Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of “Cool”-ness

I guess, in the interest of full journalistic disclosure, I should confess that I have no use whatsoever for reality TV. If proclaiming for the record that I’ve never watched a second of Survivor or The Simple Life or Who Wants to Marry My Dog? means that I should turn in my Pop Culture Pundit card, so be it. Frankly, I don’t see the entertainment in watching someone apparently in need of a life go through whatever nonsense reality mastermind Mark Burnett or his wannabes can fathom. Obviously the stuff is wildly popular among viewers, or at least profitable for the networks and producers, but I’m perfectly content to leave it to someone else, also apparently in need of a life, to figure out why.

So imagine my surprise when I pick up the 29 February, 2004 Philadelphia Inquirer and see on the front page that this historic city, home to Benjamin Franklin and the first beheaded hostage in Iraq (Nicholas Berg, from suburban West Chester), was all aflutter with the prospect of the mother of all reality shows, MTV’s The Real World, coming here to film its next season. This would be a boon to the city’s reputation, the article beamed. Fifteen weeks, or however long these things run, of seven not-so-randomly selected people (I hesitate to call them “actors” or “performers”), each of them young, telegenic, and diverse, learning how to get along with each other in the various exotic locales around town (read: nightclubs and day jobs) would communicate to the world that Philadelphia is a “cool” place for young people to live and work, so the reasoning went.

Said young people, or some goodly number of them, would thus be persuaded to pitch their tents here, as opposed to Seattle, Washington, or Austin, Texas or some other “cool” city du jour. They’d start businesses, create jobs, patronize funky boutiques, support the arts, and feed off the resultant synergy to revitalize the city’s economic coffers and reverse years of decline. Philadelphia would be a Great American Comeback City. We want our MTV!

Towards the end of the article, a 23-year-old resident opined, “Philadelphia doesn’t need The Real World to be cool. But it’s good that it puts the MTV stamp of approval on the city for, like, people in Ohio.”

That was the moment when I became convinced that this city had lost its fucking mind.

See, I’m from Cleveland, Ohio, a city with its own share of economic malaise and civic psychological baggage (more about that in a bit). I wouldn’t say that I’m representative of all Ohioans, but I’m fairly sure that most of us don’t need MTV’s blessing to decide whether or not our city is “cool”. We may not know much more about Philly than the Liberty Bell, but most of us, if given a chance, would probably determine that this place has its charms without the help of a stupid reality show.

More to the point, I’d only been in Philadelphia seven weeks when that article ran, but I’d already fallen in love with the place. I liked its energy, the abundance of creativity, the hidden historical treasures. I’d already discovered a handful of neat stories, and found it suprisingly comfortable and accessible. Philly is three times as large as Cleveland, but I’ve never felt the least bit overwhelmed here.

And for the life of me, I could not understand why Philadelphia felt this bizarre need to invest so much hope and optimism in being center stage for a mindless TV diversion. In time, I would come to understand some of the reasons for that. Part of it echoes trends I’d already seen in Cleveland, and part of it stems from Philly’s unique character. But at that moment, the civic obsession struck me as not only silly, but also better entertainment than anything MTV was going to get from their seven stranded castaways.

So I laughed when diehard union men started picketing the former Seamen’s Church Institute, a historic building two doors down from the Betsy Ross House, because non-union workers were transforming the space into the Real World crib. I guffawed when the producers got spooked by this display of Philly’s real world and threatened to cancel the whole project. I chortled when a bunch of twenty-something trendistas/self-appointed “cool” Philadelphians made the 6 o’clock news begging the producers to stay. I snickered when the mayor of Philadelphia and governor of Pennsylvania lobbied fiercely to keep the circus from leaving town early. And I chuckled uncontrollably when the producers decided to stay, once they were assured that they wouldn’t have any more trouble from those big, bad labor people.

And I enjoyed a quiet smile after learning that several bars around town had declared themselves off-limits to the Real World inhabitants and their ever-present camera crews.

A Field Trip for the Creative Class

I currently live in a furnished, one-bedroom apartment located one block from City Hall, just about at the center of Center City, Philadelphia’s downtown nexus of commerce and culture. My neighbors are students at the nearby Art Institute of Philadelphia, fellow corporate warriors on temporary relocation, and dog owners, since this is one of the few pet-friendly buildings in the neighborhood. The view from my window is of the office building across the street, but to see the grand parade, all I need do is step outside.

Stepping out the door and turning right, I will soon pass the Prince Music Theater, a renovated former movie house that now presents specialty films and a musical theater series. The next corner is South Broad Street, the Avenue of the Arts. Anchoring the various theaters along the street is the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts, a relatively new jewel of a venue that is home to the Philadelphia Orchestra, a season of high-profile jazz concerts, and an annual summer solstice celebration.

