Quote:
Originally Posted by mcgrath618
Okay, so other than one World Cup game (which I admit isn't nothing) it'll be a fairly normal 4th?
I feel like we've been hyping this up for years only for it to basically be like any other year, except with a big soccer game.
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Yeah, my cynical take is that FIFA really overtook broader 250th planning efforts, and so a lot of city resources and energy has gone to how to manage things during the 6-game run (June 14-July 4). Lots of money to improve Lemon Hill as the official fan zone (here's hoping in a meaningful way that benefits citizens after the fact), lots of planning about how to get people to/from there, lots of money allocated to police over time, etc.
There has been next to nothing done (AFAIK) on the theme of "how will Philly feel special or exciting during 2026". There's so many relatively low-cost ways to go about this that could've been thought of years in advanced and then funded via sponsorships and budgeting (weekly fireworks, a series of free concerts, street closures, outdoor movie nights in city parks all summer, Parks on Tap subsidized on steroids, closing the Parkway and putting some soccer pitches on it, etc), and instead it feels like mostly just logistics support for large sporting events brought to us by billionaires. From a perspective of a tourist from far away, I'm hard pressed to think of anything they could look up and visit/see/attend after checking into their hotel that feels 250th-specific. Philly's great, of course, and there's lots to enjoy, but I don't think we can convince anyone that we've really been thoughtful about this year.
Even the recent articles about "could we get the bars open later during 2026" piss me off, because that's another example of something that could've been decided five years ago, legislation could've been passed that goes into effect on April 1 and sunsets on Oct 31 or however they'd want to do it, and instead it's like, huh, wow guys it's 2026 finally, do you want to begin thinking about a complicated change with implications for staffing and supplies for thousands of businesses that requires state congressional approval?
Ultimately the most disappointing part is the wide gap between rhetoric and reality: any politician in front of a mic waxes poetic about 2026 like it's the Olympics and like we're about to unveil a new metro system or signature infrastructure achievement, but then the actual facts on the ground are just a few very expensive sporting events.
Now granted, it's a bizarre time to pretend to be excited about the state and trajectory of the USA, though even THAT feels like a missed opportunity: how about an exhibit ABOUT the President's House exhibit drama, and what the implications of that situation are for the health of our broader democracy? We literally have the Constitution Center, which could've decided to host a year-long provocative examination of whether the Constitution still matters or is adhered to, and instead I guess we're just letting people take pictures with bronze statues of founding fathers. PhillyMag ran a piece on this recently entitled "Where is the Constitution Center When We Need It" that sums these ideas up nicely.
TL;DR: yeah I think we really 🞵🞵🞵🞵 the bed on 2026.
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