Essays
The Hungry City
19 April 2007
A century ago, when all beer was local beer and Philadelphia was Hollywood, there was a Philadelphian for every 58 Americans from other cities and towns.
You can guess that ratio today. (Our odds haven’t improved.)
One-in-two-fifty! Or put another way, that group of 59 today isn’t likely to include someone from Wingohocking or Passyunk.
The ratio has more to do with the rapid growth of overall U.S. population than it does with our own infinite descent. New York, for example, has nearly doubled in size since 1910, but has decreased by half in its proportion of the overall population.
So both cities have lost clout. Right?
Just last week in New York they broke ground on the Second Avenue Subway, originally proposed in the 1920s. The project will cost $3.8 billion, a crucial third of that provided by Washington.
Here in the Next Great City of 1750, our dwindling population seems to mean dwindling clout in Washington. Philadelphia completed the renovation of Independence National Historical Park – the cradle of the nation’s liberty, if I have to remind you – with droplets of federal dollars. You and I and Ed Rendell and some history-minded philanthropists built the new Liberty Bell showplace, the Constitution Center, and the tourist gateway. (The Feds happily built that white aluminum security shed on Sixth Street.)
Across town, where the South Street Bridge has been a present danger for two decades, Philadelphia has been offered a low-end replacement clad in glittering stainless steel. This isn’t the result of lack of vision on the part of the architect. On the contrary, says Brad Maule, whose website Phillyskyline.com has documented the process of replacing the bridge, “The architects – and even the streets department — wanted to build a monumental bridge not unlike one by Santiago Calatrava, but had to work within the $50 million they were budgeted.” We get what we’re worth then, so this gateway bridge in the heart of the city doesn’t include ample room for bikers and pedestrians, nor does it improve the notorious on-ramp to the Schuylkill Expressway.
New York gets a billion-two from Washington for its 27th subway line; we get $42.5 million for the reconstruction of a bridge that is the equivalent of the Broadway Local.
There are two reasons for this telling contrast. The first is named Bob Brady and Chaka Fattah. Together these men have failed – through lack of vision, persuasion, or care — to convince their colleagues that our city deserves more from the federal government. A small amount of leadership would result in an adequate bridge; a little more could produce a profound gesture of belief in this city’s future.
The second is that we as Philadelphians have so far failed to reverse the decline of our population. It is one thing to shrink as a proportion of the whole, as New York has, and another to shrink in aggregate and indefinitely. No one in this society will throw life support to the guy that isn’t even trying to stay afloat.
All cities lose people — New York as constantly as Philadelphia. What we have failed to realize is that they crave them too, with an insatiable hunger and unsophisticated palate. The city without in-migrants (whether from foreign-born or not) ultimately grows thin and withers away. Just to survive, then, Philadelphia must find a way to attract people.
Where are the future Philadelphians? A century ago peasants poured in from terror-ravaged corners of Eastern Europe. They filled the streets of every American city, but here they signified the renewal of William Penn’s promise to the world: that his city would tolerate, embrace, and accept men and women from every corner, no matter.
It would be fitting, then, as we as a city read Waiting for Snow in Havana, Carlos Eire’s memoir of the 1960s airlift of Cuban children to America, for Penn’s city to proclaim its values to the world.
Philadelphia should make the case that America has the obligation to take in an ample portion of the nearly two million Iraqi refugees now currently flooding the streets of Syria and Jordan. We ought to give passage and prepare to receive thousands of Iraqis whose lives were destroyed by the worst instincts of our national character. I don’t pretend such an initiative would be easy. But it would be a bold way for our city to regain its moxie – and learn how to grow again.
Better bridges will follow.
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