I've had a love-hate relationship with Philadelphia for twenty-five years. When we moved to the area I told my wife to not unpack, because we would not be staying long. I'm still here. She's still here. (The only thing that left town was the marriage.) Since then I've lived in the city, in the suburbs and on the edge of the region.
Philadelphia is the cradle of democracy, the first Capital of the United States of America. Betsy Ross sewed the first flag here. Philadelphia was also home to the first public school, the first university, the first hospital, the first zoo, the first fire department, and the first bank. It hosted the first world's fair. The first computer was built at the University of Pennsylvania. The list of "firsts" goes on and on, a legacy unequalled by any American City. And yet, Philadelphia has a serious inferiority complex. I have never seen a community with such low self-esteem. The city seems to revel in it.
How did we go from the "first city" to a second-class city, barely a waypoint between New York and Washington? (If you're driving between those two cities, the New Jersey turnpike conveniently routes you around Philadelphia, and with good reason; I-95 goes nowhere.)
The political parties share the blame. The Democratic Party has run Philadelphia for generations, but only because the Republicans defaulted. The Republicans lunch at the Union League, but they flee to the suburbs after work. They motor in for concerts, and other arty events, but for the most part, they leave the city to the working class.
The unions filled the void; they have the muscle in Philadelphia, and they cough up the campaign contributions that keep the Democrats in power. The current mayor is an embarrassing example of that master-puppet relationship but he is not alone in his shameless pandering to the working class; prior administrations were equally indebted to union leaders. They were just subtler about it.
Unions are not unique to Philadelphia; other cities have labor problems too. Consider the New York City Public School System; it is about as hopeless as the Philadelphia Public School System. And how about the L.A. Police Department; will it ever crawl out from under its awful image? Those two cities have serious problems, and to date their attempts to solve them have produced mediocre results, but the problems in New York and Los Angeles have not damaged their reputations. New York and Los Angeles are viewed as sophisticated, dynamic communities. In street vernacular, you could say, "they got game." The same could be said for Boston, Chicago, San Francisco, and others.
How is it that other cities deal with their deficiencies and move on while Philadelphia treads water? Look to the power. For example three union dominated municipal organizations have been in the news recently. They are 1) The Pennsylvania Convention Center, 2) The Philadelphia Public School System, and 3) the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board (the State Store System).
I won't relive the Convention Center fiasco here; suffice it to say that after the unions stubbornly drove the convention business out of town, the state moved in and took over the facility from the city and its compromised mayor. Faced with the alternative of becoming state employees, the unions came to their senses and signed a new labor agreement. All of the parties to the agreement praised the settlement, in spite of the fact that six unions still prowl the Convention Center, an arrangement unique in the industry. Stay tuned.
The Philadelphia Public Schools, long dominated by the teachers unions, are operated more like a job corps than an educational institution. They are a mess. The state took over the Philadelphia schools too, and they brought in a new superintendent. He brought a ray of hope, and if the state can keep the mayor out of the ring, we may see results there yet. Enough said, too much has been written about that sinkhole.
The State Store System has not received the publicity it deserves. When I moved to Philadelphia in 1977 I was horrified to learn I had to stand behind a barricade to order whiskey (airport security could take lessons from those guys). I couldn't touch the liquor bottle; hell I couldn't even see it. The inventory was secured in the back of the store, and a government bureaucrat shuffled away to an unseen catacomb to retrieve my purchase. It felt more like a bank vault than a liquor store. They maintained banker's hours too.
The state stores grudgingly moved out of the dark ages, and today, on the surface, they appear to be competitive retail establishments, presumably responsive to their customer's needs. Don't be fooled. Want a bottle of booze on a government holiday? Forget it.
The Liquor Control Board-reportedly the largest buyer of alcohol in the free world-recently altered pricing and operating hours in selective southeastern Pennsylvania stores, and they trumpeted those improvements like it was the second coming, but in truth they were simply a reaction to the Philadelphia region's proximity to the free market liquor systems in New Jersey, Delaware and Maryland. The state proudly announced it was opening new stores on the borders of those three states, and they armed those stores with new prices to combat the lower prices across the state line. That's well and good for the citizens of S.E. Pennsylvania, but what about the poor slobs in Wilkes-Barre? What an insult to Pennsylvanians who live too far to drive to the Border States.
Of course the state store system is not a problem unique to Philadelphia, but it is a union dominated albatross. The Republicans in Harrisburg have taken over the Pennsylvania (Philadelphia) Convention Center, the Philadelphia Public Schools and the Philadelphia Parking authority. Why can't they liberate the Philadelphia state stores? Maybe they'll get around to that after they abolish the mayor's office.
In spite of Harrisburg's Republican intrusions, Philadelphia remains a blue-collar hard-hat haven and union leaders control the Democratic machine that runs the town. My guess is the city will never bloom until union barnacles are pruned from city hall. That will take a strong mayor--more than one in a row, in my opinion--who is not beholden to union campaign contributions. And it will take a citizenry who is tired of the status quo, and who will look beyond their own parochial interests. For what is missing most in Philadelphia is a heartbeat. There is no pulse. No pride in "the city."
But there is provincial pride in the city parts. South Philly (insert your neighborhood here), Temple University (insert your school here), the Sixers (insert your team here), the Philadelphia cheese steak (insert Pat's, Gino's or Jim's here); they raise the fervor of Philadelphians attuned to those activities and neighborhoods. But what about the other stuff; the parks, the libraries, the schools, the playgrounds and swimming pools, the public transit system, all of the things that bring a community together and create a sense of ownership? Do Philadelphians feel good about their city-all of their city?
Population trends do not favor the old rust belt cities. The country is moving south and west, but in the last decade Boston, Chicago, and New York came to grips with changing demographics and they all gained in population. Philadelphia lost.
227 years ago Philadelphia brought America together; it was the new republic's premier city. But today Philadelphia is nothing more than a collection of conclaves, separated by politics, education, economics, and race. The parts are greater than the whole. We will not be a great city again until that is reversed.
