Twenty years ago, my wife and I were part of what was then a surprising new demographic trend reported by the U.S. Census: more people moving from New York to Philadelphia than the other way around. In our all-too-typical case, we relocated from charming Park Slope Brooklyn — before the borough had yet become a global lifestyle brand, but had begun its seemingly relentless rise in real estate prices.
Our reasons were familiar — maintaining a genuine urban life with a diversity of people and culture, but with a greater sense of human-scale community, and of course, more affordability, especially for those who didn’t plan careers in the for-profit sector. It was already the second time I’d moved to Philly and, in both cases, the city’s great universities were also a key motivating factor.
Now it may be a tired cliché, but back then it still seemed like a fresh idea to suggest Philly was “the new Brooklyn.” Our move in 2001 made sense when we were planning to start a family, given how much easier it would be to raise one and do work we cared about West of the Delaware River than the expensive, tiny living spaces available East of the Hudson. While young college grads may be willing to share cramped, crappy apartments at the start of professional lives in places like New York, those of us looking to establish home and family for the long term had every good reason to come to Philly instead.
There’s simply no pro sports fan experience like belting out Fly Eagles Fly with 67,000 fans in the stadium or on a jam-packed Broad Street subway.
Like so many adopted Philadelphians, we loved our life here and naturally assumed we were here to stay when our twins were born in Center City in 2004. There was no way we could have predicted that less than two years later, having only recently moved from a little row house near Fitler Square to a more spacious turn-of-the-century twin in West Philly where I had done some work for Penn, a too-good-to-refuse job opportunity came up back in New York at Columbia University (where, ironically, another proudly adopted Philadelphian, the late Gerry Lenfest, became a valued mentor on the board of trustees).
So we traded our spacious four-bedroom with a front porch and backyard for a two-bedroom Upper Manhattan apartment at twice the cost. But we always believed that we would return. And for the next decade, we rented out our West Philly house with that very expectation.
Two decades later …
Of course, life didn’t work out quite as planned. We were lucky to find schools that were appropriate for each of our growing twins. My wife developed new pathways in her own career. And my work continued to be fulfilling, even as we remained regular visitors back home to Pennsylvania. Visiting friends of course. Introducing our kids to the many tastes of the Reading Terminal. Making Philly a destination weekend for an extended family celebration. An annual pilgrimage to the Linc for an Eagles game became a family tradition because there’s simply no pro sports fan experience like belting out Fly Eagles Fly with 67,000 fans in the stadium or on a jam-packed Broad Street subway. (Closer to home, we’d always go see the Phillies when they played the Mets).
We missed being battleground state voters where, in November especially, our ballots would mean so much more than predictably blue New York. So each in our own way we continued to support and volunteer for various Pennsylvania candidates, especially in recent years as these political battles have felt increasingly existential for our country. Thanks to the web, it’s been easy enough to follow Philly media as though we still had a 215 area code.
To be sure, my own Pennsylvania work history as a transplanted New Yorker (like Ed Rendell and so many others) has had an ongoing impact. Having left an entry-level job at Center City law firm to work in the first winning campaign James Carville ever managed — for Bob Casey in 1986 — I was then lucky enough to have one of the most formative professional experiences serving on the Governor’s senior staff in Harrisburg during his first term and then a dramatic few years working with Pennsylvania’s surprising U.S. Senator Harris Wofford, who himself had landed in the Philly area decades earlier to lead of the region’s great colleges and universities.
The relationships I formed in Pennsylvania politics and public service continued to shape both my professional trajectory and personal friendships.
Perhaps it would have been true in any state or city where you get to do the people’s business, but the relationships I formed in Pennsylvania politics and public service continued to shape both my professional trajectory and personal friendships. Decades later, the enduring connections I formed have also provided a natural path for re-engagement in a range of civic issues working with people and organizations in our adopted home city and state in recent years.
Every time I’m back I still run into someone I worked with over my years here. That’s to be expected at a big Philly event filled with many longtime colleagues like the 2016 Democratic National Convention, but it has happened when sitting down by myself to dig into a DiNic’s roast pork and sharp provolone at a crowded lunch table. But it’s not just about me. As it happens, several of my wife’s closest friends also settled in Philly and have stayed to raise their families here, too.
We ultimately had to sell our University City house to afford a family-sized apartment in one of the last semi-reasonably priced areas of Northern Manhattan with a hilly wooded park that feels like a mini-Wissahickon.
For us, the sense in which this is a truly world-class city, yet welcoming on a scale where we feel as though we can make a difference working on the challenges it faces — to say nothing of having both the space and time to feel connected to our community — draws us back again.
But now that our kids are establishing their own new lives at college, we face the same choice we did two decades ago. Despite the increases in rent and real estate everywhere since then, much of what I saw in 2003 remains as true today for us as new empty nesters as it was for us as future parents. You may have seen that U.S. News recently reported that a number of Southeastern and South Central Pennsylvania communities, including several where I’ve also lived and worked, are among the best places for Americans to retire. But retirement certainly isn’t the next chapter we want to write for ourselves back in Pennsylvania.
Despite all the challenges confronting every major city since the pandemic: violent and petty crime, an unacceptably sharp economic and racial divide, underfunded public schools and mass transit systems and more, Philly is the future we choose for ourselves … again.
To be sure, the city faces these challenges in full measure — they defined last year’s mayoral campaign and now the governing agenda of a dynamic new mayor. Indeed, this very publication — including its Ideas We Should Steal Festival I was lucky enough to attend in November — is an example of the welcoming environment for civic engagement and problem-solving in our adopted hometown. For us, the sense in which this is a truly world-class city, yet welcoming on a scale where we feel as though we can make a difference working on the challenges it faces — to say nothing of having both the space and time to feel connected to our community — draws us back again.
Not sure we’ll get back in time for the Sixers’ [deeper] playoff run this spring, but for sure by another Phillies Red October. And, at least for us as newly returned Pennsylvania voters, a blue November.
Former communications director for Sen. Harris Wofford and Gov. Robert P. Casey, David Stone may be a native New Yorker, but a proudly adoptive Philadelphian. He served for more than 17 years as an Executive Vice President and then Senior Adviser to the President at Columbia University.
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