Wise words there, simon

Chances are, the guy was a scam artist getting ready to give you a sob story in the hopes of you giving him money. The "sob story" people are not necessarily homeless. They are just thugs out to scam people out of money. The often hang around places like 30th Street, pick out someone who looks like they are not from the neighborhood (which, let's face it, usually is done by racial profiling), and start off by saying "excuse me sir, I just need to ask you one question." Then, after they have your attention, they go off with some long-winded story about how they came to the city to run some sort of errand and their car got stolen (or something like that) and all their money was in the car and they just need to borrow a few dollars to get on a train back to the suburbs (and they always say they're from the suburbs beacuse they believe that you'll sympathize with them that way). Usually they ahve all kinds of props too such as fake library cards, etc. to show that they "live in the suburbs". Most of these people are decently dressed because they want you to believe them and many of them, I suspect, aren't homeless. They just go around making extra $$$ by scamming people they assume are naive.

In my opinion, you did the right thing by ignoring the guy and walking away. There's really not much else you could have done. You could have stayed and listened but then you would have risked the guy getting angry if you ended up not giving him anything and then, who knows? You could have stayed and given him money, but then he might have asked for even more (and giving these guys money will only encourage their behavior).

As for how to deal with these types of incidents, unfortunately, this is part of living in Philly. This type fo stuff happens a lot. If this is the type of stuff that can get to you, then, to be honest, you might be better off in another city. I don't mean that as an insult or anything. I'm jsut saying that I know a number of people who moved to Philly with a great impression of the city only to be driven crazy by incidents liek the one you've mentioned. They either became miserable or they left for another city and liked living there better. It's all a matter of whether the mix of good and bad in Philly sways you one way or another. A lot of people enjoy the city enough that they don't let the bad stuff affect them as much. However, a lot of people are traumatized by the bad stuff and, no matter how much they mgiht enjoy some of the positive stuff, the amount of bad stuff breaks the deal for them.

I say give hte city some time and see if you still like it. If, after a while, you think the bad outweighs the good, then it might be best to move elsewhere. Taht's beacuse, no matter what people say about Nutter and how "it's a new day", anyone who's lived in Philly for a while has heard those lines before (e.g., Rendell). The bottom line is that politicians are not so powerful in Philly. For a Giuliani-type character to come in and reform things, you sort of need other factors that facilitate things such as a growing economy, a diverse socio-economic demographic, and new people moving in (from elsewhere in the US and elsewhere in the world). Philly, as you probably know, has been declining in populace and is lagging most other big cities when it comes to in-migration. Also, the eocnomy is pretty stagnant. So, no matter what Rendell or Nutter may ahve wanted to do, they were/are constrained by what they have to work with. It's hard to talk quality of life inprovements when you have rampant poverty.

All that said, I do think Philadelphia is one greatest cities in the country beacuse of the cultural amenities, nightlife, restuarant scene, interesting people, etc. It's all a matter of what you're willing to put up with when you live here.