Proof the suburbs are going downhill

[ArcticSplash]

If you read the article you would see these "gangs" have been in the area for quite some time, they are nothing new and seem to only bother with each other...I say let them stay where they are....Id rather have them killing each other in a cornfield than on busy city streets. Gangs are sometimes part of the immigration experience unfortunately.

I'm gonna start a new one.

The Gladwyne Killaz.

[Volanova]

F*ck it. None of you are even worth it.

Go ahead and continue to run your mouths like this. You're just making yourselves look even worse than you did before I took it upon myself to respond to the crap you say all over the internet.

I didn't think that was actually possible, but congratulations, you've amazed me yet again.

I've watched this debate go back and forth, and I have to pop in and say that maybe if you'd respond with facts, figures and thought out logical statements instead of emotional rants and outright threats, people would be more responsive to your points.

[Hospitalitygirl]

You can say whatever the f*ck your sheltered little suburban mind feels the need to say but the fact is that I did none of the things you accuse me of.

I responded when other people bumped the thread with their insults and bullsh*t comments. I might have responded late (because I don't spend many hours of my day online) but I responded nonetheless.

I don't give a f*ck what a bunch of people who aren't even from the city "respond to". I don't go talking about what's good in Mill Creek or Center City or anywhere not within my general area that I've spend almost my entire life in so far. I simply ask the same in return. The only places outside of that radius I've said anything about were Kensington (to tell people to stop trying to judge working class people who have dealt with problems you can't even imagine) and Point Breeze (because the things people were saying about the people of that neighborhood are not acceptable by any means). Oh, right, and the Northeast because people from the suburbs want to call it suburban and act like it's all one big, homogenous place when it isn't.

Yet people who live in ONE neighborhood want to talk about Delco like they know something, about Delaware, about Jersey, about Eastwick and Elmwood and all of the other spots they're not from and haven't ever lived in. And you want to accuse ME of talking about places I don't know? By the way, just so we're clear... F*ck the suburbs.

This thread (and the other) were generally dead until you came along to whine in internet tough-guyese. Good on ya.

You could respond with facts or you could just shut up and leave it the hell alone. And you tend to do what you accuse the others of--you crap on the city. THE city which gives the entire region a definition. Your little "city" wouldn't really exist on its own.

[StatesRights]

Y'all be drinkin' WAYYYYYYYYYYY too much coffee!

[OldMama]

I went to the walmart at Adams and the Blvd a few times when I decided I could no longer take the overhwelming stink of Body Odor.....its unbeleivable.

I've never been to a suburban Walmart because as a rule, I don't go to Walmart. Last summer, I went to the one on the Boulevard on the way home from work.It was so filthy I left without buying anything. As I tried to get out of my parking spot, I was delayed by a woman who must have backed in and out of her parking spot at least ten times- she just couldn't drive. Then, as I started to pull out, two woman, one of them unbelievably enormous, began walking behind my moving car. I stopped but the big one screamed at me, "You almost hit me, B****." I looked her up and down and responded, "It's a wonder I missed." Good thing she couldn't chase me. They could have free stuff at Walmart and I wouldn't go. The one nearest me on Delaware Avenue (in the dirtiest parking lot I've ever seen) is also a disgrace. I can't imagine people in the suburbs putting up with that filth. Am I wrong?

[StatesRights]

The one in Turnersville NJ is spotless, the parking lot is clean and the people are actually very polite, including the staff. I was pleasently suprised. (saw some people of great girth there, too, LOL.)

[BarryG]

I've never been to a suburban Walmart because as a rule, I don't go to Walmart. Last summer, I went to the one on the Boulevard on the way home from work.It was so filthy I left without buying anything. As I tried to get out of my parking spot, I was delayed by a woman who must have backed in and out of her parking spot at least ten times- she just couldn't drive. Then, as I started to pull out, two woman, one of them unbelievably enormous, began walking behind my moving car. I stopped but the big one screamed at me, "You almost hit me, B****." I looked her up and down and responded, "It's a wonder I missed." Good thing she couldn't chase me. They could have free stuff at Walmart and I wouldn't go. The one nearest me on Delaware Avenue (in the dirtiest parking lot I've ever seen) is also a disgrace. I can't imagine people in the suburbs putting up with that filth. Am I wrong?

