I was in your spot about two years ago when I moved here. I worked at the Cira Center and lived in Fairmount, even found a nice apartment for about $1000.00/mo. I could walk to Cira in 20 minutes. I'd definitely recommend Fairmount if you are looking for someplace with no kids and not a lot of students. There's Wholefoods, a nice gym, and it's close to the Art Museum and Center City. Center City, either the Gayborhood (around 12th and Walnut), Grad Hospital or South Street are also great neighborhoods to look into, since the Cira Center has a bus that runs to center city about every half hour or so - or it did when I worked there. Anything close to downtown is very walkable. University City - up to 50th- is pretty nice around the Baltimore Ave areas, but can also be kind of sketchy, so definitely take a look at the block at night before you sign a lease. West Philly in general is different block by block, as far as crime rate goes, and crime is a serious issue. If you are looking for someplace quiet, and don't mind moving a little further West, I recommend Cobbs Creek, as being close to public transportation, good shopping (slightly outside of Philly), relatively safe and very attractice, since it's close to a lot of parks. It's not as walkable as neighborhoods closer to Center City though.