A Few Doses of Philliness

The TrekMedic guesses Senator John "Just Joking, Ha-Ha-Ha" Kerry didn't really cancel his stump through Philly because it would make empty-suit Bob Casey, Jr. look bad (Casey's doing a fine job on that already) but because he heard neither Pat's nor Geno's Steaks would serve him a cheesesteak wit' Swiss Cheese again!

OK,...on to the real Philliness:

Stu Bykofsky | Fat, ugly, drunk. OK. But Philly a 'worst' place to live? Nah.

IN RECENT YEARS Philadelphia has been labeled as America's fattest city, also its most depressed city. People here drink and smoke more than the national average, it's been reported, while using seat belts less. Philadelphians also are (survey says!) the least-stylish, ugliest and least-friendly Americans. (Can you be friendly when you're ugly and wearing a granny dress or circus-print bell bottoms?)

Usually sponsored by magazines, so-called "worst" lists have less scientific reliability than astrology. They are a marketing gimmick.

Even though they are a glassy-eyed crock, they can hurt.

One reason the International Olympic Committee booted Philly as a site for the 2016 Summer Games was that the fancy pants on the committee had no "sense" about Philadelphia as a city.

Having no "sense" is better than the usual "sense" of Philly as a collection of the uneducated, the uncouth, the unkind and, as Lincoln Steffens termed us 100 years ago, the corrupt and contented. (That was, like, so cool.)

Since "worst" surveys are "fun" stories, they get play in masochistic publications in each city on the list. The magazines count on newspaper editorials, or columnists, to chime in to agree - or fight - with them.

Like what I'm about to do for an undersized compilation from Thomas Dunne Books called "The Absolutely Worst Places to Live in America," ($14.95) written by Dave Gilmartin, a thrift-store David Lynch (the filmmaker who spent a few years here and really, really hated it).

Unlike Lynch, Gilmartin never lived here. He only shacked up here.

"Philadelphia doesn't seem so bad at first," is how Gilmartin, 29, opens our chapter. (Philly is one of 50 cities named, including Camden and Atlantic City. I'll let them fight their own battles.)

"But the longer you stay, slowly but steadily its shortcomings begin to mount, until they become the source of great angst and frustration."

Phila. tops study in gerrymandering
By Michael Currie Schaffer
Inquirer Staff Writer

Pennsylvania is America's second most gerrymandered state, and Philadelphia is home to its most gerrymandered city council district, according to a new study by a local geographic software development firm.

Researchers at Avencia Inc. studied the shapes of congressional districts in all 50 states as well as city council boundaries in 55 leading cities, publishing the conclusions yesterday in a white paper that argues that the trend toward oddly shaped, far-flung electoral jurisdictions is getting worse.

The study used mapping technology and a complex formula dividing a political subdivision's area by its perimeter and then factoring in the size of its entire surrounding jurisdiction to measure the compactness of local city council districts and all 435 U.S. congressional districts.

Among the states, only Georgia had a lower "gerrymandering index" than Pennsylvania. The lower the index, the more likely the congressional districts to be the sort of convoluted, snake-shaped jurisdictions designed by politicians to protect their friends and punish their foes.

A partial play on the word salamander, gerrymandering dates to the earliest days of the republic. Then, as now, the reapportioning of congressional districts that followed the 10-year national census provided politicians with an opportunity to gain advantage.

But advances in computer mapping in recent years have turned gerrymandering into a far more precise science - which critics say means most districts are so heavily slanted to one party that their general election is essentially a foregone conclusion.

The Avencia study found that three of the 10 most heavily gerrymandered congressional districts in America are in Pennsylvania: the 12th District, which snakes its way in a vaguely northeasterly direction starting in the southwest corner of the state; the 18th District, another ink blot-shaped jurisdiction in the western half of the state; and Philadelphia's own First District, which jogs down the eastern side of Broad Street before forking off toward two parts of Delaware County to the southwest.

The most gerrymandered local district in the country, according to the study, is Philadelphia's seventh City Council district, which includes parts of North and Northeast Philadelphia and is less than a block wide at several points. The area was represented by former Councilman Rick Mariano before his corruption conviction earlier this year.