PHILADELPHIA | Highrise Development Thread IX

[josef]

Originally Posted by PhiLaw

Agreed. But let me add. The problem with the Philadelphia public school system is a pipeline problem. You can't "make the schools better" until you make its people better, in the aggregate. We are currently infilling the city's row homes, apartment and condos with a lot of people who take a different approach to parenting and education than some of the existing residence. This is truly how you change the public school system. Unfortunately, money, teachers and other structural changes will only marginally make a difference. The silver bullet is the residence themselves.

* Residents. Clearly they should've paid your English teacher more money.

Just kidding, just kidding. I agree, and think it's a shame when like every single iota of attention is paid to schools during a mayoral race, when the mayor can do so very little for them.

[Londonee]

Originally Posted by Philly Kid

"The millennials will get older and there's not a whole lot behind them," Levy said. "We've got to fix the basics."

I don't understand this quote, it defies logic. There's not a whole lot behind them? How about, like, the next generation of millions of people who are now 10-15 years old. For every millenial turning 35 and moving to the burbs, there's a college grad, turning 22 and moving to the city. The cycle has started.

If we keep the same rate of attracting young people, and we keep just a fraction of the 35 year olds who formerly fled to the suburbs, then the city is going to continue to boom. Which is EXACTLY what's been happening over the last 10 years.

On top of that, the city has so long been ignored by its suburbs, that in a massive metropolis of 6million+ people, we are now just scratching the surface of growth potential.

[1487]

Originally Posted by Londonee

I don't understand this quote, it defies logic. There's not a whole lot behind them? How about, like, the next generation of millions of people who are now 10-15 years old. For every millenial turning 35 and moving to the burbs, there's a college grad, turning 22 and moving to the city. The cycle has started.

If we keep the same rate of attracting young people, and we keep just a fraction of the 35 year olds who formerly fled to the suburbs, then the city is going to continue to boom. Which is EXACTLY what's been happening over the last 10 years.

On top of that, the city has so long been ignored by its suburbs, that in a massive metropolis of 6million+ people, we are now just scratching the surface of growth potential.

exactly. This idea that the current crop of 20 and 30 somethings wont be replaced is ridiculous.

[1487]

Originally Posted by iheartphilly

Possible 30th St Station Upgrades:

http://www.bizjournals.com/philadelphia/...rades-to-30th-street-station.html?page=2

Besides bathrooms and retail stores, any ideas of what other upgrades to improve the interior of this station? Also, where will funding come from?

Just wandering if this is a realistic goal for Amtrak?

its not realistic, especially not before the world families event this year. You could conceivably design, bid and construct the restroom upgrades before the DNC- if they even have funding for that. Retail tenants arent a capital construction issue so Im not sure why Casey is lumping "better restaurants" in with new bathrooms. No relation between the two.

[1487]

Originally Posted by PhiLaw

Agreed. But let me add. The problem with the Philadelphia public school system is a pipeline problem. You can't "make the schools better" until you make its people better, in the aggregate. We are currently infilling the city's row homes, apartment and condos with a lot of people who take a different approach to parenting and education than some of the existing residence. This is truly how you change the public school system. Unfortunately, money, teachers and other structural changes will only marginally make a difference. The silver bullet is the residence themselves.

Different people mean different things when they say "good schools". Im all for good parenting and personal responsibility, etc, etc. But you have to have a baseline in terms of facilities, staffing, programming and supports in every school period. There is always a lot of talk about how a certain class of parents does more work to ensure success, but when you look at the resources of successful schools (in the burbs, not the city) you find they have all the bells and whistles. If it was as simple as having good parents turn out smart kids then you wouldnt need $100M suburban schools that rival the size and offerings of community colleges. I read that Lower merion built new HS buildings because the kids were jealous that their counterparts in Chester County had new buildings vs 40 year old buildings. The physical plant and resource levels matter- a LOT.

[sayitaintso]

Originally Posted by Londonee

I don't understand this quote, it defies logic. There's not a whole lot behind them? How about, like, the next generation of millions of people who are now 10-15 years old. For every millenial turning 35 and moving to the burbs, there's a college grad, turning 22 and moving to the city. The cycle has started.

