Philadelphia Facts

Overview

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Philadelphia

Philadelphia

Learning to Age Gracefully

Philadelphia, located at the junction of the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers, has enjoyed prosperity as a bustling port and industrial center. It has also long been an intricate grid of concentrated and sharply divided neighborhoods, where residents include Italians who settled in South Philadelphia early on, Asians in Chinatown, and African Americans in Southwark along the Delaware River.

Beginning in the 1930s Philadelphia experienced decentralization and sprawl at a higher rate than population growth. Residents' movement outwards was due at least in part to the unsuitable accommodations offered by many of Philadelphia's historic houses, which were not configured to accommodate "modern" familis: the 2000 Census showed that 42 percent of the city’s housing units were built before 1940—and more than 75 percent were built before 1960. Philadelphia 's urban sprawl spiked in the 1980s and 1990s: the region's population grew by only 3 percent while its urban area—the area over which that population was spread—increased by 33 percent. Between 1970 and 2000, the city lost 400,000 residents and 200,000 jobs, as middle-class households migrated outwards. While housing prices are low and ownership rates are high compared to national averages, many old homes in the inner city are run down, and it will be a challenge to upgrade them enough to attract upper-income families.

The good news: the past several decades have seen the continued development of historic downtown, where the city's efforts to capitalize on such attractions as the Liberty Bell Pavilion, Independence Hall, and Franklin Court have revitalized both the housing and commercial markets. Launched in 1987 as a joint effort of the state of Pennsylvania , the city of Philadelphia , and surrounding counties, the Pennsylvania Convention Center opened in 1993 as the largest public construction project in the state. Another important endeavor was the revitalization of the Delaware River waterfront district called Penn's Landing. Undertaken by the Penn's Landing Corporation, which manages public land for the city and state, restoration of this area has made it a central venue for culture and entertainment. Projects such as these build on the long-standing “regional attractiveness” of downtown neighborhoods such as Society Hill and Rittenhouse Square, both of which had seen improvements in the city’s planning and redevelopment efforts of the 1960s and 1970s.