But exiting my building and turning left, that’s where the fun really begins. In the next several blocks, I can buy just about anything I might want or need for day-to-day living, and so can the rest of Philadelphia, it seems. Fashion chasers with money can stop at Kenneth Cole or Benetton or some of the other posh boutiques along Walnut Street, while round-the-way girls can get their ghetto fab on at H&M, and kitsch lovers can indulge their hipster tastes at Urban Outfitters. Readers can visit the Borders on Broad Street, or the Barnes & Noble on Walnut, or various indie bookstores tucked between some of the multiple coffeehouses and specialty shops. My immediate dining options range from the Wendy’s across the street to every manner and price point of international cuisine, although I might trade one of the two Thai restaurants for a barbecue joint. One of the churches in the neighborhood likes to rotate posters of decidedly non-Biblical wisdom, such as “An idea is a curious thing. It will not work unless you do.” It also hosts the occasional rap concert. Whether I’m jonesing for jewelry, athletic gear, or a piano, all I need do is put some shoes on — and if I actually need shoes, there’s a Johnston and Murphy on the next block.

Across from the Barnes & Noble is Rittenhouse Square, an oasis of green amidst the concrete storefronts and high-rises. Why people would want to grab an outdoor table at the trendy spot across the street sorta escapes me: that place gets pretty crowded from all the pedestrian traffic, while the park is amazingly lush and quiet despite the constant ebb and flow that surrounds it. The combination of nature, people, and architecture draws many landscape painters, while the Wi-Fi hotspot draw lots of laptops. Each of the benches bears a dedication from a benefactor, a symbol of the park’s rejuvenation after, I surmise, a period of neglect. On the other side of the park are streets with names like Delancey Street, comprised of classic rowhouse architecture made pristine with modern flourishes.

There are people everywhere, all the time. I hear people speaking foreign languages into their cell phones constantly. I wouldn’t characterize the people as friendly in that classic Middle American way, but they aren’t brusque or agitated in that classic New York City way, either. A man who’s probably in his 60s and is always nattily attired has staked out a spot in front of the former Today’s Man storefront, and plays his trumpet, horn bent skyward a la Dizzy Gillespie, for the passing throngs. I find the homeless people far less irritating than the man with the bullhorn on his head, a sandwich sign jammed with magic market scribblings of some prophecy or another, given to making irritating comments about traffic, other pedestrians, and the general state of the world at the height of the afternoon rush hour.

And all that doesn’t include the other half of Center City, east of South Broad Street. It’s a bit more downscale than the section where I live, but the diversity of shops, restaurants and humanity, including one of the city’s main “gayborhoods”, is no less mind-boggling. And then there’s the South Street shopping and entertainment district, site of the infamous 2002 Mardi Gras riots (when the bars closed before the drinkers were finished), the regentrified Northern Liberties and Fishtown neighborhoods, and the art galleries and nightspots of Old City, where those Real World kids are tramping around as I write this.

One would think that all this eclectic ambiance would make Richard Florida salivate. Florida is, by trade, a professor of public policy at Carnegie Mellon University. But he is better known as the guru of the creative class, a concept he and his students developed to explain how cities are prospering, or not, in the post-industrial economy. Those cities at the top of his Creative Class Index, like Boston, Massachusettes and San Francisco, California have a high preponderance of young, educated people working in knowledge industries such as technology, the sciences, and the arts. Corporations and cities large and small heavily court these folks, because they represent the taxpayers and job creators of the future. Florida’s research discovered that those people are attracted to areas that offer diversity of cultural attractions, opportunities for people to network and socialize, and tolerance of diverse lifestyles. In short, his research asserted, the people most in demand gravitated to places where life was “cool”. (You can find out how “cool” your burg is at creativeclass.org.)

Florida spelled his theory out in The Rise of the Creative Class (Preseus Books, 2002), one of the most influential books on the life of cities in the last 25 years. His theory became that rarest of policy wonk happenstances: a cultural touchstone. It had all the trappings: a catchy name, an easy-to-explain concept, and a soundbite-ready pitchman. In short order, Florida went from earnest college professor to academic star, and then to one-man cottage industry, finding himself courted by cities from Denver, Colorado, to Antwerp, Ohio, to Lafayette, Louisianna, to explain to CEOs, politicians, and other civic leaders how they, too, can transform their towns from Old Economy dinosaurs to New Economy “cool” spots. And city after city bought into the hype, sprouting up efforts like the civic groups CreateDetroit and Cool Michigan (it’s a wonder Florida hasn’t yet trademarked “cool”). Critics have denounced his work as simplistic and missing a lot of key points about how cities and their economies actually function, but Florida brushes them off as naysayers who need to get with the program.

So here we have Philly, which, on the surface I just described, seemed to be about as “cool” as “cool” can get. In addition to the aforementioned range of amenities, there are five universities in the city, including the Ivy League’s University of Pennsylvania, which would seem to offer a ready-made pipeline of the best and brightest to make a go of it here after graduation. And at this writing, Philadelphia ranks a respectable #17 on Florida’s US index — way better than important cities like Miami, Florida, Charlotte, North Carolina, and St. Louis, Missouri.

But all is not well here in the City of Brotherly Love (and, as some are given to add, Sisterly Affection). Philadelphia may enjoy a nice ranking on Florida’s list, but it’s well behind not only San Francisco, Boston, Seattle, and Austin, but also other places you might not lump in that “cool” tier, like Houston, Texas and Portland, Oregon; Hartford, Connecticut is nipping at Philly’s heels. Many locals who care about such matters will tell you that Philadelphia may look like a fabulous place for young professionals on the surface, but there are factors eating away at the veneer that could cut this teeming metropolis, the birthplace of David Boreanaz and Noam Chomsky, to the core. Philadelphia is a city in decline, the headlines scream, and something needs to be done about it right away.

