relatively unaffected by it, though. In my neighborhood, people don’t even always lock their doors. No one I know is fearful of walking around, even at night, unless they live in a marginal area.</p>
<p>The city’s politics are dominated to some extent by race and by class. It is pretty solidly Democratic except on the edges (since I’ve been here, over half of the Republican mayoral candidates, and all the ones who had a prayer of being competitive, have been conservative Democrats who switched to get on the ballot), but split pretty evenly between black and white, with other affinity groups (Hispanics, Jews, gays) often holding an important balance of power. There is constant low-grade political corruption in all quarters, which holds the city back some, and not all that much interest in do-gooder reform (although do-gooder reformists can constitute an important swing group).</p>
<p>Like most northeastern cities, Philly is still largely segregated by race, although there are a number of pretty-fully integrated upper middle class neighborhoods (Center City, University City around Penn and Drexel, Mt. Airy, parts of the Northeast).</p>
<p>Public transportation is about B-. The system is pretty adequate, but relatively expensive, relatively slow, and not always shining and gleaming. A mixture of trains, subways, trolleys, and busses. In the Center City area, it is pretty feasible to walk everywhere. The city has vastly expanded its bike lanes in recent years, too.</p>
<p>There are some good cultural opportunities, but on the whole it’s somewhat provincial, and the proximity of New York (80 minutes by train, 90 by car) sort of caps how fancy the culture gets. On the other hand, in the past few years living costs in New York have driven some creative people – artists, musicians – here, and that’s great. There are reasonably vibrant local music (rock, hip-hip, and especially jazz and classical), art, and theater scenes. There are lots of students around – Philadelphia is second only to Boston in the ratio of students to population, and there are 15-20 colleges or universities in the city and close suburbs. Penn (including its health system) is the largest non-governmental employer.</p>
<p>There are great restaurants, ranging from dirt-cheap ethnic to extremely fancy. Not as much of the latter as in NYC or Chicago, but what there is is much cheaper than in those cities, and very good quality. Definitely a “foodie” city; at almost all social levels, food = entertainment.</p>
<p>Schools, if you care: The area has a fabulous array of private schools for every taste. The Catholic school system is important, but not so great. Many of the suburbs have world-famous public school districts, and many others are striving to get to that level. The city public school system is a mess, with pockets of world-class quality and (larger) pockets of near-total breakdown. A real challenge. Depending where you live, however, and what your children’s abilities are (the system does do really well by smart, motivated kids), you can get a good education for free in the city (and certainly in many of the suburbs).</p>