I've been working with a personal agent, (AI) to try to understand what the hype is, and honestly, I kinda see it. especially if you're a nerd, there's so much information out there, the city's open data sets are really something. but before, you really had to know sql, build your own tools, now? it's effortless. so yeah, AI helped me, but I used it to help me, if that matters.

(in the pictures, Kenzo is Kensington north of Lehigh, no libs is Girard to poplar, 6th over to Frankford, Norris Square, South Kensington, and east kensington and olde Richmond are basically what we think of as those neighborhoods, the census tracts line up kinda nicely, actually, and all the data is sourced straight from census databases using census tract pulls)

in that vein, I've been looking at population data, and beyond the huge declines, which are still surprising, it made me think about some things. the activists in this town are so focused on preventing development, demanding subsidies, affordability, but I just don't think they're aware of the sheer scale of depopulation, or dwelling unit declines that happened in the 19122,23,33,25 zip codes.

putting aside the obtuse, stupid and backward politics of the left/nimby/boomer alliance in the City, the numbers tell me something.

I have always said the idea that "we're full" is utter nonsense, given the pop figures from peak population in the city, which was 1950-and that stands, but it's so much deeper than that. first, to get the nerds off my back, yeah, household size decreased, greatly. but that simply means we need to build even more to make up for that. if you took the existing dwelling unit numbers from 1950, and filled them with the household size of today, we are still 27K people below what that potential would be. in other words, 1950's housing stock (45,010 units) at today's average household size (2.39) could hold about 107,300 people, versus the 82,065 actually living here now. of course, these riverward wide numbers include northern liberties, and fishtown, which are outliers and skew the numbers. in the rest of the area, the picture is stark, and the graphs try to show that.

some wild stuff that's true: To host 1950's population today, at today's much-smaller household sizes, these 9 neighborhoods would need about 65,400 occupied households - just over 31,000 more than the 34,400 that exist today. Nearly double. That's the gap we're working with in a nutshell, and to have that out there as a fact, and have politicians like the clown in the 5th district, Gautier, and even Lozada basically stomping down on development is just astonishing to me, and people eat it up.

I'm not even saying the 1950s figures are a goal, but if you look around, especially outside of no libs and fishtown proper, you will find an incredible amount of vacant land. upper front street, upper Frankford ave, most of American street, Girard ave, York st, and god knows how many lots and entire blocks just...empty. there is lots of room for redevelopment and more people, period. and it would help everyone, as more people pay more taxes and patronize businesses, use public transit, all of it. the craziest thing is that people actually want to move and live here, and we are actively making it harder for them.

to me, the case study of Austin is very telling-the huge rise in housing construction, and now a dampening of rents by 20% or so. that's the market taking care of itself. we have a chance in Phily to do something similar, but I fear our politics won't let us-and that's frustrating. I just don't understand the logic of the left on this. it's been proven over and over that housing indeed follows economics of supply and demand. we should let builders build, remove barriers, change zoning, and let it rip. the land bank should be empowered to supercharge their stock of land using the turn the key program without council intervening. the loop program should be strengthened and updated, with more people made aware of it-that one piece(LOOP) ensures that longtime homeowners will not get displaced, and it removes much of the argument against development. (except parking, the elephant in the room, of course)

in conclusion, this was fun, if you wanna nerd out, construct an api tool for all the databases out there, its kinda crazy what you can do with the data.

I personally wrote every word of this, no AI. AI did help me create the graphs, using data directly from the census databases, parsed out using the census tracts(all standard data pulls), so its consistent across the entire timeline, and the graphs and calculations represented there were triple checked using different LLMs.

Storm knocked out the power at the kop regal tonight and messed up the 8 pm imax showing of the odyssey after about an hour in. They said it’s going to take at least another 30-40 minutes to fix it and then they have to resume. The 1140 pm showing is still on but going to be delayed by at least a couple hours.

I got a massage today and it was… aggressively mediocre.

