Should there be a consideration about dividing up Philadelphia County into various Cities?

As we look back at the last few elections, the evidence has shown that there are at least two distinct Philadelphias.

One is the richer areas that need change (more competitive business environments and people magnets), such as the Center City & Northeast Philly areas.

The other area (north and west philly) is composed of people who are more stagnent and more fully utilitze City services for their well-being.

Philadelphia County used to contain about 20+ different townships/cities until they were all annexed into the County.

In order to accommodate the needs of the more dynamic areas with the needs of the more stagnent areas, have we come to a time where the County needs encompass various autonamous Cities again in order for everyone to remain competitive?

[BTW: I've seen talk about this every so often, thought it'd be interesting to bring it to PhillyBlog]

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[ PHILLYTIM.NET ]
ROCK AND ROLL HAS ARRIVED & THE STREET SHACKLES ON THIS CITY ARE GONE!

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Should there be a consideration about dividing up Philadelphia County into various Cities?
. . .
Philadelphia County used to contain about 20+ different townships/cities until they were all annexed into the County.

In order to accommodate the needs of the more dynamic areas with the needs of the more stagnent areas, have we come to a time where the County needs encompass various autonamous Cities again in order for everyone to remain competitive?
(snip)

This has been an interesting point, since Mark Allan Hughes of U-Penn started semi-seriously suggesting this idea about 2 years ago.

The general idea isn't necessarily about the percieved black/white/italian/russian divides between north, north west, south and west philly-

I have always seen the difference as being a direct question about whether Philadelphia's strong Mayor form of government- origionally formed to deal with riots and gilded age business excess- is still applicable
in the year 2003.

Would Philadelphia be better if it were smaller?
Would it be better if Manyunk had it's own mayor, if Southwark had a mayor, if Frankford and Germantown were smaller with their own mayors.

The dissolution of the City of Philadelphia back to the County of Philadelphia- with a smaller City of Philadelpia from River to River, South to Vine, remaining - (this would be closer to Pittsburgh's / Allegheny County dicohotomy)

Hal

What would be the benefits and drawbacks of doing that??

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What would be the benefits and drawbacks of doing that??
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Funding wise, this would help the poor sections of Philadelphia get funding at State and Fed levels -

Politcally, this would flatten the huge pyramid of beauracracy you see in Philly. Rather than layers and layers of people each getting more distant from the problem, you'd free up people to have hands on management- much like 90s mangement guru Tom Peters expounds

Fiscally, each town would have incentives to pursue the economies of scale - in this case small scale- that come from tackling problems at the neighborhood level-

Psychologically, "Center City" would become the clear focus of the city. The remaining neighborhoods would suddenly change from "city neighborhoods" to inner ring suburbs.

Additionally, to the great points Hal made, could you imagine the bustling economy in all of those newly-autonamous towns? Alot of jobs would be created, a lot of equipment would be purchased, etc. and so on.

I might further add to consideration that Center City would probably be THE hugest money draw, and that some of that could feed into Philadelphia County itself, which could help those smaller towns get under way, and keep them healthy. In fact, the whole region would experience economic & human growth.

While the towns would break into autonamy, the County would still have an eye on taking care of them.

Overall, it's really a win-win situation for us all.

__________________
[ PHILLYTIM.NET ]
ROCK AND ROLL HAS ARRIVED & THE STREET SHACKLES ON THIS CITY ARE GONE!

But what about the lost value that is gained through economies of scale? Or does it exist here?

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But what about the lost value that is gained through economies of scale? Or does it exist here?
(snip)

While there are economies of scale, that also implies that there are inefficiencies of scale.

The initial reason for the consolidation was that business had fled the "Philadelphia" (i.e. Center City) for the "suburbs" (i.e. Fishtown, Southwark, West Philly, and the boundarys created problems with
control over rioters, firemen, and allowed criminals to evade the police by
crossing from one township to another.

