Quote:
Originally Posted by 3rd&Brown
Philadelphia can't annex anything else (and hasn't in 100+ years) because its boundaries are co-terminal with its county line, but there are struggling suburban towns in Eastern Delaware County (over West Philadelphia's border) that I personally think would benefit from annexation in today's climate.
Gentrification has moved so far west in West Philadelphia that you're seeing a lot of examples where homes inside the city line (in spite of some ongoing issues with schools, etc) are selling at a premium to homes just outside the city.
I'm thinking mostly of Lansdowne, East Lansdowne, and Yeadon in Delaware County. They're on public transit (trolley) into West Philadelphia and look and feel like West Philadelphia. They're in a struggling, high tax school system and would arguably fare better if they were in the PSD, in terms of resources.
Most of the other suburbs that directly abut Philadelphia, at least in Montgomery, Bucks, and Delaware Counties are thriving and benefit from their proximity to the city. They have transit (regional rail), good schools, reasonable taxes, etc and would never in a million years be annexed.
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Out of the 10 largest cities by population, Philadelphia is the smallest land wise for the city proper. If Philadelphia was the same size as Houston eating up land in the western suburbs, the city population would be close to 3 million people.
...and yes....there will never be an annexation in Philadelphia's future.