<p>Sam Lee : really do check out Phillyblog.com. It is a very good (& honest) resource to tell you about all sections of Philadelphia and the surrounding area. Posters seem to be pretty upfront about what they think of the city , their neighborhood, the lifestyles, both good & bad.
It should help you with your decision.</p>
<p>Thanks all of you. I didn’t expect so many responses! 
I was reading some of the posts on Phillyblog.com but they haven’t swayed me one way or another. I will probably fly there in April as one of my friends is going to a biz conference there. Right now, I am probably gonna pick Chicago as it seems to be a “safer” choice–have friends there already, more jobs (from what I gather), and stronger NU network; I will have to give up the luxury of spontaneous trips to NYC/DC/Boston which is still very tempting. I’ll see if I will be surprised.</p>
<p>I have a picture of myself shaking hands with then-Mayor Rizzo (at my father’s retirement party). It was an interesting time in Philadelphia history… but I wouldn’t move back on a bet. Every time I visit (which I do less and less), someone takes the time to remind me that my family doesn’t have enough history in Philly to be “a native.” Makes me crazy.</p>
<p>You mean they are a bit xenophobic? 
I wonder if an Asian with a foreign accent would fair better than you. 
(some find foreign accent “sexy”).</p>
<p>You can’t go wrong with either choice, but I’ll put in a plug for Philly. I have a son at Northwestern and cousins in Chicago so I know what a fabulous city it is. But we’ve lived in/near Philadelphia since 1986 and the city only keeps getting better and better. After growing up in New York City and then living in Boston for 6 years in my late 20’s-early 30’s, I thought Philly was a real dump when we moved here.</p>
<p>Today, it is a vibrant, diverse and affordable place for a young adult to live. The housing market keeps expanding. More and more neighborhoods are getting rehabbed. The arts scene - music, theater, visual arts - is very rich in large part because a lot of young New York artists have moved down to Philly in the last 2-3 years. Philly is less expensive than Manhattan or Brooklyn but still close enough to New York that agents come here regularly and artists can shop their portfolios/go to auditions in New York.</p>
<p>I have three sons ages 18-25 and they grew up doing the same stuff in Philly that kids at Northwestern do in Chicago. Going to the music venues, ethnic restaurants, etc. And with UPenn, Drexel and Temple all in the city, like Boston and Chicago, there is a large contingent of undergrad and grad students who drive the nightlife. Plus with the rowing clubs on Boathouse Row, the 20 mile Schuykill Valley bike trail, Fairmount Park, running clubs, etc., there are various ways to stay physically active.</p>
<p>And, yes, it’s a pretty gay friendly town and has been for a long time. It also has a growing international population. There’s a signficant Vietnamese community in Philly and, actually, a migration of Central Americans. So along with the long-standing immigrant groups and foreign students at the universities, Philly feels more and more diverse.</p>
<p>There’s no doubt, Northwestern’s resources are more of an asset in Chicago. My son who’s at Northwestern is starting to look for a summer job and the best opportunities & internships at the career office are in Chicago. And he wants to be back in Philly for the summer. On the other hand, our winters are much shorter and less severe, our springs are gorgeous, and Philly is within two hours of bucolic Bucks County & the Poconos, the Jersey shore and New York City. In some ways, Philadelphia is like the jack of all trades and master of none. There’s no single domain - like architecture or advertising or finance or publishing - where Philly is the top of the heap. But it is an easy, affordable, and accessible place to live and a city that gets better every year.</p>
<p>Sam Lee: no, I didn’t mean that Philadelphians are xenophobic. Non-WASPs are a different category altogether and may even be treated better than the children of transplanted midwesterners (which is what my parents were). IMHO, and I’m sure half the people in Philadelphia would disagree with me, many Philadelphians are snobs about class, heritage, and money; if you haven’t been in Philadelphia since the Revolution, don’t have lots of money, and didn’t go to the right schools, you might as well not exist.</p>
<p>I’ve been thinking of switching career also. I am interested in a MS program in actuarial science and Temple has one of the best programs in the country. I am curious if being a student would have a tough time to rent an apartment in center city (no source of income; I do have some savings).</p>