The one on Columbus was renovated very recently and is actually pretty nice inside. The grocery section is much better then Target's too.

[randomuser]

Since this is pretty much the thread where it all started, I'd like to point something out.

I talked about this subject and about my area in this section only. I did so after other people insulted the hell out of it and the people within it, before I even posted once on this message board. Other people (mostly those who did the unprovoked insulting of my area and of areas outside of Philly) brought it into every other thread I posted in or insulted me or insulted my area. I am quite sure that people are like "oh he always brings the subject up" and whatever other bullsh*t but that is not even remotely true.

If you're from the actual f*cking suburbs or not even from the area, don't say a damn word about places like Upper Darby, Camden, Chester, Marcus Hook, Wilmington, Pottstown, etc. You don't have a right to say anything disrespectful about those places or a leg to stand on when doing so. You didn't go through what those people grow up with and you probably couldn't. It's like people looking down on North Jersey who aren't even from New York.

[Marquis]

How dare people have an opinion about an area! The nerve!

[Jelly Roll]

If you're from the actual f*cking suburbs or not even from the area, don't say a damn word about places like Upper Darby, Camden, Chester, Marcus Hook, Wilmington, Pottstown, etc. You don't have a right to say anything disrespectful about those places or a leg to stand on when doing so. You didn't go through what those people grow up with and you probably couldn't. It's like people looking down on North Jersey who aren't even from New York.

There are lots of rough areas around the Metro that have been like that for a long time with your list just being a small portion of them. I would also add that it is not really a city versus suburb thing or an urban versus rural thing as both have rough areas.

[Volanova]

It's like people looking down on North Jersey who aren't even from New York.

So it's okay to look down on North Jersey if you're from New York City? How is that so much better than someone commenting on the conditions of Upper Darby if they grew up in Havertown?

Having some arbitrary geographical separation from a locality does not mean you're somehow less qualified to discuss the area and its issues, both good and bad. If you're unwilling to hear the thoughtful opinions of those who may have a different perspective, then I'm sorry for you, and I really do hope that your way of thinking isn't respective of the majority of people from your town.

Oh, and for what it's worth, you're not doing anything to support your side by being accusatory and threatening in your tone. But, you've been told that a dozen times over, so I doubt my saying it again will have any impact.

EDIT: And yes, I may reside on the Main Line now, but the area I was born and raised in has of late suffered through nearly 30% unemployment rates and poverty levels that are some of the highest in the country. Does that make me any more or less qualified to talk about Upper Darby, North Philadelphia or Rittenhouse Square? (Answer: No, it doesn't.)

[InYourVacancies]

Since this is pretty much the thread where it all started, I'd like to point something out.

I talked about this subject and about my area in this section only. I did so after other people insulted the hell out of it and the people within it, before I even posted once on this message board. Other people (mostly those who did the unprovoked insulting of my area and of areas outside of Philly) brought it into every other thread I posted in or insulted me or insulted my area. I am quite sure that people are like "oh he always brings the subject up" and whatever other bullsh*t but that is not even remotely true.

If you're from the actual f*cking suburbs or not even from the area, don't say a damn word about places like Upper Darby, Camden, Chester, Marcus Hook, Wilmington, Pottstown, etc. You don't have a right to say anything disrespectful about those places or a leg to stand on when doing so. You didn't go through what those people grow up with and you probably couldn't. It's like people looking down on North Jersey who aren't even from New York.

Guess what, I'm from your area. And you know what? You're the prime example of the kind of obnoxious *******s that hail from the county. Some people disagree with you and you go off the handle, immediately resorting to internet threats and name-calling. And when somebody DARES to call you the same name you called them, you fly off the handle. You're a loudmouth and a hypocrite with a scumbaggish short fuse, just like so many of the obnoxious *******s a grew up around. You pretty much **** on delco yourself with the garbage you post in this thread.