If we keep the same rate of attracting young people, and we keep just a fraction of the 35 year olds who formerly fled to the suburbs, then the city is going to continue to boom. Which is EXACTLY what's been happening over the last 10 years.

On top of that, the city has so long been ignored by its suburbs, that in a massive metropolis of 6million+ people, we are now just scratching the surface of growth potential.

Yes and no. The point everyone seems to be missing is the size of the pie. This generation is BIGGER than the baby boomers. If you read the report carefully Philadelphia has always attracted those between 20 and 34. The reason for the boom is because the % of this age group is simply a larger base. i.e. 60% of "100"(GEn x) is < 60% "1000"(Millenials). The coming generation is back down to "100" We'll still get 60% of them but that will leave a lot of empty space. In terms of % Phila is no more popular than 15 years ago, but yes there are more people.

The 34yo and older crowd has always and continues to move out as the graph clearly shows. The problem is we've built 3000 new living spaces that will go empty if the 34yos leave b/c the 15-19 cohort is exponentially smaller in terms of aggregate size. (Thanks in larger part to the selfish nihilistic Gen xers who can't be bothered to have kids.)

What we have to do is capture a greater % of the Millenials, but that won't change until the city changes its tax policies.

Unfortunately as we all know City Council are embarrassingly uneducated for a group that controls the 5th largest city in the US. Living in the now and basing their politics off what they see rather than digging into the numbers will only lead them into a false sense of security and inaction. Drafting creative tax policies that will attract business, create jobs, and grow the tax base might be further away today than it was 5 years ago.

(BTW Growing the tax base is THE fix for the schools. I am always amazed at how people want to keep throwing money at the schools without attacking the root of the problem. Fix your taxes fix your schools)

[sayitaintso]

Originally Posted by 1487

Different people mean different things when they say "good schools". Im all for good parenting and personal responsibility, etc, etc. But you have to have a baseline in terms of facilities, staffing, programming and supports in every school period. There is always a lot of talk about how a certain class of parents does more work to ensure success, but when you look at the resources of successful schools (in the burbs, not the city) you find they have all the bells and whistles. If it was as simple as having good parents turn out smart kids then you wouldnt need $100M suburban schools that rival the size and offerings of community colleges. I read that Lower merion built new HS buildings because the kids were jealous that their counterparts in Chester County had new buildings vs 40 year old buildings. The physical plant and resource levels matter- a LOT.

Doubtful. You tell me that if you immediately switched school populations there would be clear and immediate results from the populations( Suburban kids getting worse/city kids getting better)? No way. The city schools would become wonderful and the suburban schools would be shite. You can throw as much money as you want but until you address the underlying problems the schools will always be shite. Do Meredith, Penn Alex etc have more money? No they have better students...

[McBane]

Not a popular view but the best thing the city could do is to divvy up the city into districts (NOT the gerrymandered council districts) that operate their own schools, and significantly, have a portion of the taxes collected by residents STAY in the district while the rest goes into a larger pot to be distributed to other districts and to the city as a whole. Each district would also have the power to levy additional taxes to support their own schools. Each district would support schools for residents of their schools only; open seats can be filled by kids in adjacent neighborhoods based on proximity. People looking for good schools will pay up knowing that these additional taxes will be used to support their own schools (Exhibit A: Lower Merion).

Before you rail me, how many people looking to the burbs choose a specific location based on the school district? For almost everyone I know, the school district is THE most if not the second or third most important reason. Why not replicate this for the city?

Do this and suddenly the schools in CC, along with large swaths of NW and NE Philly become good even desirable places to send your kids. Instead of moving out of CC to raise a family, parents would likely move to Mt Airy, Roxborough, Mayfair, etc. This would in effect help stem the time of families moving out of the city and help refill the city's middle class neighborhoods. The drawback of course is that this would compound the problems in poorer parts of the city.

As a side benefit of this plan, people complaining about "gentrification" might shut their mouths when they realize that gentrification equals tax dollars that will benefit their schools. Right now, it's easy to bitch about gentrification when you know that the city will continue to support your libraries, schools, after school programs, etc. regardless of the city's revenues.

Of course I realize that this would never happen in a million years. But it's the first thing I'd do if I ruled the world.

[hammersklavier]

OTOH you have folks like Jon Geeting agitating for regional school districts...

