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Philadelphia, 1982–2007:
Toward the Postindustrial City
| At the time ofits tercentennial, Philadelphia's outlook appeared bleak. Few people would have predicted much of a future for the city. By almost every measure, the 1970s had been a disaster. In that single decade the population dropped 260,000. The employment base seemed to be collapsing, as manufacturing jobs fell 40 percent. The resulting erosion of the tax base left the city with a chronic fiscal crisis. In 1976 alone, local property taxes rose by one-third. Under the administration of Mayor Frank Rizzo (1972–80), violent crime jumped, despite his trademark swagger and tough talk. Racial animosities ran deep—in City Council chambers and in the neighborhoods. In impoverished districts, especially in lower North Philadelphia, landlords simply abandoned their properties, which became derelict fire hazards and havens for drug addicts and gangs. The schools struggled to teach amidst the social chaos. Homeless people were sleeping on the sidewalks. In January 1982, after 134 years, the Philadelphia Bulletin, long the leading newspaper, ceased publication. It was an ominous sign. |
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In the ensuing quarter century, Philadelphia—its government and business leaders, and its residents and workers—struggled to adjust to a new economic reality, but with only mixed results. On the positive side, Center City became an exciting destination, with shimmering new office towers, thousands of new residents, and droves of tourists. The economy held its own in the growth sectors of information, health, and education. The city government made progress attacking the decay of its most distressed neighborhoods and, with state help, improved its schools. It made great strides on controlling its finances. Strong political leadership at the end of the century gave the citizens a greater sense of pride and future possibilities than they had for a long time. However, the city continued to lose population and jobs. High taxes, high crime rates, and poor schools especially fueled continued suburbanization.1 Between 1980 and 2005 the population dropped another 225,000, to 1.46 million. The city had yet to create the kind of excitement among investors and employers that sustained the growth of Boston or New York, but it clearly had more going for it than Pittsburgh, St. Louis, or Detroit. |
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Population and Economy | |
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Not only did the aggregate population decline, but it shifted in composition, becoming far more diverse than it had been in almost a century. Mostly, white residents fled; by 2005, only 39 percent of the people remaining considered themselves non-Hispanic whites. Philadelphia also continued among the most segregated major cities in the country. While the boundaries between whites, blacks, Asians, and Hispanics shifted, few people from any of those groups lived among neighbors of other ethnicities.2 Those who stayed in the city also were poorer. In 1979 citywide median household income stood at 73 percent of the regional median; twenty years later it had fallen to 66.8 percent. In 2005, a quarter of the population's income fell below the official poverty line, a big jump from 1980 and among the highest percentages for very large cities. |
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Throughout the period, Philadelphia's leaders faced the major challenge of the strained relations among the city's many ethnic and racial communities. Like many American cities, Philadelphia had witnessed heightened tensions, particularly between whites and African Americans, during the 1960s and '70s. Racial jealousies that had been accentuated during the Rizzo mayoralty were somewhat less abrasive during the term of William J. Green III (1980–84), but points of conflict remained and manifested themselves in the street and in electoral politics. White neighborhoods where residents had suffered industrial job losses seemed especially prone to violent racial incidents, particularly in Southwest Philadelphia, Grays Ferry, and parts of Kensington and Port Richmond.3 |
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