Originally Posted by wanderer34
It has been brought to my attention that the long time petroleum and energy company known as Sunoco has left Philadelphia and decamped to bucolic Newtown Square in Delaware County. I believe the main reason for Sunoco leaving Philadelphia has a lot to do with the current business tax structure currently in place. And for a long standing Philadelphia company like Sunoco to leave Philadelphia is like GM leaving Detroit, USX leaving Pittsburgh, and Anheiser Busch leaving St Louis: that company was tied to the city.
And many can claim that Sunoco is a "low-tech" company, meaning that the company came to sucess during the early 20th century, and that Phila needs to attract high-tech companies, and many have touted the bioengineering sector as something that the city should embrace, but as of today, I have yet to see a major bioengineering company based in Philadelphia, the way Genzyme is headquartered in nearby Boston.
And speaking about the city, a lot of companies have left Philadelphia for similar reasons. Sovereign Bank left Phila for Boston after being acquired by Banco Santander of Spain and left for Boston. We could've attracted a major company like GE to Philadelphia had a certain tower (the ACC) came to fruition in lieu of the current one (the CITC), but GE left NYC to CT, and finally to Boston. GSK, I believe left its American headquarters to Raleigh, NC, Lincoln Financial left Philly for Radnor after we attracted it from IL, and we could've attracted a few more companies here in Phila (TD Bank, Black Rock, Wawa).
As much as the fanfare for a second HQ for Amazon is buzzing here, I believe it's too little, too late, as the city and the powers that be dragged their feet on this business tax situation for far too long! We'll never get an Amazon or anything akin to it partly because of taxes an partly because the city and state gov't hasn't really done anything to promote Philadelphia as a place to do business to way IL promotes Chicago, MA promotes Boston, GA promotes Atlanta, and FL promotes Miami, the latter two also not having a state income tax, making it highly attractive for workers and another major reason why FL and GA are rapidly growing!
But, seriously, why is Philadelphia (and PA) stagnating in economic and population growth, but other cities and states are expanding theirs? Boston looks to be on par with NYC and Chicago when it comes to attracting major companies, Atlanta, once a regional rail hub in GA during the Civil War, has transformed itself into a major air hub, a major education center with Georgia Tech and the black colleges (Morehouse, Spellman, etc.), and had companies like Coca-Cola, Home Depot, Delta, SunTrust, and Georgia-Pacific within its city limits, and Miami was transformed from a swampy town of a few thousand in 1900, into a major metropolis that's practically considered the Hub of Latin America, as well as an international banking center and a major economic center in its own right (Burger King, Carnival, Norwegian Cruise Lines, American Airlines). And when the 2020 Census comes in a couple years, Atlanta and Miami proper won't surpass Philadelphia's city population, but the metro areas of both those cities will eventually surpass ours.
I don't believe you can compare Phila to Atlanta and Miami since those cities are relatively younger, but peer cities like NYC, SF, and Boston continue to grow in population, DC has even more growth despite the lack of major companies in its metro area, and probably the closest comparable city to ours, Chicago, has even more stagnation in certain parts, but has an even more healthier downtown core that what we can even imagine. I'm afraid that Philadelphia is going to be a Beta city by 2020 as well because the city and state gov't hasn't put any effort to really make this city an international and world class destination that's deserved. I'd love to hear more opinions on this matter.
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