Jobs have fled the city, and not enough are being created quickly enough to fix things. What has driven the jobs away? The wage tax, that’s what. Essentially, anyone who works or does business within the City of Philadelphia pays an additional tax that isn’t imposed on suburbanites. That extra financial burden is enough to drive people looking to save some money elsewhere, especially those in the prime of their careers. Those with families also consider the fact that for many years, the public school system was in chaos, and while there have been some improvements, even the system’s CEO admits there’s a long way to go. This flight has extended as close as the other side of the city line and as far as the South.

Groups such as the Tax Reform Commission and Philadelphia Forward have been trying to do something about it for years, and they almost had their moment this year, after years of trying to be heard, during the budget negotiations between Mayor John Street and City Council. Tax reform advocates fought fiercely to get something passed to start making the city a bit more tax-friendly, but with a huge deficit staring him in the face, Mayor Street argued that changing the tax code for the future couldn’t come at the expense of providing essential city services in the present. Several weeks of political brinkmanship ensued, with Council passing both a budget and a package of tax changes that the mayor had opposed, and doing so with a timing that left him few palatable responses, short of heading into the 2005 fiscal year with no authorized way to pay city employees.

Aside from the tax debate, the biggest noise made during the budget negotiations came from the city’s arts community. Philadelphia is probably best known throughout the rest of America as a cradle of liberty, and most of the tourists (but few of the locals) make it a point to see Independence Hall, the National Constitution Center, and the various other icons of America’s birth while they’re here. But there has been a huge push to emphasize Philadelphia as a mecca for the arts. The world-class symphony orchestra plays in a sparkling facility, and those not too tired from their own version of the Rocky run up the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art will discover several substantial collections inside. There’s also a Rodin Museum, perhaps a museum for the mobiles of Alexander Calder someday. There are art galleries all over the place, authors large and small are always in town giving readings, the annual film festival takes place at several venues, and there’s a big street festival somewhere in town most summer weekends. Even the bleakest neighborhoods are adorned with larger-than-life murals, saluting the community’s life, heroes, and aspirations. The arts are a potentially major draw for tourists, its advocates stress, and the additional money to be made would help drive the flagging economic engine.

But the mayor’s proposed budget would have sharply reduced the city’s support of the arts, and that prospect left people howling. Although the mayor argued that large institutions like the art museum could have found the money elsewhere, arts advocates feared for the impact cuts would have on smaller entities, already reeling from the post-September 11 downturn in philanthropic support. One such institution, the African American Museum in Philadelphia, was in such disarray that the city advanced it money so that staff could be paid through the end of the fiscal year.

Before the budget process was formally concluded, Mayor Street announced the closure of the city’s Office of Arts and Culture, a cabinet-level department that served as the liaison between the arts community and the politicians. No one would actually be laid off, and other departments would assume the functions of the office, but arts supporters immediately felt the symbolic pain. Many cities don’t have public funding of the arts, and many others are struggling with whether or how to approach the issue, so for Philadelphia to shutter a department would send the totally wrong message about civic priorities, wailed the arts community — remember, places with a healthy arts scene attract “cool” people.

Also, “cool” people like the fact that places have skateparks, and here came another schism this spring between the creative class and the political class. Philly skaters claimed as their own LOVE Park, so known for Robert Indiana’s block-letter “LOVE” sculpture. Its circular design and multiple levels were nirvana for skaters, and helped Philadelphia land one of the first X Games competitions. But the pounding the concrete slabs took from flying skaters left many sections loosened, and the city banned all such activity. Again, the lament: this is why people like Philly, and you’re standing in the way. A skating gear company even offered the city $1 million to renovate and maintain LOVE Park, but City Hall stuck to its fiscally strapped guns.

All these things gnawed at Philadelphia’s tender psyche. The tourism folks may have coined the phrase “Philadelphia: The Place That Loves You Back,” but a more apt moniker might be “Philadelphia: The Place That Refuses to Love Itself.” Seemingly at every turn, Philadelphia finds a reason to break into another chorus of woe-is-me. Completely unscientific rankings by magazines needing to fill pages rank Philadelphia as one of the fattest, ugliest and most fashion-challenged cities in the country. Philadelphia in turn takes those results, usually not much more than water cooler conversation, to heart, as yet another indication that this city of 1.5 million is on its way to oblivion.

Following Philly sports teams is a useful way to understand this phenomenon. My plane landed here during the January 2004 playoff game between the Eagles and the Green Bay Packers, which the Eagles won thanks to a game-saving 4th-down-and-26 play. For a whole week, the city was gripped with Eagles Fever, secure in the knowledge that a win in the conference championship game was forthcoming, sending them off to the Super Bowl. The Eagles lost that game, and the city was left bitching through a funk at the coach and several under-performing players.

Soon after, the hockey team was eliminated from the playoffs by the team which had acquired a key player from Philly during the season, and basketball fans watched the coach who abandoned them last year win the championship in Detroit, Michigan. The baseball team was supposed to do great things in its new ballpark, but has been limping around the break-even mark so far this season. Saint Joseph’s University made a gallant run during the men’s college basketball season, but fell just short of the Final Four.

