I don't quite understand why, after rightly saying that focusing on population loss isn't necessarily the best measure of Philly's economic growth, you then focus so much on population loss in the post. Also, I have to wonder about what seems to be your premise: that lower wages is the driving force behind economic decline in the city. I wonder about it because I would guess there's a bit of a chicken/egg dynamic here; what were the factors that caused people who could demand higher wages to leave? What were the factors that enabled employers to still make profits even as they underpaid their workforce? Haven't other cities which have "grown" during the same time period seen the same larger phenomonon of people working "lower-skilled jobs" earning less when adjusted for inflation?

So that leaves your comments about the decline of the manufacturing sector being a driving force behind economic decline in the city. Great, but I'm hoping that rest of your posts on this issue will provide more insightful analysis regarding that issue as well as addressing the other questions I raised. Certainly, I think that race as a relevant factor will need to be discussed sooner rather than later.

population loss is not the ONLY factor in our city's economic growth. Much like water is not the ONLY factor in the growth of a holly bush. Sure, if you put a black plastic trash bag over it and drop a cinder block on it daily, the amount of water you give it will have little meaning.

As fot the balance of your commentary, I think we all need to move beyond the fact that manufacturing isn't what it was in the 1950s. Like it or not (I do, you probably don't) globalization is here to stay, and that dictates we find other ways to raise our standard of living.

Another thing we need to move beyond is using median household income as the guage of the city's economic health. in the 1950s, the bulk of the metropolitan area lived within the city limits. this is no longer true. and for a certain group of individuals who's goal it is to have a massive house with an impressive grounds, well... chestnut hill can only take so many. so we are naturally weighted towards the lower side of the economic spectrum versus where we were in the past.

I would contend this is not necessarily a bad thing. there are opportunities in the city for folks of limited means that don't exist in say, Doylestown. Affordable housing and convenient public transportation come to mind. If the city is successful and vibrant, it will attract immigrants, or people like myself five years ago, who move in cause they are broke, sell the car and need the cheap housing and transportation, combined with (hopefully) plentiful jobs - and that will bring DOWN the median income, but only as a result of what makes Philly great. Keep in mind also that a modern vibrant city almost by definition attracts more young folks than older, who will have less income, generally, than their parents. And finally, for better or for worse, household sizes and makeup have changed since 1950. There are more single parent households, which generally have lower incomes. While this is a situation in desperate need of addressing, it doesn't necessarily reflect some failure on the part of the city's economy.

So, basically, I guess, we need to define amongst ourselves what economic success really SHOULD mean, and what we are going to use to determine that success.

The problem here, is that depopulation left the city with bigger problems than simply "falling in the rankings." When people abandoned their homes, and weren't replaced, Philadelphia was left with the vast swathes of vacant land and homes that continue to characterize its poorest neighborhoods (there are currently approximately 40,000 vacant lots in Philadelphia, more than any other city in the country). These lots not only present health hazards but are a drain on the cities resources. They create a demand for the infrastructure and personnel to cover large areas that aren't populated enough to sustain them through tax revenue. They also enforce the cycle of abandonment by serving as barriers to community development. The one idea behind repopulation is that a greater demand for housing will raise the value of even outlying properties, encouraging development and eventually reversing the cycle of abandonment. Jobs/wages are crucial, obviously- few people would move to a city where their prospects for employment weren't good. But the people themselves are in the goal. The point about needed wage taxes seems silly to me- 50% of Philadelphia's tax revenue comes from sources other than the wage tax, while the need for services will not increase sigficantly, as most are more closely correlated with area than with population.

I would agree very much with Ray on the role that the decline in manufacturing employment has had on the quality of life in Philadelphia. Manufacturing jobs for all of their negatives were in Philadelphia a source of near middle class standards of living for workers with a high school education or less. The job market for college educated workers did not perform as badly and given the carnage at the bottom of the labor market even modest gains at the top meant affluent neighborhoods got more affluent while the quality of life in poor and working class neighborhoods deteriorated significantly.

The loss of these blue-collar jobs meant that many Philadelphia workers and their children had few good options short of packing up the family and moving to a new city. For those that could not move for either personal or financial reasons the employment picture was and remains bleak. Service sector employment when it is available to these workers is typically at incomes which are below or near poverty. So the loss of manufacturing employment meant higher percentages of people living in poverty. And of course the loss of income is associated with tremendous social stress, higher rates of crime, disease and violence. Life in Philadelphia coarsened and as it did the quality of life for all Philadelphians declined. As public institutions like the school system and justice system struggled to absorb these events middle and working class families not directly impacted by employment and income loss became concerned about the well being of their children.

As the quality of life declined more people choose to pick up their families and move. However I wonder how much of the movement was to the suburbs of Philadelphia rather than to other parts of the country. It looks to me that while the city has struggled in terms of population growth the metropolitan area including the surrounding counties appears to have held its relative position in the population rankings. It is that cruel cycle of people abandoning the city and its problems but still benefiting from the city in terms of employment and access to cultural institutions.

The cities recovery is only going to occur when the employment picture for the bottom half of the labor market begins to improve. There are no quick fixes only eternal vigilance. The school system needs to improve outcomes with heavy emphasis on mathematics and science education. The city needs universal access to pre-kindergarten education as well as after-school programs. The well-being of children can not be separated from the well-being of their parents and thus a dramatic increase in access to health care in the city is needed. Improved access (subsidized) to higher education is needed but post-secondary education should include a wider range of options than just a traditional four year bachelor’s degree and thus should include vocational and technical education.

Higher skills is Philadelphia’s only option, long ago the city lost the race to the bottom in terms of wages to Birmingham which in turn lost to Tijuana which has now lost that race with Beijing. However just building better people is not enough the city needs to reeducate people throughout the rest of country on the advantages of the region. This is not to say that you should give away the store by offering tax breaks or financial assistance. If you build better people the profits of the firms that are in the region will be enough incentive for others to expand into the area.

Where public resources would be useful in attracting new business and encouraging growth while at the same time offering good jobs is in the creation of new institutions which can solve market failures. For example sectors like the restaurant business do not typically offer health insurance or pension plans to their workers in part because most of these firms are quite small. If these firms could participate in the same health plan they would significantly reduce the cost of offering coverage. Access to a restaurant workers hiring hall could significantly reduce training and recruitment costs and increase scheduling flexibility. Of course the success of such an institution would require the confidence of the participating employers that using it would not undermine their ability to run their business profitably. No small task in a city where the elite regularly and wrongly attack unions like the building trades which have pioneered many of these useful institutions.

The scope of the cities problems is quite large and daunting and thus there is a tendency among the elite of Philadelphia to scapegoat specific institutions and embrace laughable policy positions. In a city where the fools gold of supply side economics or the name George Bush inspire the appropriate amount of derision the same snake oil repackaged for the local level as wage and business tax reductions is it seems nearly universally accepted. Starving the city government starves the public commons in the same way that increased poverty erodes the quality of life in Philadelphia. If public resources are misdirected or wasted then that waste should be addressed directly.

A better Philadelphia and a better future require broadly shared prosperity.