[randomuser]

How dare people have an opinion about an area! The nerve!

How dare they speak as if they are an authority about an area they aren't from and have never lived in or speak disrespectfully when they're from somewhere much lesser than that area.

There are lots of rough areas around the Metro that have been like that for a long time with your list just being a small portion of them. I would also add that it is not really a city versus suburb thing or an urban versus rural thing as both have rough areas.

My "list" was just a handful of places. It's not a city vs. suburb thing, no. You're right about that. It's an "actual suburb" vs "a place that happens to be outside of a major city" thing. I mean seriously, people from the actual suburbs want to call Chester, Camden, and Wilmington suburbs. I mean really?

So it's okay to look down on North Jersey if you're from New York City? How is that so much better than someone commenting on the conditions of Upper Darby if they grew up in Havertown?

Having some arbitrary geographical separation from a locality does not mean you're somehow less qualified to discuss the area and its issues, both good and bad. If you're unwilling to hear the thoughtful opinions of those who may have a different perspective, then I'm sorry for you, and I really do hope that your way of thinking isn't respective of the majority of people from your town.

Oh, and for what it's worth, you're not doing anything to support your side by being accusatory and threatening in your tone. But, you've been told that a dozen times over, so I doubt my saying it again will have any impact.

People who grow up in many parts of New York have it much harder than people in North Jersey. All that sh*t that's in North Jersey was in New York for much longer. So it's absolutely nothing like talking about Upper Darby when you're from Havertown.

Thoughtful opinions? Are you f*cking retarded or just unbelievably delusional? Speaking as an authority about an area you know nothing about, insulting that area and the people of it, looking down on it because you "moved to the big bad city" is thoughtful opinions? I responded to thoughtful opinions in kind. Ask MarketStEl how much I verbally abused him (answer: I didn't) You're a bunch of f*cking children who have listened to way too much hip hop, seen way too many "in the hood" movies and shows and think because of it that you know something and have a right to comment on areas you couldn't last growing up in. You've been allowed to be this way, to run your mouths and be general brats because of the fact that you've been sheltered from people who would f*ck you up for it. You really don't think that's obvious? You can state otherwise until the cows come home but in reality, every single exchange we've ever had was either provoked directly by one of you mouthing off to me or indirectly by one of you talking sh*t about areas you know nothing about and insulting people who are more than you could ever be, because they have no f*cking choice. I'm sorry I broke up the party... well no, not really I'm not.

Guess what, I'm from your area. And you know what? You're the prime example of the kind of obnoxious *******s that hail from the county. Some people disagree with you and you go off the handle, immediately resorting to internet threats and name-calling. And when somebody DARES to call you the same name you called them, you fly off the handle. You're a loudmouth and a hypocrite with a scumbaggish short fuse, just like so many of the obnoxious *******s a grew up around. You pretty much **** on delco yourself with the garbage you post in this thread.

Being from the same county is not the same as being from the same area.

And you're f*cking delusional if that's really what you see.

[MarketStEl]

Thoughtful opinions? Are you f*cking retarded or just unbelievably delusional? Speaking as an authority about an area you know nothing about, insulting that area and the people of it, looking down on it because you "moved to the big bad city" is thoughtful opinions? I responded to thoughtful opinions in kind. Ask MarketStEl how much I verbally abused him (answer: I didn't) You're a bunch of f*cking children who have listened to way too much hip hop, seen way too many "in the hood" movies and shows and think because of it that you know something and have a right to comment on areas you couldn't last growing up in. You've been allowed to be this way, to run your mouths and be general brats because of the fact that you've been sheltered from people who would f*ck you up for it. You really don't think that's obvious? You can state otherwise until the cows come home but in reality, every single exchange we've ever had was either provoked directly by one of you mouthing off to me or indirectly by one of you talking sh*t about areas you know nothing about and insulting people who are more than you could ever be, because they have no f*cking choice. I'm sorry I broke up the party... well no, not really I'm not.

Being from the same county is not the same as being from the same area.

