Sylvie Gallier-Howard & Lauren Swartz

Caitlin Morrissey

So, Sylvie, what is the DNA of Philadelphia?

Sylvie Gallier-Howard

So we learned a lot about this during the global identity process, and what we found is that Philadelphia is all about passion, sparking possibility and that we're a place that has its own unique attitude, and really, we have our own personality that sets us apart. We also have a very rich history, and that history is-- one of the sort of slogans that we came up with during the process is that 'Philadelphia's history propels it into the future'. We are also a very diverse and increasingly diverse city. Many of our residents are immigrants, either from a long time ago or recent immigrants, and we're very proud of that diversity. And we call ourselves a majority minority-city.

Philadelphia is lucky in that while a lot of other cities on the Northeast Corridor but also throughout the country-- larger cities have become kind of exorbitantly expensive. We still are a very, very affordable city, and it's a city where people feel that it's just-- you can breathe. It's a very manageable lifestyle. And Philadelphia, although we have 1.6 million people in the city proper, it often feels like a small village because everybody knows each other. So there's a lot of connectivity. It's sort of a big city with a small-town feel.

Caitlin Morrissey

And Lauren, what's your take on the DNA of Philadelphia?

Lauren Swartz

I would agree with what Sylvie said and the way it manifests itself when you talk to people on the street as they talk a lot about grit and authenticity, where we are a hardworking city, an underdog city. When our American football team was in the Super Bowl, people wore dog masks and dog hats to say we're the underdogs. But in the end, we won. We're true to ourselves.

We're a place that has a personality. We have a lot of small independent businesses, not as many large chains. It doesn't feel like America anywhere when you come to Philly; it feels like Philly. And that's what makes our residents appreciate the city and what makes our visitors, whether they're here for an event or business or to visit family, really crave to come back.

Caitlin Morrissey

And what is it that makes Philadelphia, Philadelphia? You said that it distinguishes itself from other US cities. How does it do that?

Lauren Swartz

I think there's the architecture and the things that you experience when you come here. We're the second-densest city in the US after only New York City. We have a very European architecture and style of street grid, so it's very walkable, bikeable and that makes it very interactive from a person-to-person standpoint. And that also means that we bump into each other, literally, but also from an idea standpoint. And we manage through our problems, and we thrive within a lot of contradictions that make this a real place with real personality and real problems and real perseverance.

Sylvie Gallier-Howard

And I would just add to that that Philadelphia has a real social consciousness, and we've had that forever. I mean, we were the birthplace of modern democracy; the abolitionist movement was very strong here, antislavery movement, and a lot of famous people in Philadelphia are civil rights leaders. And that is something that's really ingrained in a lot of people. And I won't say that we don't have a lot of problems, but just the fact that I said that, that's very Philadelphia, in that people talk about the problems, and they talk about the desire to fix the problems and the desire to be involved in the solutions and be active. We have, I mean, countless civic associations and community groups and things are just constantly bubbling up from a grassroots perspective because people are engaged. We have engaged citizenry - or residentry, I will say, since we have many immigrants - that are more-- and we're welcoming; we're a city that's welcoming of differences. We don't always agree, but at the end of the day, we find a way to get along even when we don't agree.

We are an honest city, a candid city, and we don't shy away from talking about our problems and the things that we need to fix.

Greg Clark

And Lauren, I've heard both you and Sylvie talk about Philadelphia as a city of firsts. What are the firsts that you think really matter?

Lauren Swartz

I think the first of creating Western democracy matters tremendously to the United States, to the world and to Philadelphia. That legacy is literally all over our streets where you see the architecture and the homes of the founding fathers and the historical markers. Those things are also challenged right now in the world in which we live, where we're really taking a look back at our history and our future in terms of justice and equity and race relations. And we look at ourselves as a work in progress. And so democracy-- the only problem with democracy is that there's no better form of government, right? You can say that about Philadelphia, right? We're doing the best we can, and it's an iterative process. So the home of American and Western democracy in the modern era is a first that has a long life on it and still really manages our ethos and our DNA, and you can feel it in our city today.