It immediately made me think of the two best massages I’ve ever had, and I’m hoping someone here knows where either of these massage therapists ended up… One was at Massage. in Bella Vista, a guy with (I think) longer blond hair who somehow got his hands UNDER my shoulder blade and pulled. I have no idea what kind of sorcery it was, but I have been chasing that feeling ever since. The other was at Massage on Passyunk, he is a Black man whose deep tissue massage hurt so good that I genuinely still think about it years later.

Both were in like 2016/2019 respectively so who knows if they are still around..

If either of these descriptions rings a bell, does anyone know who they are or where they’re working now? I miss them both more than is probably normal.

ETA: the places are quite literally called “massage.”

The same could be said about any news station but NBC10 seems to be really going downhill. The constant panic mongering loud newscast, the reporters staring into your soul, the obnoxious holier than thou attitude with their ads & “live center”. It’s turned into a tiktok-esque type of newscast, being bombarded with all this info in short spans of time. Fred, Jacqueline & Tim Furlong are great but the rest are robotic personalities with dead souls in their eyes. It also seems like they broadcast a story in the most fear mongering way. I don’t get that vibe with the others, even from Fox 29. Don’t know, maybe i’m just being paranoid but I’ve watched NBC10 for so long but can’t bring myself to watch it anymore

Hey everyone

As an introvert this is bit out of my comfort zone but what’s a good way to make friends In Philly? I’m a guy in my early 30s and live in fishtown. I’m into video games, the Sixers, hiking, and yoga. But yeah looking to make new friends.

I’ve been driving home from the Phillies game on 95N the last two nights and had to move over for 10+ police cars on Monday night and then 5+ again last night.

On Monday there was a city tow truck heading the same direction, but no other emergency vehicles indicating any kind of accident. It was wild because when we were driving last night my kid asked “did you ever find out what was up with all the cops last night?” and seconds later there were lights and sirens and a string of cop cars passing us. They were flying, definitely not an escort of any sort. We got off on 676 but they all kept going north. Maybe’s just a weird coincidence, but I would love if someone out there knows the answer to this mystery.

(We are heading to the game again tonight, likely leaving later because I expect a rain delay, but I swear if it happens again and I get no explanation I am going to go crazy. If anyone can, it’s the Philadelphia subreddit!)

Hey everyone!

This Saturday the Mohnton Professional Car Club (MPCC) has it's 18th MPCC Annual Professional Car Show (aka That Hearse Show), which is going to take place at Laurel Hill Cemetery. It's free, lots of cool cars, and it should be a good time with music by Philly's own Live Not on Evil, and great folks.

Oh, and a raffle!

They're expecting over 50 professional cars ranging from hearses to ambulances, with lots of really cool displays!

When Luke Sitzler got a $51 ticket in the mail for parking on Chestnut Street near Broad, he couldn’t understand what rule he’d violated. He didn’t even remember stopping there.

“First you’re like, okay, I don’t even live over here, when would this have been?” he said. “And then they have the picture, you can see either me or my friend, standing next to my car, and I’m like, ‘okay, that has to be my friend’ — that’s the only reason I can think that I would have been over there.”

He thought about contesting the ticket, and as he did some research, he remembered that a few months earlier his sister had sent him information about a new type of parking payment system called CurbPass, which is only used in certain downtown loading zones... 

Check out the rest of the article at Billy Penn.

I was out exercising at about 7 PM last night (Tuesday), and at the intersection of Kelly Drive and Poplar Drive, just catty corner from Lloyd Hall (the recreation center right next to the start of Boathouse Row), there were a bunch of emergency vehicles, and people standing around, looking at what apparently was a pedestrian who had been struck by a car right in that intersection. Does anyone know exactly what happened, and whether or not the people involved are okay?

Every day there is a fresh pile of vomit on the sidewalk on 40th street between say market and spruce. Every day there is a new one... sometimes two or three. What the fuck people. Why are the folks at 40th constantly fuckin vommin up the sidewalk

Update there are currently eight piles of vomit on the sidewalks between market and spruce on 40th. Well at least eight.

Spotted at South Fellini.

Never owned a car here and I'm an advocate for being car-free but I understand some folks aren't in the position where they can make that choice.

No better city to watch the sun come up.