<p>Any reason you need to live in center city specifically? Temple’s got a subway station right nearby and it’s also got its own regional rail station, so you can pretty much live anywhere in the city that’s near public transportation and then just take the train in to classes. I live in university city and there are a couple of Temple students in my building. Much cheaper than living in center city and university city/west Philly has a big population of artsy/alternative/etc. type people, once you get out beyond all the Penn undergrads. You could also look at south Philly as well, but that tends to be a bit more expensive, from what I’ve seen.</p>
<p>I grew up not far from Philly and always wondered what made it exist. I prefer Chicago for many of the reasons you know well.</p>
<p>I’m confused. What made Philadelphia exist?</p>
<p>barrons,</p>
<p>Is it really that bad? </p>
<p>I like Chicago; but Philly probably has gentler winter and I really like how it’s so easy to get to NYC/DC and even Boston from there. </p>
<p>BlahDeBlah,</p>
<p>On top of the usual reasons that others like it, it has relatively large concentration of gays/lesbians. That said, I know very little about the city and maybe I’ll see other nice alternatives upon my visit this summer.</p>
<p>Sam, you didn’t say what your work ambitions were but why did you cross Manhattan off your list? cost of housing? You’ll have so much fun as a single guy in Mnahattan–you won’t be in the bloody apartment all that much!</p>
<p>cheers,</p>
<p>I can’t afford to live in Manhattan. “bloody apartmen”? You must be thinking of Detroit. ;)</p>
<p>Are you sure? May I ask what your profession is? Have you looked on craigslist for jobs in your field?</p>
<p>I was able to afford it as an architect back in the day. I don’t know that you can get lower salary than an apprentice architect working for famous architects. I never had s o much fun as I did when I was a broke student/apprentice living in Mnahattan.</p>
<p>I will be going to school full-time. You can’t get lower salary than that. :)</p>
<p>Sam,</p>
<p>Temple may have a good Actuarial Science program. Even though I’m an actuary, I’ve not familiar with it. I would ask around about Temple as a school before you commit to the move.</p>
<p>Hi Dadguy,</p>
<p>Which city do you work in? Which other schools do you recommend or have you heard of as having reputable programs? I know that many actuaries didn’t even major in act sci; that’s why I am not very selective about it. That said, they did say on their website their risk managment and insurance department is ranked in the top-5.</p>
<p>No it’s not that bad. The old part of town near South Street is very cool. It has enough to do for just about anyone but Chicago is just at another level–and the winters are getting milder every year. New Hope and Bucks County are very nice close escapes. You do have the NJ Shore which still is one of the better beach areas around.</p>
<p>Does Philly have a subway? If so, does it stop at Temple U and Center City? How long is the ride between the two places? Does it pass through any bad neighborhood along the way?</p>
<p>Yes.
Yes.
5-10 minutes.
Yes.</p>
<p>Philadelphia has a whole bunch of different forms of public transportation, in some cases overlapping each other: two subway lines (one of which is elevated at either end of the line, and so gets called “the El”), five different subway-surface trolley lines (run underground from Penn to Center City, but like busses west of Penn), a whole lot of busses, 8 suburban train lines, and a different train line to New Jersey. One of the subway lines runs north-south under Broad Street, and has a stop smack in the middle of Temple, and several stops in Center City. Lots of bus lines also serve the Temple campus, and almost all of the suburban train lines stop at a station a long block east of the campus (coming from, or going to, three Center City stations). There’s free transfer between the two subway lines where they cross in Center City, and between them and the subway-surface lines (which serve West Philadelphia), low transfer prices between the busses and subways, and no free or reduced transfer between any of the foregoing and the trains (but you can buy a monthly pass that works for everything).</p>
<p>Temple is in, to put it charitably, a bad neighborhood. The campus itself is pretty secure (and heavily patrolled). I have hung out there at night with no qualms. But I wouldn’t want to walk more than a few blocks from the campus alone. The commercially vibrant part of Center City peters out about a mile south of the main Temple campus and, except for Temple itself, and the Temple Medical Center, it’s pretty grim for 3-4 miles north from there. Travelling on the subway isn’t much of a problem, though. </p>
<p>Most Temple students who live off campus live somewhere else in the city and take public transportation to Temple. I think there are some university dorms in Center City, too, and university shuttle busses between there and the campus.</p>