[Antoninus]

This article is dumb regionalism and nothing more. Try comparing metro area populations and see what you come up with. I think the Philly-metro area (Philadelphia, Montgomery, Bucks, Delaware, Camden, Burlington Counties) is the third or fourth largest in the entire country, comprising 5 or 6 million people. Most of the people who leave Philly, live in the burbs. The Phoenix metro area can't touch those numbers.

As for the city of Philadelphia proper, it is losing people for a few very obvious reasons: taxes, crime, taxes, horrible schools, taxes, bad business climate, taxes, horrible legal environment, taxes, taxes and more taxes. Fifty plus years of solid democrat rule will do that to a city. Ironic that the center of the foundation of the American Republic is now one of the most heavily taxed cities in the nation.

[Hermann the Cherusker]

Actually, the taxes aren't particularly high on individuals. The main problem is that you get ZIPPO in services for them.