At the same time, there's a lot of other firsts that are really practical that people might not be aware of. It's the first zoo, the first insurance company, the first hospital, medical college - many, many, many of these institutional things - the first fire company. A lot of that we can attribute back to one of our founding fathers, Ben Franklin. But when we look in the modern age, [inaudible 00:07:35] from IBM. The first computer was invented in Philadelphia. And when we look towards the future, Philadelphia is the world's home to gene and cell therapy, where scientists and doctors take a piece of your body, of your DNA, as we're talking about the DNA's of cities-- and take a piece of your DNA out of your body, manipulate it and give it back to you. And it cures genetic diseases, and they're on their way to curing cancer with this. This research, the foundational research, the leading scientists in the world and the business around that happens in Philadelphia, where that positions us well to change so many people's lives and do things like potentially cure cancer.

Greg Clark

Thank you very much. 

And Sylvie, I've heard you describe Philadelphia as having two suburbs: one called New York and the other called Washington. What is it about Philadelphia's location that is important or distinctive?

Sylvie Gallier-Howard

So when it comes to Philadelphia's location, I think a lot of Philadelphians don't even think about it because we're just used to being right in the middle of everything. But Philadelphia, it's true, we have our suburb to the north, New York, and suburbs to the south, our political suburb D.C. And we're not far. We're really close to-- it's not even an hour-flight to Boston. And we are within five-, six-hour flight to Europe, when we're able to go, and just another five-hour flight to California. And I think that makes a big difference because if you're in California, it's a long way to go to Europe.

And so we're sort of in the middle of a very, very dense hub and [access?] to a lot of talent, of businesses. You can get on the train and do a day trip to really any of the cities that I just mentioned, you know, along the corridor. So I think there's that. And there's also the fact that we're not too far from the ocean; we're not too far from the mountains. And we're in a relatively temperate climate. It never gets too cold. It never gets too hot-- a little bit, but it's just generally kind of right there in the middle.

Caitlin Morrissey

And I know a big part of what you both do is to tell the world about Philadelphia and to spread the message. And when you're doing that, what do you say? What are the key messages that you're trying to convey?

Lauren Swartz

We always start with a few key concepts when we say, "Hello, we're Philadelphia," right? We don't make the assumption that people know where we are or what we're about. We come humble as a Philadelphia trait. And we start with the map, as Sylvie just described. We're in the centre of the densest and wealthiest part of North America with quick access to the financial capital and political capital. You can be at the beach in an hour and New York City in an hour. In the summer, that's a pretty easy choice of which one you'd like to visit. So we talk about our location.

We talk about our talent pool and our people, of course, the deep and rich history we have and also that we're home to over 100 universities and colleges. So whether you want to come study here, partner here, find talent here or partner for a research and development project, we've got you here in Philly. And from a cost standpoint, we're half the cost of New York to live or operate a business and 30 to 40% less than Boston or Washington, D.C. and yet, we sit geographically right in the centre of all of that. So from a quality-of-life standpoint, as well as operating a business and looking towards the future, those are really key characteristics that we start with: location, cost and talent. And I sound like a real estate agent, but they're all true.

And then from there, we ask, 'Well, what do you want to know about Philadelphia? Are you interested in us with our history and culture, the fact that we have more restaurants per capita than New York City and more award-winning restaurants than any other city in the US? Do you want to know that we've got more French impressionist paintings than any other city outside of Paris? Do you want to talk about our life science and gene and cell therapy industry or emerging fintech or the amazing diversity that makes Philadelphia a melting pot for the world and also a place that's really close to the quick of trying to do our best because there's no clear solution but trying to do our best to address racial inequities and create an inclusive city for the future?" And then we answer all of those questions and more, whatever they want to focus on because there's so much we love to share about our city.

Caitlin Morrissey

Would you have anything to add to that, Sylvie?

Sylvie Gallier-Howard

Yeah, I mean, I think that there's so many things about Philadelphia that are sort of the hidden gems that people don't know about unless they come here, and I also try to give people a flavour of that. I try, whenever possible, if I'm doing a presentation, to have a lot of images because usually, just with the images, people say, "I really want to go there. That city looks amazing." And if they don't know Philadelphia, they're not going to be able to envision it.

But there's a lot of things. We have a huge park system that literally feels like you're going to far away woods. That is a five-minute drive from my home. And we have two beautiful rivers, we have some amazing museums. And there's the-- some of my friends who live in New York look forward to visiting our restaurants here in Philadelphia. And they ask me, they send me texts: have you been to this place yet? And I've never even heard of it, and they've found it somehow. So we just kind of always have new things popping up.