In any event there is an underlying problem: Philadelphia has the only county-size school district in the commonwealth. PA's school districts are heavily atomized and he thinks that's a statewide problem that can be best ameliorated by aligning districts with the state's discrete economic units (i.e. the metros).

[iamrobk]

Originally Posted by PhiLaw

Agreed. But let me add. The problem with the Philadelphia public school system is a pipeline problem. You can't "make the schools better" until you make its people better, in the aggregate. We are currently infilling the city's row homes, apartment and condos with a lot of people who take a different approach to parenting and education than some of the existing residence. This is truly how you change the public school system. Unfortunately, money, teachers and other structural changes will only marginally make a difference. The silver bullet is the residence themselves.

Couldn't agree more with this. My mothers a public school teacher (in Germantown) and while the school district could definitely use more money and better technology/etc., so much of it starts with the home and these kids parents.

[UrbanRevival]

Originally Posted by sayitaintso

Yes and no. The point everyone seems to be missing is the size of the pie. This generation is BIGGER than the baby boomers. If you read the report carefully Philadelphia has always attracted those between 20 and 34. The reason for the boom is because the % of this age group is simply a larger base. i.e. 60% of "100"(GEn x) is < 60% "1000"(Millenials). The coming generation is back down to "100" We'll still get 60% of them but that will leave a lot of empty space. In terms of % Phila is no more popular than 15 years ago, but yes there are more people.

To further complicate the puzzle, although the Millenial base is indeed larger than previous generations--and will be the largest likely for a number of years--I think a strong argument can be made that Philadelphia has absolutely made itself far more popular than it was 15 years ago, based on media coverage alone, and especially among the young, educated demographic.

The 2014 City Observatory report (p. 25) shows that core Philly neighborhoods gained more young, educated adults in higher raw numbers than even Boston and San Francisco between 2000-2010 (and does very well compared to Chicago and New York, also, given their size):

http://www.rivercog.org/Postings/youngRestlessReport102714.pdf

Of course, those cities have larger bases to build on, but Philly is now 6th in the US for the total number. The 78% increase shows some very serious recent momentum, and employers definitely pay attention to those trends.

What I would posit is that, even with a smaller generation behind the Millenials, it's clear that Philly has become a national destination for young, educated people. Even if there are only 60 million young Americans in the following generation (compared to 80 million Millienials), gaining even just another 22,000 of the college graduates of this group in core neighborhoods over the next 10 years does not at all seem like a stretch.

[PhiLaw]

Originally Posted by 1487

Different people mean different things when they say "good schools". Im all for good parenting and personal responsibility, etc, etc. But you have to have a baseline in terms of facilities, staffing, programming and supports in every school period. There is always a lot of talk about how a certain class of parents does more work to ensure success, but when you look at the resources of successful schools (in the burbs, not the city) you find they have all the bells and whistles. If it was as simple as having good parents turn out smart kids then you wouldnt need $100M suburban schools that rival the size and offerings of community colleges. I read that Lower merion built new HS buildings because the kids were jealous that their counterparts in Chester County had new buildings vs 40 year old buildings. The physical plant and resource levels matter- a LOT.

Correlation but not causation. The better facilities, bells and whistles, etc. are primarily the consequence of having residents with a culture more predisposed to better parenting and education, not the cause. This culture helps to attract like-minded people, creating a subculture in the suburban enclave, which happens to correlate with higher wealth. A portion of this wealth is then distributed to the respective school district.

If the philly public schools, in Stenton for example, were given the Lower Marion facilities, you would not see the problem eradicated.

[Londonee]

Originally Posted by sayitaintso

Yes and no. The point everyone seems to be missing is the size of the pie. This generation is BIGGER than the baby boomers. If you read the report carefully Philadelphia has always attracted those between 20 and 34. The reason for the boom is because the % of this age group is simply a larger base. i.e. 60% of "100"(GEn x) is < 60% "1000"(Millenials). The coming generation is back down to "100" We'll still get 60% of them but that will leave a lot of empty space. In terms of % Phila is no more popular than 15 years ago, but yes there are more people.

The 34yo and older crowd has always and continues to move out as the graph clearly shows. The problem is we've built 3000 new living spaces that will go empty if the 34yos leave b/c the 15-19 cohort is exponentially smaller in terms of aggregate size. (Thanks in larger part to the selfish nihilistic Gen xers who can't be bothered to have kids.)