But none of those human disappointments measure up to that which came from a horse. Smarty Jones, bred at Philadelphia Park, won the Kentucky Derby and, at a record pace, the Preakness. Everyone in Philadelphia instantly became a racing buff, secure in the knowledge that the city was about to have a winner at last (apparently, Philly fans think they’re entitled to regular sports excellence, and get righteously indignant when it doesn’t happen). There were Smarty Jones hats, Smarty Jones T-shirts, Smarty Jones songs. Smarty Jones was getting fan mail by the sackload. Smarty Jones, not the mess in Iraq, led the local news. Smarty Jones was going to take the Belmont Stakes, become the first Triple Crown winner since 1978, and repair Philadelphia’s bruised ego, all in the course of a mile-and-a-half. Philadelphians called him Smarty, proud to be on a first-name basis with a three-year-old horse.

That was me jumping up and down, screaming “Go! Go!” in the Turf Club, Philly’s largest off-track betting site, during the Belmont — not to Smarty Jones but to Birdstone as he passed Smarty in the final furlongs to, once again, strike a dagger in Philly’s heart. I’d never seen a crowded place empty so fast after the race was over. There was no joy in Mudville, mighty Philly had struck out yet again.

But if you really want to get the locals riled, start with the numbers. Population numbers, to be precise. It’s not enough that they’re shrinking, because even at that, Philadelphia has ranked in the top 5 most populous American cities throughout its entire history. But that will change by the 2010 census, according to most projections. Philadelphia will be overtaken by — you’d better sit down for this — Phoenix, Arizona. Yes, a former prairie outpost whose main attractions are weather without snow and room to grow is about to urban-sprawl its way past Philadelphia as America’s fifth largest town.

Philadelphians tried their best not to interpret this as a sign of the apocalypse. The change won’t happen as early as projected, so the spin went, and it’s the level of federal funding we receive that matters more than where we fall on a list. But why, then, would you splash it all over the front page of the April 25th Inquirer? Is it another case of gloom and doom selling newspapers? Or could it be that the proud residents of this fine city, the place where Edgar Allan Poe wrote The Tell Tale Heart and Julius Erving won his only NBA championship, love to hear the worst about themselves?

As near as I can figure, or as sensibly as anyone has yet to explain to me, there are two roots of Philadelphia’s massive insecurity. One is its recent history. The city’s reputation hit rock-bottom in the 1980s in the wake of then-mayor Frank Rizzo’s controversial tenure and the 1985 bombing of a street of rowhouses in efforts to silence the radical African American conclave Project MOVE. There was no real reason besides the historical stuff for anyone to come here back then, and the sense following MOVE and other scandals was that Philadelphia was anything but a city worth being in. Major conventions avoided Philadelphia, the decline of the schools took hold, and the downtown grocer’s mall, Reading Terminal Market, was literally rat-infested.

Philly turned it around in the ’90s, building a new convention center, renovating the market, and working hard to bolster its national rep. The arts scene took off, and triggered the regentrifcation of older neighborhoods and accompanying boom in property values (a pattern that has shown up all over America, as Florida duly notes in his book). But even then, Philadelphians found a way to temper their own progress. After the new convention center opened in 1993, union rules were established to strictly regulate who could load shows in and out of the facility. Such rules didn’t exist elsewhere, and it took years of truce building between the city and the unions to arrive at a workable but uneasy détente (echoes of the bad old days surfaced in the Real World soap opera).

But perhaps the larger reason why Philadelphia needs a shrink lies two hours to its north. New York City, which any New Yorker will tell you is the greatest city in the world, has been a magnet for the young, the talented and the hopeful since day one. It’s strong, vibrant, cultural, historic and a vital hub of American life. So too is Philadelphia, but not to the extent that New York is. This is obviously not Philadelphia’s fault, but Philadelphia looks northward and is stricken with a case of civic penis envy. Philadelphia may be home to rock wizard/true star Todd Rundgren and enigmatic film director M. Night Shyamalan, but it fears it cannot keep its most talented aspiring artists from hitting the New Jersey Turnpike sooner or later. Likewise, Philadelphia is also two hours away from Washington, DC, another mecca for the young and ambitious.

Of all the great cities along the northeast corridor, Philly is far and away the most blue-collar. It’s a working person’s town, even with all the arts and society stuff. People party hard on the weekends, and spend Sunday getting ready for another week of toil. There is nothing wrong with this, and Philadelphia embraced the Rocky myth of the underdog not just because the film was shot here, but because it spoke to an essential part of the city’s nature. Philadelphia may have lost more charms and assets than the Phoenixes of the world can ever hope to claim, but it remains hopelessly fixated on the loss, and is only now learning to get over it and hold its head high. If only Smarty Jones had held on down the stretch.

Ain’t No Stoppin Us . . . Now?

The sound of Philadelphia is, to a large extent, “The Sound of Philadelphia”. After a 1971 Harvard Business School report told the major recording companies of the day that they needed to make linkages with savvy R&B producers if they ever hoped to capture African American record buyers, CBS gave start-up money to Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff, two Philadelphia songwriter/producers who’d had a string of hits in the late ’60s on indie R&B labels for Jerry Butler, the Intruders and others. Gamble & Huff christened their enterprise Philadelphia International Records, and proceeded to make pop music history.