My friend in D.C. said, "We don't have boutiques like this in D.C. It's all chains. We don't have this level of independent merchants." So it's just the flavour here, and I think that's because of our affordability. And I think it's kind of hard to not talk about how affordable Philadelphia is. I guess it's our own form of bragging, when you're in D.C. or New York or Boston because you can just immediately say, "Do you know what I would pay for this in Philadelphia?" And people-- you know, their eyes get wide, and, you know, they might think about it for a second.

Caitlin Morrissey

And how well do you think the world understands the story? Whether that's the nation or internationally, how well do you think people understand Philadelphia? And are there any misconceptions that people have about the city that have an implication for it?

Lauren Swartz

I think there's not enough of an understanding about Philadelphia. In my role, I'm lucky enough to travel the world and introduce the city to people in many countries and to host people from typically about 60 countries a year in Philadelphia. And so I like to play the game 'Philadelphia'. I'll say Philadelphia and you say whatever back. And people say Rocky, the movie; they say cream cheese, which is of course not from Philadelphia, but we'll take it, a beloved American food cream cheese with the Philadelphia brand; they might say Philadelphia Freedom, the Elton John song, which is actually not that popular amongst younger generations - they're not familiar with this iconic song -maybe the art museum, Wharton Business School. If you're in China, you get the NBA and you get our orchestra. So it really depends. We rarely get a bad response to that, but you get something that's slightly positive or neutral which tells us that we have a gap.

We have a perception opportunity, not really a problem-- so that they like us, and people have a good feeling towards Philadelphia, but they don't have a lot of information about us. So it's our mission to change that and to say, "We are Rocky. But did you also know that M. Night Shyamalan films all of his work here?" And that's a really nice new addition to what people think about cinema in Philadelphia. So we want to add to and bring into the modern time people's perceptions of our city like the restaurants Sylvie mentioned and having some of the best universities in the world and even our wonderful new hockey mascot Gritty and some of our crazy sports fans.

Sylvie Gallier-Howard

And I guess I would add, I think that when it comes to Philadelphia, if you haven't been here, then, you know, you don't know the folks who come here. I often find-- maybe a lot of people come here for university, and they go back to where they're from. And when you meet those people-- and when we travel anywhere in the world, I've met so many people in Asia, in Europe, all over the world that they say, oh, I studied at Penn, at Drexel, at Temple, at different universities. And they tend to say, I love Philadelphia. But the thing about Philadelphia is, we don't have a veneer. Philadelphia is really-- it's really kind of a very real, real place. And so for a lot of people, it's, you know-- in the beginning, it takes a little bit of time of getting used to, but then people just really, really end up falling in love with it.

And I had this one opportunity; it was the funniest thing. I was in this tiny sushi bar in Tokyo - I think it fit like nine people - and there was a guy sitting next to me, and it was me and two other folks from a trade mission. And he heard us talking about [inaudible 00:16:54]. He recognised something, a hat or something, and he said, "Are you from Philadelphia?" And we said, yes. And he said, "Philadelphia is my favourite city in the entire world. And let me tell you, I travel to over 200 cities a year," and he started-- and I said, "Well, tell me why." And he started talking about the people, the food, the music scene, and just that when you're here, it's like going down little alleys and finding things. And he had just-- and he had come here for university. So I think that just trying to uncover those things is a way of getting people to really get to know us. But it's true that a lot of people don't know that if they haven't been here.

Lauren Swartz

I would say one thing I'd like to add in terms of the business community is that we are a strong emerging tech hub. Philadelphia's hit its renaissance in many of the cultural and person-to-person aspects that we've discussed already here today. But when we look at our tech sector, every city wants to be, needs to be and is trying to figure out how to be a tech city, right, to create that new economy where we see the jobs and opportunities and, frankly, money of the future. And in Philadelphia, we're doing all of that, and it's really starting to come into fruition. So we've had the fourth-best venture capital returns in the country for the past few years. We're in the top 10 for venture capital volume. We were just named the number one start-up ecosystem in the US by Startup Genome. We're in the top five for racial diversity in tech within the US, top five for women in tech.

