<p>My daughter has post-graduation plans to live in Philly (she’s doing a post-bac program and working part-time). Starting in September, she’s found a house to rent with one of her friends (landlord is a Haverford prof)–which is how she heard about this rental (she goes to Bryn Mawr). The rent is reasonable, but I’m wondering about her personal safety. The house is just off of Passyunk Ave. in South Philly. Apparently, it’s close to an area on Passyunk with lots of shops and activity. She said landlord told her that he wouldn’t recommend parking her car on the street (he had suggestions for garages), but said the neighborhood was relatively safe as long as she used common sense. Since I’m not from the area, I really don’t have a clue if I should support this (we’re helping her with rent for 6 months). Any opinions?</p>
<p>The neighborhood is relatively safe if you use common sense, and if your comparison point for “relatively” is a really bad neighborhood. If your comparison point is Scarsdale, it will relatively look like a heart attack. (Do you know the Bronx? It’s not unlike Arthur Avenue, but with hipsters.)</p>
<p>That neighborhood is one of the places in Philadelphia where hip, creative, striving 20-somethings with limited income live – people just like your daughter. It’s cheap because the housing isn’t particularly nice, houses/apartments tend to be small, and parking is a constant problem, and because it’s in a general area that can be very patchy in terms of ethnicity and socioeconomic status, which translates into a certain amount of petty crime. If my kids were living in Philadelphia, they would be living in that neighborhood or one of the other neighborhoods like it; when I was a 20-something moving to Philadelphia, with a wife who was in grad school, we lived in a neighborhood like it, too.</p>
<p>A couple of years ago, a kid who had just graduated from college and moved here to be a Teaching Fellow in a public high school was stabbed and killed in a mugging gone wrong not far from there. But . . . that was huge news. The 20-something college-grad population down there does NOT get killed or maimed on a regular basis. They get their bikes stolen; sometimes their wallets. The serious violence, when it happens, really doesn’t have anything to do with them if they aren’t dabbling in the drug business on the side. Fifteen-twenty years ago, one of the risks you might have faced down there would have been getting caught in the crossfire of a Mob war, but that hasn’t been happening much recently.</p>
<p>There are some great aspects to the neighborhood. It has great, cheap Italian restaurants, and increasingly Vietnamese and Mexican restaurants, too. It is walking distance from the Italian Market, the night life along South Street, and the cultural attractions on Broad. You can visit the famous corner where Pat’s and Geno’s face off over who has the best awful cheesesteaks, and you can be amazed at the wall of tribute to Danny Faulkner (the police officer killed by Mumia Abu Jamal.) There are people who just moved there and people who have never lived anywhere else.</p>
<p>Why live there if she is attending Bryn Mawr?.. If she is indeed going there while living in South Philly,i’d look for a closer place to Bryn Mawr…is she looking foward to citylife? Or did the rental kind of fall into her lap…you can libe anyhwere on the Septa lines,and likely pay similar rent with easy access to city,without having to actually live there…all this is moot if she wants to live in the city…</p>
<p>What can she afford in terms of rentals? My son lived in an area where he and friends were in turf wars with crack dens. All student areas. He doesn’t live in the best area right now in NYC either, nor does his brother. Now there are families who have the money to get their kids some very nice places to live, but my kids are living on their own and I think that is the best that can be done on their budgets.</p>
<p>I don’t think the OP’s daughter will be doing her post-bac at Bryn Mawr.</p>
<p>My niece lives in that area and commutes out of the city for her job. This is where the young people want to/can afford to live, as has been pointed out. She is still alive.</p>
<p>My feelings for Philadelphia are well-known on this forum (I grew up in the area and put a son through Penn recently) and I’m not a huge fan (with the exception of Phillies, Eagles and lots of the food). That said, there are plenty of incidents even in the “nicer” areas of the city. City living sort of comes with that. The part that makes me nervous- and made me nervous about Penn- is the “common sense” factor. This age group stays out LATE and I often see lack of common sense…</p>