What we have to do is capture a greater % of the Millenials, but that won't change until the city changes its tax policies.

Unfortunately as we all know City Council are embarrassingly uneducated for a group that controls the 5th largest city in the US. Living in the now and basing their politics off what they see rather than digging into the numbers will only lead them into a false sense of security and inaction. Drafting creative tax policies that will attract business, create jobs, and grow the tax base might be further away today than it was 5 years ago.

(BTW Growing the tax base is THE fix for the schools. I am always amazed at how people want to keep throwing money at the schools without attacking the root of the problem. Fix your taxes fix your schools)

The youngest Millenials are presently about 10-12 years old. Even if the generation behind us is in fact significantly smaller (we won't know that generation's official size till early 2020s)--we have almost 25 years of a Millenial surge ahead of us. Methinks the death of the city post-millenials is slightly exaggerated, at present.

[3rd&Brown]

Originally Posted by sayitaintso

If you read the report carefully Philadelphia has always attracted those between 20 and 34.

No it hasn't. Not to the extent that it does today.

Yes, young 20 somethings have always moved to cities.

They have not moved there in the %s that they do today.

Quite simply, if you don't live in the core of your region today and you are a young educated person, you are the outlier. This is not unique to Philadelphia.

What is unique to Philadelphia and why it is so noticeable is for two reasons.

1. We were starting from behind. The baby boomers who grew up in Philadelphia and left very often HATE Philadelphia. Hence the term Negadelphian, most likely hatched by the subset of people who fled Kensington for Mayfair, Mayfair for Bensalem (note South Kensington is now more expensive than most parts of Bensalem...ironic?). They remember the flight and disinvestment and the crack cocaine epidemic and are 90% responsible for our low self esteem as a region.

2. Philadelphia is much better at retaining the college students who attend school here. I think as recently as the early 2000s, the retention rate for students attending school in the region (many who are not from here) was something like 20-25%. Now I believe it is over 50% and continues to grow.

The latter has NEVER been the case in Philadelphia. And I don't see it changing any time soon. Among the younger folks in my extended social cohort, many if not most are not from this region. I think this is a recent phenomenon and I hope it continues.

[allovertown]

Originally Posted by PhiLaw

Agreed. But let me add. The problem with the Philadelphia public school system is a pipeline problem. You can't "make the schools better" until you make its people better, in the aggregate. We are currently infilling the city's row homes, apartment and condos with a lot of people who take a different approach to parenting and education than some of the existing residence. This is truly how you change the public school system. Unfortunately, money, teachers and other structural changes will only marginally make a difference. The silver bullet is the residence themselves.

Total BS. You talk about "approach to parenting" as though people are making some type of informed decision to be terrible parents.

You blame the parents. Here's a crazy fact: all of the terrible parents in Philadelphia were at one time poor helpless innocent children. The poverty in Philadelphia is GENERATIONS deep and is rife with the sickening racist decisions of our past. Your silver bullet is hilarious and filled with the casually classist and racist connotations of the American right.

The ghettos of Philadelphia came to be due to major societal failures of our past and if we're planning on truly fixing them it will be a societal fix not some ignorant attempt to yell at poor people to pull themselves up by the bootstrap.

Originally Posted by sayitaintso

Doubtful. You tell me that if you immediately switched school populations there would be clear and immediate results from the populations( Suburban kids getting worse/city kids getting better)? No way. The city schools would become wonderful and the suburban schools would be shite. You can throw as much money as you want but until you address the underlying problems the schools will always be shite. Do Meredith, Penn Alex etc have more money? No they have better students...

So some students are innately better than others? Sounds like more crap.


Can we please stop talking about education here? Every time this board gets even remotely political the attitudes thrown around here are pretty disgusting.

[justremember]

Originally Posted by allovertown

Can we please stop talking about education here? Every time this board gets even remotely political the attitudes thrown around here are pretty disgusting.

I have to agree somewhat. At least we should shift the way we're talking about it. I read this thread all the time and - although I almost never post anything - I really appreciate the actual knowledge that I'm able to get from so many who contribute. It bothers me when it seems like people are arguing that basically some children and families in our cities are less deserving of quality education or that kids and their parents are somehow responsible for the bad decisions wealthy men in fancy suits and nice offices make.