And we've got a couple of big tech anchors but a lot of small- and medium-sized companies that are scale-ups and beyond. And they're mostly in B2B software as a service. So those are companies that you don't know - they're not Alibaba and Google and Facebook and things like that - but they make-- they're the business of business, and they make things run. And that underpinning of our economy and also growth opportunity is creating a huge opportunity for different people to do different types of work for the city to continue to solve some of the world's problems and also puts us on the map in ways that we've been working towards for a long time. And now it's our job to tell everybody about our innovation economy as well.

Greg Clark

Sylvie, I want to come back to you and just talk about, what is it that unites the people of Philadelphia in the context of all of their glorious diversity? What is it that gets lots of people out on the streets? What is it that everybody complains about, or what is it that everybody loves? Tell us about how society in Philadelphia expresses its collective self.

Sylvie Gallier-Howard

Well, I mean, I can't deny that sports definitely get us out. When we won the Super Bowl, it was insanity. And we had the pope come and the World Meeting of Families and that was incredible. I mean, I think that the arts get us out. Every year, we have a really big concert right on the parkway which is sort of our version of the Champs-Élysées. And we have a tremendous number of events, actually, on the parkway that get people out. It could be a race - there's a lot of those types of events as well - but I think also a lot of just social-movement type things as well and sort of volunteer civic efforts. So there's tons of friends: friends of the parks, friends of schools, clean-ups. You see that happening every weekend.

And I think it's interesting because Lauren mentioned that Philadelphia is in the top five. I think I read we're number two in terms of diversity in tech, but we've set an objective for ourselves to be the most diverse tech city. And I think part of why we sort of speak to our problems and what we need to improve is that we hold a really high bar. And we might hear, OK, we have 30% women in STEM careers, and say, well, that's not good enough at all. And that's kind of where we hold our bar, is that, well, until we get to a point where it's true equality, we're fighting; we're fighting for it. And I think a lot of Philadelphians really rally around just fighting for causes.

Greg Clark

I want to just invite you to say, in a way, where you think that comes from. 

Sylvie Gallier-Howard

I mean, I think it stems back to our history. Being the birthplace of democracy and the pillars of democracy that are embedded in our Declaration of Independence, I think that that is something that-- even though we don't think about it, that's what DNA is. You don't think about it; it's just in you. And I think that's why I think sometimes some people just get-- we get frustrated with ourselves, even, because we're setting the bar so high that it makes things complicated, but it comes from an intentionality.

And I think we look at some of the people that have paved the way. There's civil rights leaders like Leon Sullivan, Octavius Catto, Marian Anderson, people who have fought for civil liberties and for rights and have gotten us to a certain place, but we know we're not there yet. And I think Philadelphia, we faced a lot of obstacles. Lots of cities have; every city has. But while other cities grew faster, we went down in population during de-industrialisation and in the last two decades, have grown more slowly than a lot of other big cities. And as a result of that, I think while we've lamented it a lot - and certainly, 10 years ago, we would have been probably saying how much we lamented that - now we look at a lot of cities that have grown so much in disparity and have grown so unaffordable, and we realise that we actually have such a huge opportunity because if that had happened to us, it would just be even worse in some other cities, honestly.

And we do have a poverty issue, but we have the opportunity to-- we have not really pushed people out or people have not been forced to move out in the same way as they have in other cities. And we have an opportunity to be a model for inclusive growth. We talk about inclusive growth all the time and equitable growth and that requires total intentionality and being very deliberate in every move. So I know because we are so hard on ourselves that we will be ultra-deliberate about those things.

Greg Clark

Wonderful.

Lauren Swartz

Can I add something? It's borrowed from you, Greg, in a conversation we had in DC., but I use it a lot, and so I'll give you credit here. But we talked about the name Philadelphia which means the City of Brotherly Love in Greek; that's in our DNA as well. Most people don't think about their city's name, and I don't even think that we connect the fact that that's our name in Greek versus the meaning. People say 'Philadelphia, the City of Brotherly Love', and we sort of move on. And now, we also say 'and sisterly affection', of course. But when you look at the foundation of the city, that name was important because brotherly love is an alternative to having to love and worship a king or a god or a certain construct of ideas, and that is a rebellious and passionate idea. It was at the time and it still is today.