And you're f*cking delusional if that's really what you see.

Since I've been invoked here, I may as well jump back in.

First off, I will second his comment: No, I wouldn't call what he said to me abusive. I did say he had a chip on his shoulder; we exchanged private messages in which I did say that I understood his point of view.

And I do. That doesn't mean I agree with it completely.

I do agree that the experience of passing through a place is NOT the same as the experience of living in it, and a transplant will experience it differently from a native (anyone want to see Kansas City through the eyes of a native who hasn't lived there in decades? I'm available as a travel companion). My current tour of residence in Northeast Philly recapitulates that point. However, it is inaccurate to say that one cannot get a feel for or form opinions about a place from visiting it, even once (though repeated visits usually deepen one's insight). My understanding of how lower Northeast Philly today is not the same lower Northeast that others my age grew up in, or that the white guys at Walt's Circle Tavern can even embrace, was informed by several visits to some Brazilian restaurants six blocks north of where I live now.

I get randomuser's hostility towards affluent suburban wannabes whose notions of what the streets are like come from listening to way too much hip-hop and who tend to regard sojourns into the neighborhoods containing such streets as a thrill ride of some sort. But I strongly suspect, randomuser, that not everybody here who is (as they see it) returning fire with fire fits that definition.

And you do still have a HUGE chip on your shoulder; whether or not it's justified, most people who encounter someone sporting one of these respond first by trying to knock it off.

I don't like it when clueless Easterners look down on Kansas City. I may never live there again, but it's really a nice place, and not at all what many folks on the East Coast think it is, or looks like even. I do have an arch reply for those who display their ignorance of local geography by placing me in the wrong Kansas City when I tell them clearly (according to local usage in the area) where I'm from: "If I were from Kansas City, Kansas, I would have said so." But that's about as hostile as I get. Otherwise, I tend to prefer patient explanation and education. That may be something you wish to do as well, randomuser, but your rhetorical style and tone cause the would-be pupil to tune out the message.

Shifting gears slightly since the thread in which you raised the issue of the definition of a "suburb" has been locked: I'm afraid your definition of the term is a little too class-bound. As used in everyday American English, the term "suburb" also encompasses a class of communities that are more properly understood as "satellite cities," a term that almost no one uses. Chester falls into this category, as do a slew of industrial communities - Ambler being one - that had independent existences prior to the outward spread of the central city's population and influence. Wilmington, Del., is like Newark, N.J. - a secondary urban center (a notch above "satellite city"). You may note that such secondary central cities are included in the names of Census Bureau metropolitan areas, e.g., Philadelphia-Wilmington-Atlantic City, PA-NJ-DE. (Before Mercer County, NJ, was shifted from the Philadelphia region to the New York region mainly to give Federal employees working there a pay raise without having to provide justification, this was called Philadelphia-Wilmington-Trenton.

But there are such things as "working-class suburbs." Most of the communities that line Chester Pike and MacDade Boulevard from Darby Borough to Ridley Township fall into this category to a greater or lesser degree, Ridley Park Borough itself a significant exception. Raytown and Sugar Creek near my hometown also do.

And the Merriam-Webster (historically, the standard dictionary of American English, though the newer American Heritage Dictionary has given it a run for its money of late, and the Random House has its devotees) definition of "suburb" is also based on mere geographical proximity to a metropolitan center, regardless of what history or function may attach to a community. Independence, Mo., the county seat of the county it and Kansas City share*, is at heart a somewhat typical, somewhat sleepy Midwestern county seat - a market town with a courthouse in the middle of the downtown - but since Kansas City's metropolitan expansion accounts for a good deal of the city's physical appearance and the bulk of its 125,000 residents, it too is a "suburb" even if it contains a "satellite city" within it.

So Chester, despite being older than any community in the region, becomes a "suburb" because a much larger community whose residents have spilled into its hinterland is not far away. Reference to it as an "industrial suburb" is a sort of backhanded reference to both its own history and that of metropolitan expansion in Philadelphia.

