In news that should surprise exactly no one, Philadelphia is losing population, and it’s worse than every other city among the twenty most populous in the United States.
Most large U.S. cities reversed or slowed pandemic population drops. But not Philly.
New data released by the U.S. Census Bureau Thursday shows 19 of the 20 most populous American cities either gained residents or slowed pandemic-era population declines — Philly being the exception.
by Ximena Conde | Friday, May 19, 2023 | 5:24 AM EDT
Nineteen of the 20 most populous American cities reversed or slowed pandemic-era population declines — Philadelphia being the notable exception — data released by the U.S. Census Bureau Thursday shows.
Not to worry: the blurb means exclusive article for subscribers to The Philadelphia Inquirer, not The First Street Journal. As Robert Stacy McCain would put it, I read the Inquirer so that you don’t have to! 🙂
Does this spell a period of gloom for the city? Hard to say. Experts have consistently cautioned against reading too much into year-to-year population changes.
“One year of data is not a trend,” said Katie Martin, project director at Pew Charitable Trusts’ Philadelphia research and policy initiative.
What’s more, the census numbers only tell us the number of people arriving or leaving; they don’t tell us what’s driving the changes or if they’re permanent.
The start of the COVID-19 pandemic prompted Americans to spend a lot more time at home and reevaluate their priorities, mulling whether it was better to live in cities or the suburbs. Trend stories emerged of Brooklynites moving to nearby cities like Philadelphia because of the bang for-your-buck housing prices. At the same time, other stories told of families retreating to the suburbs out of fear that packed city living brought about more risk of contagion and concerns over rising gun violence in major cities, including Philadelphia.
Let’s tell the truth here: the homicide numbers have been worse in Philadelphia than the other large cities, and Philly is the poorest city of over a million people in the US. And while reporter Ximena Conde said that there were 33,000 residents lost between July 2020 and July 2022, I’m a bit more of a numbers geek than she is, so I looked up the numbers from the Census Bureau’s website, and saw listed the official Census number from April 1, 2020, and population guesstimate for July 1, 2022: 1,603,799 and 1,567,258. That works out to a loss of 36,541 souls, or 2.28%.
And, Killadelphia being what it is, I also added up the homicides from April 1, 2020 through June 30, 2022. Between those dates, there were 403 of the total of 499 homicides in 2020, 562 in 2021, and 257 of the 516 in 2022. Of the 36,541 people lost in the city during those dates, 1,222, or 3.34%, were lost to being murdered.
Southern and Southwestern cities like Phoenix, San Antonio, and Jacksonville continued to experience population growth, which those regions were experiencing long before the pandemic.
Meanwhile, New York City, Los Angeles, and Chicago saw smaller population declines than the first pandemic year.
Does Miss Conde mean cities in mostly Republican governed states, with far fewer panicdemic[1]Panicdemic is not a typographical error, but reflects what is actually the case: governments and people reacting in mindless panic! restrictions? One point she did not mention is that foul, fetid, fuming, foggy, filthy Philadelphia under Mayor Jim Kenney and Commissioner of Health Cheryl Bettigole kept COVID-19 restrictions, including indoor mask mandates, far longer than most cities, and the city’s teachers union — you know: the teachers who concealed a fellow teacher’s sexual abuse of a student for years — kept resisting reopening the public schools. Americans really don’t like authoritarian controls.
Of course, those Southern and Southwestern cities don’t have Pennsylvania winters, so I can’t blame Philly’s population loss solely on the city’s government and culture.
A lot of my Philadelphia friends are reacting positively to the Cherelle Parker Mullins having won the Democratic mayoral nomination: she’s at least somewhat moderate for a Democrat, and at least appears to be more active and energetic than outgoing Mr Kenney. Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw will almost certainly be not just toast, but toast which has fallen on the floor, buttered side down, once Mr Kenney’s term ends at the beginning of 2024, and that can only be good news for the seriously undermanned Philadelphia Police Department. The city will still be afflicted with the George Soros-sponsored, police-hating defense lawyer now ensconced as District Attorney at least through 2025, but perhaps, just perhaps, Philly can become greater than what it has been.
Even the homicide rate, though far, far, far too high, appears to be coming down, though is still above the 2020 pace which resulted in 499 — or was it 502? — homicides.
There are a lot of reasons to appreciate Philly, for its architecture and its history. The restaurants are great, and nothing can top a hot, fresh Philadelphia pretzel. A lot of people like (ughhh!) Philly cheesesteaks, though I think that they’re vile. But the current culture of the city is terrible, and that has to be driving some people away. Yes, 1,222 of the people who ‘left’ the city did so because someone else killed them, but that still means that 35,319 souls left for other reasons.
References
| ↑1 | Panicdemic is not a typographical error, but reflects what is actually the case: governments and people reacting in mindless panic! |
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I don’t know how much is a historical trend agrivated by the violent, uneducated ghetto population.
Cities are a historical relic of the railroads and limited communication. The rail yards are built over, the rail/container/truck facilities are in the surround. The urban amenities have followed the population to the surround. No one can afford the security for the dangerous urban environment. Most Interstate highways and rail roads by pass the cities. There is little manufacturing left in the cities. The history of the urban concentrations has been so mutilated by the Progressives that there is little to see, and few who know to see it.
Most of the dying cities in your data are the residual, constrained remnants of the 19th Century. Many of the prosperous urban areas included parts of the low density surround. As suc there was room for growth, new industry and a new population. The highly circumscribed cities were old and became homes to an expensive And dependent population. That population may have been useful in manufacturing or mining but their inability to benefit from education makes them all but useless in a modern economy. In my darker days, I think of fences, walls and guard towers.
What does Philly, and similar cities, have to offer?
I worry about the example of the city of Compton, California, where an imported Hispanic population, and their gangs, drove a violent Black population into adjacent municipalities. South LA is one big ghetto, so who cares? If that process is repeated in Detroit, Saint Louis, New Orleans, Nd many others, the surround will be over-run. The Black organizers in Chicago have realized that is what the illegal aliens are for. Cheap labor and an army to clean out the ghetto.
What does Philly have?
Jobs Americans won’t do.
And it’s not a really authetic cheesesteak unless made with cheez-wiz.
Few more years & Florida won’t be livable.