And when we think about what moves Philadelphia, it's that filial pride and that determination to take care of one another before the king, before having to worship a god and being forced to all march in the same direction. We look and reach out laterally to our brothers and sisters in Philadelphia, and that might not be the fastest way to move forward or make us the most money, but it makes us the strongest, and it demonstrates our refusal to try to-- a refusal to let people fall behind or to be pushed out. Are we perfect at this? Absolutely not. Is any place perfect at this? No.

When you look at the cities that have overcome deep poverty, the challenges in public schooling and picking up trash and potholes and things, there aren't very many who've done it by maintaining the same population they had when those problems were paramount. The population shifts because of gentrification and wealth building. Philadelphia has not done that. So we still have our Philadelphians, and we still have those problems because we are a city of brotherly and sisterly love rather than a society that's oriented towards all looking up for growth and worshipping something outside of ourselves.

Caitlin Morrissey

So I know that you've just been talking about the city as a collective community. Is it possible-- or in your mind, do individuals stand out as having shaped the city in any way whether that's cultural or civic leaders or city leaders?

Sylvie Gallier-Howard

So we sort of came up with a whole list of people, and it's just the beginning. But I mean, you can't talk about Philadelphia without talking about Ben Franklin for sure. So it's sort of the original inventor, statesman, everything. But I mentioned some of the civil rights leaders like Leon Sullivan. We have Ed Rendell is sort of a more modern-day or recent leader who was our mayor and also governor of the state. And Ed Rendell is somebody-- he wrote a book called Prayer for the City that would tell you a lot about Philadelphia.

And he was our mayor during one of our darkest times or more recent dark times, I should say, at the end of the '80s, early '90s when the city almost went bankrupt. And there's a story of him being on his hands and knees, and he welcomed people to come into city hall that was dirty and under-- you know, he didn't have the funding. And he welcomed the residents of Philadelphia to come and help clean up city hall, and there's a photo of him on his hands and knees cleaning a toilet. And he was a man - he is a man, still - that curses a lot, extremely passionate, a little rough around the edges, but he actually made so many contributions to our city. He turned around our downtown, which used to be very empty at night, created different organisations. He created our tourism entity 'Visit Philadelphia'. He was a visionary, and he would sort of just push things, and he found a lot of ways to find deficiencies. So I would say Ed Rendell, definitely, for a lot of people. He sort of personifies a lot of Philadelphia.

We have a woman Jane Golden who runs Mural Arts, and Jane literally jumps up and down pretty much any time you see her. She just is full of emotion and excitement. And she has, with her team, painted murals. I think we have more murals than any US city, maybe any city in the world. I don't know; it's tremendous. And a lot of those murals, they have a-- so they will have a meaning to them, often a social cause. Communities help paint those murals. That's part of her programming. So I would say she's somebody that's really recognised. I'll hand-- Lauren, I'm sure you can rattle off a few as well.

Lauren Swartz

Sure. There's a lot of musical and pop culture icons from Philadelphia. Rocky's not a real person, but we can't leave him off the list, but we'll move past that. Will Smith in the Fresh Prince of Bel Air and the musical and acting and rap career that he and now, his children are iconic to the city. And the song 'in West Philadelphia, born and raised', when I go around the world saying 'Hi, I'm from Philadelphia', some people say cream cheese, some people say Rocky, and a lot of people sing that song back to me. So he's an icon of our city, but also, a bit like Rocky, somebody who's a self-made guy. He was a self-made guy in the show but also in his personal life and keeps ties with his family and things like that.

Patti LaBelle is from here, Jill Scott, the singer Pink, The Roots. So we have a tremendous music culture here as well as Gamble and Huff and a lot of Motown famous people. Famous songs, again, that 'Philadelphia Freedom' from Elton John, so the musical soundtrack to our city is quite deep and rich. Meek Mill the rapper who's a very prominent racial justice advocate and advocate on many different fronts, right now, is also helping keep Philadelphia on the map. And adjacent to all of that are a bevvy of sports stars like Allen Iverson and many, many different NBA and footballers over the decades as well.

Greg Clark

Shall we talk a little bit about the inventions that you haven't yet listed? Anything that you think really stands out as something that Philadelphia has created or discovered for the world?