Calling Chester a "suburb" may be a diss of its history and function - as I believe I noted, Chester has its own suburbs - but it is not incorrect as the term is defined in American dictionaries. Someone called you on this, and instead of acknowledging the point, you doubled down. And you're surprised that people now take even your perfectly innocent inquiries the wrong way?

*Missouri's only President and Independence's most famous son, Harry Truman, used to say that Kansas City was a suburb of Independence.

[randomuser]

^^ That is much more thoughtful. I hope you didn't have a problem with me bringing your name into it but I wanted to show that I respond in kind to people who aren't insulting, disrespectful, etc.

I get what you're saying, too. My whole thing is when people try to lump all of these places together under the same definition of suburb as it is used in our country: cul-de-sacs, completely dependent on the city, generic place with no identity of its own, etc. That's when I've got a problem, especially when the person trying to do so is from one of those types of places. By that definition, to call any of them suburbs is not only an insult but it warrants getting knocked the f*ck out by the inhabitants of those places if you come from the actual suburbs because you didn't experience anything even remotely close to what they did. Chester and Wilmington especially, along with Pottstown really are completely independent of Philadelphia. Camden is one that is definitely a satellite city. My whole point is that labeling everything outside of a city as "suburbs" is lazy and insulting, especially when coupled with the "I moved to the big bad city" false-pedestal and attitude. I don't tend to see people who are actually from Philly do it very often, probably because they just flat out don't give a crap about the working class places outside of the city, the same way we don't really even think about Philly. It's funny considering that moving from Philly to the more working class parts of Delco or to Camden or to any of the satellite cities like Coatesville or Wilmington is pretty much exactly like moving from one section of the city to another. Upper Darby especially is like if the Northeast were combined with one of the nicer parts of West Philly.

Considering what the people of those "suburbs" have always gone through since their very founding (and especially within the past 20 years), it's more than a bit insulting to lump them in with some ritzy place in Montgomery County, for example.

[Jelly Roll]

I get what you're saying, too. My whole thing is when people try to lump all of these places together under the same definition of suburb as it is used in our country: cul-de-sacs, completely dependent on the city, generic place with no identity of its own, etc. That's when I've got a problem, especially when the person trying to do so is from one of those types of places. By that definition, to call any of them suburbs is not only an insult but it warrants getting knocked the f*ck out by the inhabitants of those places if you come from the actual suburbs because you didn't experience anything even remotely close to what they did. Chester and Wilmington especially, along with Pottstown really are completely independent of Philadelphia. Camden is one that is definitely a satellite city. My whole point is that labeling everything outside of a city as "suburbs" is lazy and insulting, especially when coupled with the "I moved to the big bad city" false-pedestal and attitude. I don't tend to see people who are actually from Philly do it very often, probably because they just flat out don't give a crap about the working class places outside of the city, the same way we don't really even think about Philly. It's funny considering that moving from Philly to the more working class parts of Delco or to Camden or to any of the satellite cities like Coatesville or Wilmington is pretty much exactly like moving from one section of the city to another. Upper Darby especially is like if the Northeast were combined with one of the nicer parts of West Philly.

Considering what the people of those "suburbs" have always gone through since their very founding (and especially within the past 20 years), it's more than a bit insulting to lump them in with some ritzy place in Montgomery County, for example.

I actually agree with you to a certain degree but even the ritzy suburbs of this area were often time founded and for a long time operated with the same independence to Philadelphia that the places that you name did. If anything most of South Jersey towns were originally suburbs to Camden not Philadelphia. It is not uncommon for towns to have been been originally settled 200+ years ago in this area and in many towns the employment centers are no longer Philadelphia but other suburbs themselves. The key reason for these towns being called suburbs is that Philadelphia is by far the dominant city. I think you are having a problem with people calling edge cities suburbs. From my understanding it is possible to be both.

[Volanova]

People who grow up in many parts of New York have it much harder than people in North Jersey. All that sh*t that's in North Jersey was in New York for much longer. So it's absolutely nothing like talking about Upper Darby when you're from Havertown.

