What do you think of Philadelphia? Would you ever consider living there?

I was born there and grew up across the river in South Jersey.
My grandparents and several family members lived there.

At 50, I still go there now and then and live in Maryland in the suburbs.

No, I wouldn’t live there.
I wouldn’t live in any city.
But if I did pick a city to live in, I’d go with DC or even Baltimore first.

Philly has an old feeling. And blue collar. I live Philly and live saying I’m from there, but every time I go there, I can’t see myself living there. But it does have a lot of character (and characters).

The Philadelphia Suburbs (at least the Pennsylvania ones) are a great place to live.

Black crime is up in nice areas, and normal people are falling victims to it far more often. The DA is woke and thinks it's racist to prosecute people, and this is what happens.

Baltimore has a higher murder rate but it's almost all isolated in the ghetto. It has begun to spread in Philly.

Horrible disgusting place, and has ruined elections for the rest of the good people of Pennsylvania.

I love Philadelphia. It's not for everyone. A few highlights:

1) It is really cheap to live in because it is the poorest big city in the US. You can get a lot of big city life for a tiny price.

2) There are tons of great bars and restaurants, and lots of things to do.

3) The center of it is small enough that it feels compact. You can easily get around on foot, by public transit, or bike, although lots of people have/use cars.

4) Crime really has gone up and it's not the safest. If you are smart/savvy, bad things are not likely to happen to you, but the crime is relatively high. Also there is a lot of drug use/homeless. The city also feels relatively dirty compared to many other cities.

5) If you have kids, the public schools are generally pretty terrible.

6) People are jerks. You either leave or you embrace it.

7) Philadelphia Runner Track Club. And this football team called the Eagles.

If you lived there, you could run Penn Relays without the travel costs. [Recipient of 10 Penn Relays medals and one Penn Relays "Wheel" all of which display four naked males bowing down before Ben Franklin! City of brotherly love, indeed.]

Suburbs are nice and has a competitive running scene from high school on up. Tons of rails trails. The only time I suggest going into the city is to see a game or to visit things like the Art Museum, Franklin Institute, or Independence Hall. Plenty of great bars in the burbs.

I do not live in Philly but am there very often. There are a few decent neighborhoods for homeowners, quite a few nice apts and condo living situations in town. During the day it is okay, at night, not so much. I would not want to raise a family there, there is just too much crime. Shame, nice history.

Philly is dirty (like extremely dirty), crime ridden and the people are mostly disgusting/rude.

Having said that, there is a certain charm to the city, there are great places to eat, and run. LOTS to do and you are close to a ton of stuff. It has a lot of history and the architecture is great. The suburbs are also a great place to live. I would not want to live anywhere near the city.

Oh yea, Philly Eagles fans are so of the most brutish people you will ever meet - it's a Philly thing.

Some good, clear points above (esp rando from filly). The city has great history and lots of unpretentious places to visit.

I'm assuming you're not a senior citizen looking for peace and quiet or someone with three kids you're planning on taking on the subway. If you're at the right time in life, you can put up with some of the less desirable aspects of city living in exchange for some adventure, change of pace, etc.

I’m actually thinking of moving there for the next few months. So also interested to hear opinions, esp about Fishtown.

Friend of a friend is subletting for 1200 a nice private master bedroom there

I lived in nyc for awhile before, so idk if this will be a massive downgrade or the same basic deal but for less $$$

Since he’s subletting it for that price, it’s probably fine. I have a friend who thought he scored a deal on an apartment close to the (white Sox) stadium since it was only like $700 dollars per month…he left within the first month since there were shootings on his block weekly.

Heck no, that place is a pit. Chicago gets a bad wrap because of a few extremely crime-dense areas, but for the most part it's a nice place. With Philly the majority of the city is dangerous, with little pockets of safety sprinkled in, mainly in Southern Philly. Putting the crime aside, the city is littered with garbage, there's nowhere to park, traffic is chaotic and the roads are tiny. If you stay in certain areas, it can be a fun place to visit but I would never live in the city itself.

I grew up and still have a lot of relatives in northwest philly (chestnut hill and mt airy mostly) before my family moved to the suburbs when I was around 15. My brother and a lot of older friends also went to drexel for college and lived all over west and south philly, so I also spent a decent bit of time in those areas when I was a bit older. I definitely have fond memories of living there as a kid, although I haven't been around for more than a few days at a time to visit my family since after I finished with college.

It's a pretty massive (area wise) city, so there's a lot of diversity in the neighborhoods. A lot of the downtown core is pretty gritty, but there are some nicer neighborhoods close in, especially if you're into cities with older designs and can put up with typical city issues. At least I was never too bothered visiting friends in these areas, but that was a college aged person, so my tolerance at the time might be a lot different than someone with a young family. The neighborhoods on the outskirts of the city can feel a bit like their own (older style) towns, and probably wouldn't be official parts of the city in a lot of other places. Where I grew up was kinda like this, although it was still very noticeably more urban than the small suburban town I moved to later.

The park system branching off from the schuykill is fantastic: the schuykill river trail starts downtown and goes mostly uninterrupted until well after it leaves the city, and passes through fairmount park and connects to the entrance of the wissahickon valley park on its way. The wissahickon is especially great for trails, and even once I moved out to the suburbs my high school team would try to get there for weekend long runs since it was so much nicer than anywhere else within a comparable drive. As a whole it's still my favorite urban park system by a fair margin.

On the other hand, outside of this the access to parks is decently worse than other cities I've lived in, so if you don't live near the schuykill or wissahickon your access to even medium sized or nicer small parks is kinda bad. The transit is also pretty crap, even compared to a lot of other cities in northeast US/Canada, if that's something you were interested in using. The coverage of the commuter rail is decent, but the bad frequency and reliability make it a huge pain.

Cousin went to Penn. He told me that people complained about "Penntrification" but they also would only stay around there / center city / the financial district.

It's rife with litter though. I think Baltimore might actually be worse with respect to that, but I've only seen people in Philly and Baltimore flat out dump an entire bag of trash out of their window. I have to admit I did that once, but I made a wrong turn and was driving through the hood. The sidewalks were full of litter, and I didn't live there so I didn't really care

I've heard it's gentrifying, but I'm not sure if that means it's "up and coming" or that it's already basically gentrified. I believe some parts border Kensington though (correct me if I'm wrong), and - to put it lightly - that's not exactly the nicest area. It won't have shootings like West Philly, but it has junkies everywhere

1) Has very few redeeming qualities.

2) Never would live there.

I would agree with some of the positive and negative points. If you compare Philly to DC for example, it is shocking how dirty it is. There is a certain Philly attitude to the city, which I like, but puts off a lot of people. It is because many residents are born, raised, and have barely ever left the city unlike DC or NYC which is more transitory. This also brings about positives - as this week leading into the Super Bowl there is a buzz throughout the city (everyone in a good mood) and 75% of the people you see will be in Eagles gear. The violent crime is certainly something to monitor when choosing where to live.

Definitely some nice areas. I would look into Queen Village, Passyunk, and Rittenhouse. Or Chestnut Hill/Mt Airy if you are wealthier and want a big house (won't even feel like you are living in Philadelphia, but still lots of things within walking distace) with great access to running. Fishtown as someone else mentioned is fine but a bit isolated and has gotten pretty expensive since people see it as trendy.

Valley Green is one of the best urban parks for running in the US. 5 mile traffic free flat gravel road on Forbidden Drive, which connects to other trails along the river. Then tons of dirt trails through the hills on either side of the creek.

I'd rather live in Pittsburgh, state college, Williamsport, Harrisburg or Gettysburg