Philly Mayor Blogging
by Chris Bowers, Mon Apr 18, 2005 at 11:12:05 AM EDT
While noting that "even his critics agree he has made considerable progress" on rebuilding neighborhoods, Time reports that Street will instead be remembered for the federal corruption probe of his administration, even though he is not a target.
Philadelphians may cry "Foul!" when reading that Time rates Chicago's Richard Daley as one of the nation's best mayors for renovating the city's football stadium, "knocking down its old high-rise projects" and reforming public schools, then adds: "Allegations of financial corruption have caught up some of his political allies, although Daley has personally avoided implication."
Yet Time rates Street - who has built two stadiums, knocked down old high-rise projects and reformed public schools - as one of America's worst mayors because of a financial corruption probe that targets some of his political allies, but not Street himself.
It is not exactly a shock that Time's rankings have such obvious holes in them, since national periodical rankings are notoriously flawed. One of my favorite units as a first-year writing instructor at local colleges was to have my students pick through such rankings and expose their many flaws. Typically, the papers were very good.I don't want to get too nailed to my own cross here, but I suspect the real reason that Street got dumped on for the same things that Daley got a pass is related to general national feelings about Philadelphia versus other major urban centers. Things that are considered either kitsch or part of the local color in other cities, such as corruption in Chicago politics, are viewed as real flaws in Philadelphia. After all, despite its size, Philly is just that city between New York and Washington, and thus lacks the regional affection that can give other cities a lot more slack. For example, during my stay in Chicago, I quickly discovered that corruption in local politics, whether real or imagined, was viewed as part of a decades-long running joke that the entire city was in on. Rather than a bizarre source of regional pride, corruption in Philadelphia, by contrast, is just plain corruption.
Cities need a base of support outside of their city limits in order to prosper. However, Philadelphia isn't really the capital or hub of anything, and so it lacks this necessary element for long-term success. Heck, Philadelphia doesn't even really have a base of support within Pennsylvania. As Detroit knows, having an adversarial state legislature that is actively opposed to investing in the city is not exactly a way to help your city grow, and it doesn't get any more adversarial then the PA State Legislature and Senate versus Philadelphia. This is a problem New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and the Bay Area do not have to cope with to nearly the same degree.
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