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I have friends who grew up in Philadelphia. I guess it was nice, once.

I spent a week there in 2015, Center City, and I’ve been back twice on business since then.

I grew up in Brooklyn, went to school there in the 1970s, and lived in Manhattan until I was 30. It’s not like I am a stranger to the urban environment.

But I could tell you after ten minutes on the street downtown that Philadelphia was in trouble, big trouble, and I’m not at all surprised that things have gotten worse since 2015.

I used to work in downtown Philly 40 years ago... it was nice.

Went there recently for a wedding. There were drunks and drug addicts passed out on the sidewalks everywhere. Not against the buildings or on steps, but right in the walkways at the intersections next to the municipal building.

And now there is a suggestion to ban kevlar vests.

How can someone decent visit a filthy jungle urban city? I won’t go. Boycotted Detroit since 1975. Proudly.

My sister lived outside of Philly for a while. I went to visit once.

Wow. I never saw "bad areas" go on for so long. Typically, you drive through a sketch area, it cleans up a bit, you get into a nicer area. You drive a bit more and it gets relatively normal.

This was block after block, mile after mile of what I would call some of the worst, dilapidated, "darkest" ghetto I have seen. It just kept going and going, well into what looked like it must have been decent suburban areas at one time. Surreal to see what were once idyllic raised ranches in that sort of setting.

That was, probably, 12 years ago. I can't even imagine what it's like now.

I have lived in Phila since 1970. When I first came there, it was a place where the streets of Center City rolled up at sundown. Other areas, such as Kensington and Fishtown, sometimes called the Badlands, were not safe. Much has changed since then. Philadelphia has a thriving restaurant and cultural life not only in Center City, but in many other parts. A few years ago an article in the local paper referred to Fishtown as New York’s sixth borough since so many people were moving there from the much too expensive NYC. With all that, Philadelphia has problems - not the least of which is one-party Democrat rule since the early 1950’s. Election to almost any public position requires subservience to the Unions who call the shots on how public money is spent and how public policy is created. As long as that is the case, no one in office will try to effect real changes, such as Mayor Guilliani did with his decision to enforce quality of life crimes in New Yor City. In Philadelphia, it is much easier simply to blame guns, or Trump or Republicans, generally, than to address the problems that beset our City.