So, a strong centralized City took over from the County. Splitting Philly City duties from the Philly County duties doesn't guarantee a magic turnaround- surrounding counties still have problem areas- Borough of Norristown, City of Chester, but breaking these problem areas away from the other workable districts does help.

Now, the real problem is quality of life, which occurs at a small scale
- fix the roads, collect the trash, police the block- and it's physically impossible for anyone to be familiar with an entire city at this small scale.

Moreover, the empiric evidence is that the City system doesn't work for quality of live/ quality of services - pothole fixing, police responding.

Contrast this with the empiric evidence that the County system - used by surrounding Bucks, Montgomery & Delaware, does work better on quality of life issues, for roads, and police, because they are more responsive.

You already see some of this in the current City Council system - the District Councilmembers are essentially "mayors" of their areas, while the at-large Councilmember are essentially like "county commissioners" who represent the entire area.

Basically, the idea is to stop arguing about how un-solvable the problems of "Philadelphia" are, and start solving the problems of "Fishtown", of solving the problems of "North Philadelphia", or of "Roxborough"- without the constricting requriement that one size fits all.

Hal

Hello -- I've been lurking for a long time but haven't posted much.

This is an idea that really intrigues me. Wandering around Philadelphia (CC, South Philly, Manayunk, Chestnut Hill, Germantown, North Philly, NW, etc.) it's glaringly obvious to me that all these places were distinct municipalities at one time. They still ARE, culturally speaking. I have no idea how they ever got everyone to agree to annexation in 1854. I guess it must've seemed like a good idea at the time, and nobody imagined how many more people the city would get.

Is it even possible to return control to individual municipalities? What would we have to do to convince the people in power -- who probably like the power they have -- that it would be beneficial to THEM as well as to the citizens to do such a thing? And what about issues like public transportation? I guess SEPTA has regional control now and would continue to do so.

And also, how would we convince the poor areas -- who depend (or feel that they depend) on the richer areas for their tax revenue? Someone suggested state and federal aid as a possibility -- is that true?

I'm Googling for info on how the annexation happened. <a href="http://www.mahughes.org/showarticles.cfm?art id=34">Here's an interesting column</a> talking briefly about that and making a case for de-annexation.

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Monica

I'm all for decentralization since this last election (and all the other elections befrore it except the Rendell elections) have proven that this city is really two cities that hate each other but yet are forced to live together like unhappy roomates. I actually think a decentralization of Philadelphia into distinct self-governing untis within the larger structure of a county government would be beneficial for the county overall. Center City will no longer be forced to pick up the burden of less efficient areas of the city (wage tax - buh bye) and will most assuredly boom, driving growth for the surrounding areas and the entire region. NE Philly, Roxborough, and Chestnut Hill will get the self-governance they've been desiring. The areas that will loose out (and be the most resistant to decentralization) will be North Philly and parts of South and West Philly. However, even then I think the divorce of those areas from successful areas of the city will be beneficial since areas like Center City can be more free to do what they do best - serve as a business center and drive growth for the region. I mean places like Tioga are depressed and will be depressed regardless of whether thier independent or not. Maybe having them cut loose will force those neighborhoods to be more innovative about solving problems rather than relying on city taxes. If not, at least there will be the county government to provide some sort of assistance.
The only negative with all of this is that Philadelphia will no longer be the 5th largest city in the nation. In fact, it is difficult to determine which area will have rights to the name "Philadelphia". Perhaps, therefore, the devolution should be more along the lines of NYC's borough system where you have an overarching city government and several boroughs that have degrees of self-governance. In the case of Philadelphia, I vote for the boroughs having mroe self-governance and the city have less overarching authority.

I find it ironic how even as we're talking about decentralization along the lines of Pittsburgh/Allegheny County, there is a movement in Pittsburgh (a more serious one) to merge Pittsburgh and the rest of Allegheny County into one city. Over there, the movement is being driven largely by the city of Pittsburgh's impending bankruptcy. Now, I'm hearing that, after the elections, Street is revealing that Philadelphia's finances aren't so rock solid either. Only here I'm sure any budget crisis will be the root of a call for decentralization.