How I’m feeling Philly

November 20, 2007 | Filed Under Thoughts 

It’s…different. It’s a different experience than Ii’ve had living elsewhere, but one that’s having a fundamental impact on my developing future philosophies with regard to how I want to live my life. It’s like any other city…maybe with a little more “bad” areas. Why, though? Because it’s 60% black and the job market here sucks. The transit system is owned by a private company that does whatever they want, despite the negative impact on its customers and shows no signs of changing. 

It’s easy to see how the city got to this point and how city officials going to address it–the same way they do everything else: gentrification.  Living here is really radicalizing my views in terms of where I want to live and how I want to interact with people. Those that believe they’re middle class, like myself, sometimes forget that the middle class is an illusion, a group of pseudoelite that emerged from the poor. So we’re in the same boat, and failing to address their struggles and issues guarantees we’ll never get the results we want from addressing those that we think are distinctly “ours.”

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