Philadelphia International was to the ’70s what was Motown in Detroit was to the ’60s: not just a hit-making machine, but the soundtrack of the young, optimistic African American middle class. “The Sound of Philadelphia” was trademarked by lush orchestral arrangements, propulsive rhythm sections, uplifting lyrics, soaring melodies, and strong, confident vocals on top. In an era dominated by self-produced artists like Stevie Wonder and Marvin Gaye, the Gamble & Huff factory churned out hits for a stable of core artists and occasional guest projects. Many of their extended forays served as the first records of the disco era, back when the scene was still mostly underground in African American and gay dance clubs. Their songs exuded the confidence of the rapidly growing middle class as it extended from the ‘hood into the ‘burbs, from mom-and-pop enterprises into leadership positions in corporate America and public service.

The first Philadelphia International hit, the O’Jays’ 1972 “Back Stabbers”, was written by the team of Gene McFadden and John Whitehead. McFadden and Whitehead, already veterans of the local music scene by the time Philadelphia International got rolling, penned various songs for other Philadelphia International artists, but didn’t step into the limelight until 1979, with their anthemic rouser “Ain’t No Stoppin’ Us Now”. As it happened, that was the last major hit from the stable, but it encapsulates everything that made the enterprise legendary. In the years since, “Ain’t No Stoppin’ Us Now” has survived as a snapshot of a moment in time, before the limitless sky for African American professionals was cut short by a glass ceiling, before Reaganomics, crack and AIDS turned the ‘hood into a wasteland of death and decay, before rap music began to remind all those who’d moved on up like the Jeffersons of what they’d left behind.

There is a new musical scene in Philadelphia, inspired by the Gamble-Huff years (and with some of the same players), but taking things in a new direction — or several. The iconoclastic hip-hop band the Roots, the Broadway performer-turned-soul jazz diva Jill Scott, the neo-soul duo Floetry, the poet and educator Ursula Rucker, the in-demand production team of Andre Harris and Vidal Davis, and many other Philly natives have helped shape progressive black pop in the new millennium. There are several spoken-word nights around town, and deejays spinning every manner of hip-hop and dance music in the clubs on any given night (at the expense, to a degree, of a thriving jazz scene that birthed the Heath Brothers and McCoy Tyner, and nurtured the likes of John Coltrane and Sun Ra).

But “Ain’t No Stoppin’ Us Now” is as much a part of the Philadelphia character as cheese steaks and soft pretzels. So it came as a shock to wake up the morning of May 11 to the news that John Whitehead — yes, that John Whitehead — had been shot and killed in his West Philadelphia driveway.

Whitehead had gone through a rough stretch after the hits stopped, but he still had a foot in the business and had made a few comeback attempts. On the fateful day, he was working on a car with his nephew when three men came up and started some sort of dispute. Why this happened is unclear, but after the argument, someone pulled out a gun and left Whitehead dead and his nephew wounded.

In 2004, gunshots and police sirens form the new sound of Philadelphia. The murder rate is on a pace to eclipse last year’s tally by a wide margin. No one knows why. Perhaps it’s the lack of economic prospects in the ‘hood, perhaps it’s the lack of a premium on bettering oneself Philly native Bill Cosby railed about in his controversial Howard Law School address on the 50th anniversary of the Brown vs. Board of Education decision, perhaps it’s the easy availability of cheap guns, perhaps it’s all of that and even then, we’re not scratching the surface.

Whatever it is, it’s taking its heaviest toll on our children. Thirty-five youths were murdered in Philadelphia during the 2003-04 school year. All of these killings were sad, but one in particular ripped out a piece of the city’s heart.

Wednesday, 11 February began as any other school day at T. M. Peirce Elementary School in North Philadelphia. Parents were kissing their youngsters goodbye, and kids were lining up to file into the building. One such adult happened to be a member of a notorious drug gang. When members of a rival gang that happened to be in the area spotted him, shots rang out. Ninety-four of them, to be exact, from six guns. Terrified teachers and parents rushed the kids inside, or got them to duck for cover. When the battle was over, broken glass was everywhere. A crossing guard was shot in the foot. The gunmen had long since scattered. And Faheem Thomas-Childs, all of 10-years-old, was helpless on the ground, somehow clinging to life, after taking a bullet in the head.

By all accounts, Faheem was a special kid. He had the respect of his entire school, from the principal down to the class clowns. He was already displaying the essence of leadership, the stuff you can’t get in an MBA program: a carriage that spoke of uncommon wisdom, self-respect, reverence for rules, humility, compassion for others. And even at that early age, he displayed the intangible quality that separates the called from the aspiring: somehow, he was able to tell the first people to reach him his name and address; those may well have been the last words he spoke. His school picture, with his wide eyes, neat cornrows, and lips neither smiling nor frowning, became a staple of the local news.

Faheem was on life support for five days. During that time, police captured two of the suspects, and donations and prayers came pouring from every corner of town. But information about the other shooters did not. Neighborhood residents, even if they knew who did it, even if they could direct a stranger to every gang’s hangout and turf, went silent. Faheem, you see, was not the first random victim of Philadelphia ghetto violence. In an earlier case, someone fingered the culprit – and his family was harassed by the culprit’s crew. Everyone in the ‘hood remembered that, and no one trusted the city’s witness protection program.