Is the problem really that some parents don't parent well? I thought the whole point was to make schools better so that parents who do value education (and, by the way, there are tons of poor parents who do value education) won't be enticed to leave the city? Won't better schools help break the [over-hyped] cycle of bad parenting? Won't creating sub-districts with separate stream of funding just create more of a distinction between good schools in wealthier neighborhoods and bad schools in poor neighborhoods? And won't that worsen problems like crime, poverty, urban decay, etc.?

What's the point of talking about education on a skyscraper and development forum if we're just going to stereotype, bash, and shame poor people instead of talking about ways to improve education so we can have more skyscrapers and better development?

[sayitaintso]

Originally Posted by allovertown

Total BS. You talk about "approach to parenting" as though people are making some type of informed decision to be terrible parents.

You blame the parents. Here's a crazy fact: all of the terrible parents in Philadelphia were at one time poor helpless innocent children. The poverty in Philadelphia is GENERATIONS deep and is rife with the sickening racist decisions of our past. Your silver bullet is hilarious and filled with the casually classist and racist connotations of the American right.

The ghettos of Philadelphia came to be due to major societal failures of our past and if we're planning on truly fixing them it will be a societal fix not some ignorant attempt to yell at poor people to pull themselves up by the bootstrap.



So some students are innately better than others? Sounds like more crap.


Can we please stop talking about education here? Every time this board gets even remotely political the attitudes thrown around here are pretty disgusting.

It's only disgusting if you're of the persuasion who think the socialist view of society is the only correct view. Typical

[Philly-Drew]

Can we please quit the crap and get back on topic? WTF.

[Capsule F]

Originally Posted by allovertown

Total BS. You talk about "approach to parenting" as though people are making some type of informed decision to be terrible parents.

You blame the parents. Here's a crazy fact: all of the terrible parents in Philadelphia were at one time poor helpless innocent children. The poverty in Philadelphia is GENERATIONS deep and is rife with the sickening racist decisions of our past. Your silver bullet is hilarious and filled with the casually classist and racist connotations of the American right.

The ghettos of Philadelphia came to be due to major societal failures of our past and if we're planning on truly fixing them it will be a societal fix not some ignorant attempt to yell at poor people to pull themselves up by the bootstrap.



So some students are innately better than others? Sounds like more crap.


Can we please stop talking about education here? Every time this board gets even remotely political the attitudes thrown around here are pretty disgusting.

Bleeding heart liberal, take a break. Your bull**** methods of throwing infinite money and resources at the issue without any accountability is also idiotic.

[allovertown]

Originally Posted by Capsule F

Bleeding heart liberal, take a break. Your bull**** methods of throwing infinite money and resources at the issue without any accountability is also idiotic.

I'm not sure where in my post you read that I would like to spend an infinite amount or have zero accountability on said spending. You're attacking a straw man.

You have such anger toward my viewpoint but it was only expressed because a bunch of people needlessly interjected the opposite viewpoint into a forum focused on the development of skyscrapers.

It's honestly annoying that every month or so a group of posters here, frequently the same ones, need to randomly interject a few casual posts about what's wrong with the poor people in this city. I ignore most of it but when people are basically saying"the problem with the Philadelphia School system is the lazy, uncultured, impoverished people trying to get an education within it and their terrible parents" and others are posting about how we should subdivide the school district so our poorest children get an even worst education; it's hard to just look past that.

Some of you need to wake up, get out of the eco chamber, and start to reintegrate with society. I know we all like to look up at the skyscrapers, but please take a moment to look down toward street level and look at the city you're living in and the people you're living with.

This is a forum about Philadelphia, I fail to understand why some people think that posters want to be subjected to views that 90% of Philadelphians would disagree with and most would be disgusted by.

Whatever. I'm never going to convince you that inner city schools in this country are criminally underfunded and you're certainly not going to be able to convince me that the poor of Philadelphia should be set upon a giant block of ice that has formed on the Delaware River and pushed in the general direction of Camden... or whatever it is that you believe.

So considering that we're not getting anywhere, why don't we just leave politics out of this, as many people, myself included, have asked in the past and stick to the topic that we all enjoy and brought us together here in the first place.