Sylvie Gallier-Howard

I mean, I know-- I think it's there-- and David Brownlee has this list of firsts that-- I mean, I think I knew like one-one-hundredth of them. But the first library, the first computer, the first bank, the first university. And more recently, our cell and gene therapy sector is something that a lot of people don't even know quite what that means. But the types of treatments for cancer that are being discovered here in Philadelphia, the first treatment for solid cancerous tumour-- I'm not a scientist, so I won't say all the specific initials and things that go with these terms, but there are some amazing cures that are being found here, and there have been for centuries.

Lauren Swartz

Yeah, and when we look back on the path to the first fire company that would come and put out a fire in your house, there's these emblems that are still in people's homes because we have homes that for the United States are quite old: 200, 300 years old. And that goes back to the ethos, right, the brotherly love: how do you let your brother or your neighbour's house burn down? It was also a very practical matter because we're a city of rowhouses, so my house is connected to yours, so we literally live like brothers and sisters, and we must save one another from fire. And so the insurance company but also a fire company was invented here as well.

We're the first US city to implement municipal recycling. We have a lot of water technology. We were the first city with a modern sewer system, so even when they're digging up the streets now to replace old pipes, every once in a while they'll find an old wooden pipe, on old wooden water pipe that was a hollowed-out tree that was used to deliver water all over the city. So there was a lot of sanitation first throughout our history in the city. Right now, like most cities, we could use some infrastructure improvements, but that legacy is there, and we hope to continue to be inventive again when it comes to taking care of people in the city and finding the best ways to do it.

Sylvie Gallier-Howard

I think one other thing that is just good for people to know, we have a pretty-- I talked earlier about how sometimes we make things more complicated for ourselves both in terms of trying to, you know, not move too quickly so that we bring everybody along and have equity but also, we have a very prominent heritage and preservation community in Philadelphia. So there's a lot of people that really recognise the importance of our rich history of having been first, and they nominate buildings and properties and different things to be preserved. And at the end of the day, I think when people come here - Lauren mentioned we have this European architecture - I think a lot of folks, they come and they're really surprised at sort of how we've maintained that quaint and beautiful, honestly, very beautiful, centre-city landscape. And that's because there's a desire to maintain that.

Greg Clark

I can't tell you how wonderful it is to hear all of this and to hear you both getting a chance just to say this. I want to come back to myths, jokes, legends, things that are either often said about Philadelphia that are not true or jokes that are typically made about Philadelphia or myths that nobody knows whether they're true or not. Anything you'd like to say about that?

Sylvie Gallier-Howard

Well, I mean, I think that-- Lauren talked about Rocky. I think Rocky-- so many people see us as sort of this underdog city and really-- and it's funny because I think we have a love/hate relationship with Rocky in a lot of ways. You know, I think with Rocky, you know, no matter what, he just keeps trying. And although he doesn't win, there's a sort of belief that really, he does win at the end of the day. The cream cheese thing is totally a myth. I don't know why it's Philadelphia cream cheese, but definitely, people think that that comes from here. I don't know. What else, Lauren?

Lauren Swartz

In terms of myths, yeah, the cream cheese and Rocky are the two that we get. They're so deep and so strong and universal and also very American. This boxing guy running through the streets, in a gym, a fighter, that's very American. And cream cheese is this weird American anomaly that you don't find outside of our country. But, boy, do we love it, myself included. Those are the two largest myths. I think things that feel like myths to us today were true in the past.

And so I can split hairs a little bit here. There is a perception that Philadelphia-- a persistent perception that Philadelphia is still very industrial and very old and very dirty, and no one lives downtown, and we're one of those abandoned ghost towns. And then people come here, and they see the vibrancy of the residents downtown. Our average age here is five years younger than that of the US national average because there's so many students. 54% of the students that study here at our 100 universities stay and make their first careers and make their lives here. And that we're really, really diverse. We're not just a blue-collar, white, working-class town with a lot of old industrial buildings. We have bits of that for sure, but we have all of this other vibrancy and cultural tapestry that people aren't yet aware of. So I don't know if that's a myth, but perhaps people are stuck reading a chapter of the Philadelphia book that's in the past, and it's our job to write the next chapter.

Greg Clark

And I can't help asking, what do Philadelphians get grumpy about?

Lauren Swartz

Trash.

Sylvie Gallier-Howard

Yeah.