The previous murder of children barely raised an eyebrow beyond the affected families. Faheem’s murder shook Philadelphia’s conscience. Men in the school’s neighborhood organized safety patrols. Politicians eulogized Faheem as a martyr, and implored that his death mark a turning point for the better. In some ways, it did. North Philadelphia is only a short drive from Center City, but a universe away from the trendy boutiques and coffeehouses. It is that part of every city where you don’t want to be lost after sundown. Out of outrage and grief, on 10 April thousands of Philadelphians convened in a park across from the church that held Faheem’s funeral to march through the neighborhood, a “March to Save the Children”.

The still-grieving relatives of Faheem and the other slain children were there, wearing T-shirts memorializing their loss. They held pictures of young people having fun in happier times. Mothers for Change led the march, and Men United for a Better Philadelphia handled the logistics. The mayor and the CEO of the schools were there. The march was originally scheduled for Palm Sunday, but was postponed by rain; the palms to be carried by children then were used on the make-up day. Children attending the march would receive tickets to a special performance by the UniverSoul Circus, which was in town that week.

The streets of the march were filled by a sea of people, some carrying signs, some chanting slogans and beating drums until they were reminded that this was to be a silent march (how anyone figured that a marching throng of thousands could remain silent is a mystery to me). TV stations got footage of the beginning of the march, while bemused residents shot the procession from their porches with their camcorders.

The procession moved in fits and starts, past the corner store with eight beer ads in the window, past the well-kept rowhouses closer to the church and the main business strip. At several points along the route, signs were nailed to telephone poles:

WARNING
CHILDREN AT RISK
GUNS DRUGS FEAR
THREATEN ALL YOUTH

Further ahead, a couple of shady characters were hanging out by a stop sign. They glimpsed the presence of police, media and thousands of strangers, and felt a need to be somewhere else at that moment. An observer remarked that Philadelphia isn’t the only city going through such pain these days. She cited Atlanta, Georgia and Baltimore, Maryland, but she could have included Washington, D.C., where 13 children were killed between New Year’s Day and Mother’s Day. It’s an East Coast thing, a fellow Clevelander remarked to me a short time ago. Actually, it sounds to me like it’s an American problem, but at this moment, only Philadelphia was grasping for a way to deal with the pain.

The march concluded at Faheem’s school, where important people gave speeches that few of the marchers heard. I was never particularly clear about the purpose of the march. Was it to tell the wrongdoers that people were mad as hell and weren’t going to take it anymore? Was it a protest march against the very community they were marching through? Was it a targeted message to politicians for a better economy in the ‘hood? Was it a way of supporting the families who’d lost so much? Was it Philadelphians crying for help?

Whatever it was, it didn’t stop the killings. Twelve more children were murdered between the march and the end of the school year. “This was a good turnout,” somebody on the sidewalk near the end of the march route said. “It should be better next year”.

Same Civic Neuroses, Different Day

I’d only been in town a month when Faheem was killed, but it struck me as deeply as it had the lifelong Philadelphians who went on that march. Granted, there is something universally tragic about a promising life taken before it ever really began, no matter whom or where. But this one hurt. It hurt me as a person, as an African American man, and as someone who lives and works, at least for now, in Philadelphia.

It was also the event that, I now recognize, christened me in the Philadelphian spirit. Feeling the murder, sitting through his wrenching funeral, trying to come to grips with the madness and nonsense of it all, pulled me into the life of the city in a manner that sightseeing and shopping never could have approximated. It made me care about what goes on here. I would have kept track of those things anyway (a freelance journalist is a freelance journalist, no matter where he/she is or what he/she is doing there in the first place), but since Faheem, I’ve felt a need to be a part of this city.

And that I’ve done. I’ve managed to find my way around a good section of the city, discovering bakeries and murals-in-progress and various other nooks and crannies that long-time residents, at best, take for granted. I’ve been to the blockbuster Manet exhibit at the art museum, and to an installation chronicling the desegregation of North Philly institution Girard College in the ’60s. I met a woman who told me how the Stylistics, one of Philly’s beloved R&B vocal groups, emerged from two rival bands during the Vietnam war, and I encountered a Real World camera crew in Old City on a Saturday night. I’ve given foreign tourists directions to Independence Hall, and I’ve marveled at the ornate arch that announces the beginning of Chinatown. And when being in the city got to be too much, I packed up the car and headed for the beaches of the Jersey shore.

So for now at least, I have no qualms with saying that I’m a Philadelphian, and in talking about what it is that makes this city tic. The old adage about outsiders seeing things that natives don’t notice is probably true in my case, but I think there’s a bit more to it. I understand something about Philadelphia’s nature because, of all things, I’m also a Clevelander.

The idea that a Clevelander would have some sort of special insight into Philadelphia would strike most Philadelphians as downright ridiculous. How could Cleveland, a Midwestern hick town where it snows all the time, compare in any way, shape or form to mighty Philadelphia, they’d sneer. Why, the only thing Cleveland ever did for Philadelphia was not outbid the Phillies for first baseman Jim Thome when he was a free agent in 2002 — by the way, thanks Cleveland, Thome’s having another great year.

On the day I’m writing this, an Inquirer sports columnist had the nerve, or lack of wit, to drag up that lamest of Cleveland cliches, the one about the burning river. A section of the Cuyahoga River, which runs through downtown Cleveland, caught on fire in 1969 (immortalized in Randy Newman’s “Burn On”; he had given a concert in Cleveland that night and saw the flames from his hotel room), but it would seem that a healthy percentage of the great unwashed outside the Buckeye State think it’s still burning.

