Posted: Fri, May. 18, 2012, 8:22 AM
White migration to Center City unlikely to save Philadelphia
By Patrick Kerkstra
For The Inquirer
Philadelphia's great white hope is back in the news, and I'm not talking about Rocky Balboa.
For the first time in 60 years, the city is adding white residents more quickly than it is losing them: 3,980, to be exact, as reported in Thursday's Philadelphia Daily News.
Statistically, a few thousand new people in a city of 1.53 million is insignificant. And one year does not make a trend. The 2020 census could well show that the city's white population has declined yet again.
But I would bet against it.
Granted, the odds are good that longtime working-class white Philadelphians will continue to leave the city in large numbers, fed up with the bad schools, the violence, and the taxes. The difference now, though, is that for every rowhouse Rocky who leaves, there's a white empty-nester or young college graduate who moves in, usually to Center City or one of its bordering neighborhoods. And there's every reason to believe that will continue for the foreseeable future.
Not all that long ago, Center City's rebirth felt fragile, as though it could all turn to dust with a few ill-timed homicides or a bad economy. But Center City has proved its staying power over these last three years, thriving even as it endured trials like the flash mobs, Occupy Philly, and an atrocious real estate market, none of which is exactly the stuff of idealized urban living.
Center City rode over those speed bumps with ease, its momentum barely slowed. That suggests to me it has passed a tipping point: It's no longer a delicate flower, and there's a certain sense of inevitability to its continued expansion.
Let's acknowledge that celebrating an increase in the city's white population is a bit crass. But the consequences of white flight (and, increasingly, middle-class black flight) have been so disastrous for so many cities for so long that this reversal - however slight - is momentous.
Not because of race per se, but because of affluence. The white residents swelling Center City tend to be reasonably well-off and highly educated. That means they pay a lot in taxes while requiring relatively little in the way of city services, a combination that makes them a welcome addition to the poorest big city in the country.
Of course, there are some drawbacks to their increase in Philadelphia. Gentrification tensions are common along many of Center City's bleeding edges. And one wonders what will happen to Philadelphia's very identity - so closely linked to the city's white ethnic neighborhoods - once the white population is dominated not by Joey and Stacey from the block, but by Jacob and Sophia from Swarthmore.
We could find out sooner than you might imagine.
http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20...ladelphia.html
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I think it is great that the city is finally gaining people again. I think we will only continue to grow finally after so many years of losing population. I think it is great that whites are no longer leaving the city and they are staying and having children. What the article doesn't mention is that hispanics and asians are doing the same thing. It's great that Philly is becoming very diverse. I think the large Universities in Philly are a huge draw to the city and they're a major reason why people stay in the city.
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