Lauren Swartz

Yeah, city services, like all the things that most big municipal governments struggle with. And I say that as a joke right now. I think every city in the US is trying to manage the fact that all of the waste that went into the commercial system, when people were dining out and were working in their offices, is now happening at a residential level. And so that's just of the moment as I look out on my street. It's a burden that we're trying to work through right now in this new era and support our sanitation department. That's it.

Schools: a lot of the things that you see happening in other big American cities and cities around the world. People want better education, they want better services, cleaner streets. They want the pothole filled in front of their house more quickly. Parking: if you live in a big city, we don't-- we're not a city of garages. We're a city built for horses which means parking a car is a bit adventurous.

Sylvie Gallier-Howard

Well, I think that because it's such an engaged city-- I think politics, too. I think national politics or local politicians-- I mean, definitely, the people will talk about how they feel. The thing about Philadelphians is that we're not overly polite, and we don't really hide our feelings too much. We're pretty straightforward, and so if we feel like we deserve better, we say it. And so as public servants being interviewed, we recognise that we are accountable to our residents, and we hear it all the time.

Greg Clark

And who does Philadelphia feel itself to be in competition with, or which other city do Philadelphians hate most?

Lauren Swartz

Well, imagine if your big brother was New York, right, so you love him and you hate it. We are an hour on the train from New York City which means sometimes people call Philadelphia the sixth borough of New York. That’s a very fast way to irritate a Philadelphian. That, and arguing about our sports teams. But I would say that might be a bit of a myth, too.

We don't really-- we're not in competition with New York. There's, what, five super cities in the entire world - five or ten, depending on who you ask - and New York is one of them. I think most Philadelphians think it's great that we have access to the music, arts to get our culture, jobs. There's a lot of Philadelphians who commute to New York for work. They make a New York dollar and then spend it in Philadelphia and take advantage of that differential.

People have family and friends coming through New York from all around the world, and they're only an hour away. So you can go up and have dinner with them and come right back. So it's like a coopetition with New York. But generally, I think most Philadelphians think it's a benefit that we're so close. And from a business standpoint, companies quickly figure out how expensive it is and then start to look around and join us down here in Philly.

I think from a competitive standpoint in the business landscape, which is something that I work on all the time, Boston is probably the one that we see the most. We have common sectors and common strengths in terms of life science, research and development and a really deep and rich university pool. But we're three times larger than Boston, and we're much closer to Washington D.C. and some of the other assets and attributes that we mentioned.

And when we look at the rest of the country, there are places where we feel a kinship to for sure. The top of the second-tier cities, right: places like Boston or San Diego, Minneapolis, Atlanta to a certain extent, Charlotte Research Triangle Park in North Carolina. But maybe it goes back to that authenticity. We know who we are as Philadelphia, and we don't think there's another place that is exactly like us. And so we're going to keep being Philadelphia and know that that's our competitive advantage.

Sylvie Gallier-Howard

It's funny because New York doesn't even come to mind for me as a place that we compete with. I really do think of it as our suburb, but I'm still working on convincing other people of that. But I think New York is an asset. For us, New York is our neighbour, it's an asset, and a lot of people don't want to live in New York. I lived in New York and I was always so happy to come and visit family here in Philadelphia and breathe and not spend three times as much on a movie theatre.

But Boston comes to mind immediately, and I think there's a few reasons. I think that the fact that we do have a lot of similarities-- we have a large Irish-American diaspora; Boston has the largest, and we're the second largest. Obviously, the history that we share, the universities and the life sciences, as Lauren mentioned. So we certainly share a lot of similarities.

But one thing that a lot of people say, Philadelphians, when we go to Boston is, it feels sort of pompous sometimes. And I love Boston, but I say that affectionately. But that veneer that we don't have, sometimes you sort of feel like there's this veneer over a part of the city that's a little bit of a haughtiness that I think we sort of try to shy away from.

And again, I think the other part is, you go to other parts of the world and people know Boston pretty well. A lot of people will mention Boston, and so that often kind of just-- I think it's sort of just like, humph. It kind of gets at you a little bit because people go, "Oh, well, I know Boston." And you're like, "Boston is tiny." But, you know, I think Lauren's right. Ultimately, there is also a real benefit to not everybody knowing you as well because you don't want to get too popular either. There's something really nice about that.