You probably didn’t know: “Flourishing Boston”
I’ve visited Philadelphia only a couple of times and I didn’t quite manage to slog my way through Ed Rendell’s tome on how he saved the city from the combined efforts of Huns, Mongols, and Vandals, so I shan’t pass too much judgement on the city, other than to say that for all of Boston’s struggles, the Hub of the Universe does seem flourishing when compared to the City of Brotherly Love, as described in the following paragraph from a piece in the Wall Street Journal:
Why isn’t Philadelphia Boston? Why does Boston prosper, people and businesses outbidding one another to get in, while Philadelphia languishes, with acres of vacant and underused property announcing the lack of local demand? Why does much of Boston look like Hollywood’s idea of a hip, fabulous place to live, while downtown Philadelphia seems to be a bleak postindustrial landscape–the few good buildings that are still standing routinely visited by street people begging at their entrances?
How much did Boston’s Mayor Tom Menino pay to have that article placed in the Journal? Or was it a band of realtors?
The article blames the Quakers for Philadelphia’s alleged underperformance, which sounds good to me. I never much liked those kumbaya Quakers, especially not when compared to the purposeful Puritans who were all game and no halftime. I wonder how Urban Movement Man of the Moment Richard Florida feels about Quakers vs. Puritans. I mean, Quakers sound exactly like the kind of “creative people” he believes make city’s great places.
