2.7 New Yorkers A Day Apparently Not Enough To Stem Decades-Long Population Slide, But You Know What? It’s Cool.
Hey, remember these people? And then, when they snowballed all the way into becoming these people? Well, there may be enough of them to make it a total pain in the ass to get a table at Johnny Brenda’s on a Friday night, but apparently, not enough of ‘em to stop the population slide Philly’s been on since the 1950s. The U.S. Census Bureau says that between ‘00 and ‘07, Philly lost about 68,000 people, more than any other city besides New Orleans. And we’re gonna be honest with you: We think we might be OK with that. Look at it this way: Every report like this that you ever look at says we’ve hemorhagged so many people over the years because of jobs, stupid. (You know, except for the years that all the white people/Inquirer readers left because they were afraid of some kinda Hairspray scene going down with their daughters.) Who’s gonna make those jobs? The creative class, the people who are annoying the shit out of you at the next table with their weird frontside baby knapsack. (They’re not as bad as the baby-on-a-leash people, but still.) Anyway, here’s what’s going to happen: A lot of these people are going to continue their arc from Brooklyn to Philadelphia to Austin then Portland. There’s bound to be some attrition. More will move here. Things will somewhat settle. And then, eventually, these people will get tired of working at Capogiro Gelato or Comcast and they will start businesses. It’s already happening. And it will happen more.
That still doesn’t stop the 2.7 New Yorkers a day from being a giant pain in the ass, though. I mean, come on.
Inky: Dust In The Wind, All We Are Is Dust In The Wind
July 10th, 2008 at 11:45 am
Damn fucking straight.
July 10th, 2008 at 12:22 pm
Or maybe it do with more than just skinny white hipsters.
July 10th, 2008 at 1:38 pm
What are you even talking about? Is there a point? How do you arrive at the fact that new residents working counter jobs and sub contracting for cable installs will all of the sudden open a business? It will take over 2518 days (almost 7 years) for New Yorkers to overcome the 68,000 who’ve left. How are these broke creatives propsing to gain revenue? (sell out on a developers pay roll to gather “HYPE” for short sighted suburban condos?)
Any examples of this trend “already happening?” And “Urbanite Baby” bullshit that will fail in the first year doesn’t count.
July 10th, 2008 at 2:01 pm
The point, Bold First Time Commenter Samo, is that maybe we’re OK with the 68,000 who left. Obviously, there was nothing for them here. Let’s build something new and awesome in their place.
I anxiously await you finding another way to be a dick about this.
July 10th, 2008 at 2:13 pm
as an aside, there are lots and lots of FAT white hipsters. especially in philadelphia. sayin’.
July 11th, 2008 at 1:11 am
Sorry I couldn’t make much sense of the samo post but here I go.
First off Philadelphia is the sixth most populated city. Three of the other five largest cities saw most of their growth post-war and have annexed a substantial amount of surrounding land (ie some suburbs make up city).
Second, the population numbers and the percentage lost is . While 4.5% is bad. It was not the worse by any sense of the imagination. Cleveland, Buffalo, Pittsburgh, Toledo, Rochester, and a quite a number of others faired far worse. I know what excellent company to keep but when one says “the cities that lost the most people” one tends to think of percentage totals not net numbers.
Third and most importantly is the fine print. Look closely at the census numbers…nearly half the 68,000 population loss took place from 2000-2002. What that means is that the population losses over the last 5 years have been cut in half. In fact 2007 saw about a loss of 3,500 one of the lowest years of population declines in a long time.
What we should really set our eyes on this the end of decade census.
Should be a good showing for the city.
July 11th, 2008 at 1:17 am
DISCARD THE POST ABOVE: Some how it posted itself without me finishing it. Don’t ask me how.
Sorry I couldn’t make much sense of the samo post but here I go.
First off Philadelphia is the sixth most populated city. Three of the other five largest cities saw most of their growth post-war and have annexed a substantial amount of surrounding land (ie some suburbs make up city).
Second, the population numbers and the percentage lost is REAL ticket. While 4.5% of any cities residents gone over only 7 years is bad. It was not the worse by any sense of the imagination. Cleveland, Buffalo, Pittsburgh, Toledo, Rochester, and a quite a number of others faired far worse. I know, what excellent company to keep but when one says “the cities that lost the most people” one tends to think of percentage totals not net numbers.
Third and most importantly is the fine print of this dark cloud. Look closely at the census numbers…nearly half of the 68,000 population loss took place from 2000-2002. What that means is that the population losses over the last 5 years have been cut well…IN HALF. In fact 2007 saw about a loss of 3,500 one of the lowest years of population declines in a long time.
What we should really set our eyes on is the end of decade census.
Should be a good showing for the city.