Quote:
Originally Posted by iheartphilly
^^
Boston is surrounded by water. It has a harbor and lots of nice fancy boats to boot. Rich people like boating. Also, Fidelity is headquartered in Boston. Lots of money there and they have at least 11 fortune 500 companies in the Boston-Farmingham area.
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Lmao, I just wrote such a long response to this and exited out by mistake and don't feel like re-writing it lol...
Abbreviated version: while Philly and Boston has nearly the same amount of Fortune 500 companies, the types of industry those companies are in, matter. Boston has emerged as a center of finance in the last few decades, while from most perspectives, Philadelphia has contracted as a center of finance. Finance companies, money managers, consult companies are the types of companies that love being downtown.
Combine the fact that Philadelphia grew into a much larger industrial center as Boston, the "bottoming out of manufacturing" happened in Boston far before it did in Philadelphia. Boston has been gaining population every decade since 1990. Philadelphia registered positive growth for the first time in 2010. It's been 'gentrifying' for considerably longer. Think about it this way: Philly and Boston basically mirrored each other from 1900 to 1980. They grew from 1900 to 1930. Both registered population loses in the 1940, 1960, 1970, and 1980 censuses. However, Philadelphia was +600,000 residents still in 1980 vs. 1900. Boston's 1980 population was the same as 1900. That's a lot of industrial growth "left-over" in Philadelphia.