For those of you who haven't noticed, philly.com posted a revised homepage over the weekend. It'll be interesting to see what people think of it. MDC
This will be a tiny post, but I wanted to flag two items: one story and one resource.
First, the Inquirer's pair of articles (here and here) on the real estate picture in the city. Despite a slowdown in year-over-year sales, the residential market seems to be pretty brisk -- and continues to push prices beyond the "old" borders of Center City (e.g. south of Washington west of Broad or north of Girard east of it).
There are all sorts of things you can say about this development, from transfer and property taxes to the changing shape of neighborhoods and the workforce. But I was struck by this assessment (which I neither endorse nor disdain) of the future picture for real estate development in Philly, by Kevin Gillen, an economic forecaster and Wharton fellow:
Philadelphia's housing has less of a high-price problem and more of a "low-income, low-quality and high-cost" problem, he said. The city's low-income population occupies old, depreciated housing stock that's very costly to replace or maintain.
"We are a city with Baltimore houses, St. Louis house prices, and Cleveland incomes, but New York costs, Boston taxes, and San Francisco regulations."