In fact, not only has the river been rehabilitated for years, it is now a tourist attraction and weekend hotspot. The Flats has been a popular hangout for 20 years, with traffic approaching gridlock during party nights. Motorboats ride along the river and dock at their preferred watering hole to see and be seen. Both banks have been developed with housing as well as entertainment and a few small businesses. The area became so popular that a bit of a backlash ensued, with the crowds (and especially the rowdy drunks) scaring some partygoers into the Warehouse District, which is to Cleveland something like Old City is to Philly. Still, while there are a couple of nice clubs in Philly along the Delaware River, the Flats in even a diminished state is what Penn’s Landing wants to be when it grows up.

I’m hoping Philadelphia will understand that momentary venting over yet another pitiful Cleveland joke. In fact, Philadelphia should commiserate with Cleveland, for no other two cities in America have been such sturdy foils for cheap laughs. For both cities, such dubious status was not entirely earned, but bestowed upon them in the service of comedic timing (although cities with burning rivers aren’t, admittedly, prime candidates for being taken seriously). W.C. Fields was able to stretch out the cadence of “Philadelphia” so adeptly that the sound of the name triggered laughter in generations of Americans. Philadelphia became a steady stream of one-liners that Fields took to his grave, or at least his tombstone: “On the whole, I’d rather be in Philadelphia”.

Philadelphia became such a punching bag that, a generation or so later, comedy writers needed some fresh material. Enter Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In, the revolutionary comedy TV show in the late ’60s. One of the staff writers, so the legend goes, grew up in the Cleveland area, so he was at least familiar with the place. He’d tired of hearing everyone use Philadelphia for gags, and wanted to see if another city could handle the awesome task of being a rhythmic fit for a quick-tongued comic. He tried Cleveland in a one-liner he wrote for Laugh-In announcer Gary Owens, and the rest is history. “Philadelphia jokes” became “Cleveland jokes” almost overnight.

Of course, in the ’70s, it was easy to laugh at Cleveland. You think Philly has population issues? In 1950, Cleveland ranked seventh with 914,000 residents, as it was a hub of Big Steel and corporate activity. By the 1970 census it had plummeted to 750,000 citizens and 10th place, as Big Oil in Texas began to supplant the northern industrial juggernaut (Detroit lost nearly 300,000 people over the same span), and downtown Cleveland was deserted after dark. Today, the city of Cleveland numbers less than 500,000, and isn’t even the biggest city in Ohio. Not surprisingly, Cleveland is a bit distressed by this turn. They’ve done a good job of moving past the era of Big Steel (not that there was much of a choice), but no economic driver has emerged to replace it. Thus, Cleveland was one of the early adapters to Richard Florida and his creative class ideas. They’ve been trying to develop a climate that would encourage young risk-takers to come, visit and stay, possibly in fields related to bio-technology (taking advantage of the world-class Cleveland Clinic Hospital and Case Western Reserve University).

But such efforts are hampered by a school system that, like Philadelphia’s, has turned to radical approaches to education reform (several Philly schools are run by for-profit companies like Edison, while Cleveland was one of the first systems nationwide to embrace a voucher program). The population that’s leaving the city these days isn’t going far — it’s moving to the outlying suburbs, creating quaint little sprawl towns along the corridor between Cleveland and Akron, Ohio.

One development that has taken root has been the arts community’s realization that it had clout. This sea change happened along a couple of tracks. First, the arts community realized that they had to unite and work together as a matter of economic survival. The Community Partnership for Arts and Culture was formed to help make the case for public funding of the arts, an utterly foreign concept in the home of the best orchestra in the country (sorry, Philly) and Karamu House, a landmark theater for African American playwrights and performers.

As those efforts amassed, along came Florida proclaiming that a vibrant arts scene would help make Cleveland “cool”/ Once Florida’s concepts took hold in Cleveland, the arts crowd seized the day, and strove mightily to get funding for the arts on a ballot. Unfortunately, this being Cleveland, there were still some old ideas and entrenched power blocs with their own sense of civic priorities in the way. A confusing and watered-down proposal was voted down in March 2004, but not by a landslide, and arts advocates expect to make the case before the electorate in the future (at least, after a school levy in the fall, possible funding for a new convention center once people can agree on where it should be, and whatever other emergencies crop up).

There’s a difference between Philadelphia trying to maintain public funding for the arts, and Cleveland trying to start it. The idea that some cities don’t fund the arts would leave people in Philadelphia (rightly) wondering how that could be. The instructive thing is that although the Philadelphia and Cleveland situations are opposite sides of the same coin, it’s the same coin: how do these cities, each of which have built new stadiums for their pro sports teams within the last decade, choose to value arts and culture? What is the real priority? One would think that the birthplace of Mario Lanza would have a lot of wisdom to offer the childhood home of Bob Hope, and vice versa.

But that’s assuming that Philadelphia can stop wearing its pain on its sleeve for a moment. It’s not like Philly is the only city with a school system that was taken over by the state government. It’s not like Philly is the only city that has been far too busy burying its young. It’s not like Philly is the only city that has to negotiate the chasm between Old Economy stodginess (and entrenched power) and New Economy restlessness (and emerging power). It’s not like Philly is the only great American city that sent a delegation to Phoenix, or some other newly minted Sun Belt metropolis, to get a new perspective on things. (And just for the record, Philly sports fans: so it’s been 21 years and counting since you had a world champion team — so what? It’s been 40 years and counting in Cleveland, so stop whining over a damned horse.)

Perhaps, then, that’s the answer to the riddle I used to ask myself: how was it that I took to this city so naturally? It was because I understood the rhythms, the emotions, the fits and starts of cities trying to remake themselves because some list or guru or economic indicator said they had to. Cleveland’s years-long march towards civic self-esteem prepared me for Philadelphia’s similar odyssey. Clevelanders will tell you that Cleveland is a big small town. I’ve had Philadelphians tell me that Philadelphia is a big small town. There is no Philadelphia storyline that I hadn’t seen in a parallel version in Cleveland. All I did, essentially, was relocate from the birthplace of Halle Berry to the birthplace of Grace Kelly. So when Philadelphia agonizes over the issues of the day as though it’s the only city in the world that has issues, I can honestly say that I’ve seen this movie before, and step out for some popcorn.

Philly Skaters

Villages and Voices

People can only be who they are. I’ve learned that the hard way many times over the years. You may have to hold your tongue, settle for less, accept setbacks and devise a Plan B or two over the course of a lifetime, but you must always remain true to your essential character, else risk losing yourself in a wash of indecision and regret. Even if you decide that your essential character must undergo radical change, there’s something down inside that you latch onto to be the lynchpin of the transformation.

In Cleveland, I discovered that I am a writer. It is the city where I learned how to write, honed my craft, and discovered that $10 words don’t automatically make a good story. It is the city that shaped my values. Philadelphia, by extension, is a place where I’ve found the time, space and inspiration to apply the lessons learned in Cleveland. I’ve felt freer to write — no, compelled to write. It’s a place that has given me many things to say and the drive and insight with which to say them. Crucially, it is also a place where the values I brought from Cleveland are perfectly compatible, and that compatibility has greatly aided my transition. I haven’t been to all of the American cities that are supposedly “cooler” than Philly, but I dare say that Philadelphia is exactly the place I am supposed to be at this moment, if for no other reason than because it’s Philadelphia, warts and all. I don’t think I could say the same about anywhere else.

So fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly, I gotta be in Philly and write, and cities, like people, can only be what they are. There is only one New York City, there is only one Boston, there is only one San Francisco. There is also only one Philadelphia, and only one Cleveland. Philadelphia may wonder how Cleveland’s rush hours could be so traffic-free, but the price of an apartment in Center City would purchase a very large house on a very large lot in Cleveland. Cleveland may wonder how Philadelphians could stand such daily traffic grinds, but there are no neighborhoods in Cleveland where you can walk to everything you’d need for everyday life. Neither is inherently “better” than the other. The challenge of American cities these days is to discover what makes them special, the essential quality that can’t be replicated anywhere else, and revel in it, be in it, act like you like it here. Economic revitalization is going to be necessary as history ebbs and flows, but it should never come at the expense of what gives a city its personality. Just like people, the really “cool” cities have found that it’s better when they don’t work so hard at it.

***

It’s going on 1am, and I have to get ready for work in the morning. But I’m out of smokes, so I think I’ll take a walk to the neighborhood convenience store.

My building’s night desk attendant and her buddies are outside shooting the breeze. There’s no wind, and the sky is somewhat cloudy, but it’s still calm and refreshing. The buses are still running, even with no one aboard. A city garbage truck is picking up some of the weekend’s trash. There are a few folks out and about: one man with a rainbow-colored shawl around his neck; a woman carrying a purse and two shopping bags; two fellas who decide to hail a passing cab. Outside one of the neighborhood nightclubs, there’s a handful of twentysomethings hanging out. A homeless man sitting on a milk crate asks me for a smoke; I tell him I’ll oblige if he’s still there when I come back that way.

In the convenience store, a woman is pushing her child in a stroller towards the milk section. A scruffy-looking man clutches a bag of Lay’s chips in his arm.

The homeless man has gotten a cigarette by the time I pass back, but I fulfill my promise, and he thanks me. Two sistas are coming out of a drugstore right behind me. A work crew is cleaning out debris from an empty store — I wonder what it will be, there’s a new diner opening up across the street from it. A young white woman emerges from her building to walk her dog. There’s a crew dealing with a hole in the street, one of its members killing time on his cell phone. A block from my house, another homeless man asks for a smoke, and is also polite, probably genuinely thankful as well, when I give him one. A Ford Explorer times the traffic signal perfectly, and zooms past the waiting cars in the other lane when the light turns green.

It’s entirely possible that the killers of John Whitehead and Faheem Thomas-Childs, and of so many, too many others, are also getting some fresh air tonight in Philadelphia.

All this used to be a bit of a novelty for me, as there just aren’t many parts of Cleveland where such pedestrian traffic on a Sunday night is even fathomable. Cleveland’s culture, lifestyle and geography just aren’t the same. And there’s nothing wrong with that. But the novelty of being able to walk around at one in the morning and not feel isolated or scared has worn off, replaced by a sense of normalcy, a sense of place, a sense of familiarity and comfort.

Philadelphia, for all its foibles and quirks, feels like home for me, right now.