Thoughtful opinions? Are you f*cking retarded or just unbelievably delusional? Speaking as an authority about an area you know nothing about, insulting that area and the people of it, looking down on it because you "moved to the big bad city" is thoughtful opinions? I responded to thoughtful opinions in kind. Ask MarketStEl how much I verbally abused him (answer: I didn't) You're a bunch of f*cking children who have listened to way too much hip hop, seen way too many "in the hood" movies and shows and think because of it that you know something and have a right to comment on areas you couldn't last growing up in. You've been allowed to be this way, to run your mouths and be general brats because of the fact that you've been sheltered from people who would f*ck you up for it. You really don't think that's obvious? You can state otherwise until the cows come home but in reality, every single exchange we've ever had was either provoked directly by one of you mouthing off to me or indirectly by one of you talking sh*t about areas you know nothing about and insulting people who are more than you could ever be, because they have no f*cking choice. I'm sorry I broke up the party... well no, not really I'm not.

And there are people that grew up in Ardmore that had it worse than some people that grew up in Upper Darby. There are bad parts to many places. What's your point?

I still don't think you get my point, though. Not being from somewhere does not mean you cannot make valid observations about the conditions of said locale. Why are you even on an internet BBS that is dedicated to Philadelphia if you don't feel like anyone who didn't spend every waking hour in a certain neighborhood doesn't have any right to discuss what happens there? Do you not realize that by sitting here saying these things you're doing the exact same thing that you accuse others of doing: making assumptions on what they've experienced or seen by where you assume they originated from?

In addition, I'd greatly appreciate you pointing out where I have ever once said anything that insinuated that I'm somehow better than someone from a "rough" part of anywhere. If you construed anything I said as such, then you were mistaken.

[MarketStEl]

^^ That is much more thoughtful. I hope you didn't have a problem with me bringing your name into it but I wanted to show that I respond in kind to people who aren't insulting, disrespectful, etc.

I get what you're saying, too. My whole thing is when people try to lump all of these places together under the same definition of suburb as it is used in our country: cul-de-sacs, completely dependent on the city, generic place with no identity of its own, etc. That's when I've got a problem, especially when the person trying to do so is from one of those types of places. By that definition, to call any of them suburbs is not only an insult but it warrants getting knocked the f*ck out by the inhabitants of those places if you come from the actual suburbs because you didn't experience anything even remotely close to what they did. Chester and Wilmington especially, along with Pottstown really are completely independent of Philadelphia. Camden is one that is definitely a satellite city. My whole point is that labeling everything outside of a city as "suburbs" is lazy and insulting, especially when coupled with the "I moved to the big bad city" false-pedestal and attitude. I don't tend to see people who are actually from Philly do it very often, probably because they just flat out don't give a crap about the working class places outside of the city, the same way we don't really even think about Philly. It's funny considering that moving from Philly to the more working class parts of Delco or to Camden or to any of the satellite cities like Coatesville or Wilmington is pretty much exactly like moving from one section of the city to another. Upper Darby especially is like if the Northeast were combined with one of the nicer parts of West Philly.

Considering what the people of those "suburbs" have always gone through since their very founding (and especially within the past 20 years), it's more than a bit insulting to lump them in with some ritzy place in Montgomery County, for example.

Okay - and that's exactly what I meant when I said your definition of "suburb" is too class-bound.

Your point about Wilmington, Del., especially is well taken - it's part of the Philadelphia conurbation because its suburbs and Philadelphia's grew into each other, just as Baltimore's and Washington's did, and just as it's really inaccurate to call either Baltimore or Washington a "satellite city" of the other, it's not really accurate for me to have called either Wilmington or Newark (NJ) a satellite city. (OTOH, I am reading right now a recently written history of the Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company, the Walmart of its day and now a mere shell of its former self, much shrunken from the days when it ruled the American grocery trade, and in the chapter I'm on, it mentions one of the Hartfords - the family that ran the company throughout its glory years - moving his family from New York, where he maintained his office, to *Orange, NJ*, which is one of a string of middle-class suburbs lying just west of Newark. This was in *1869,* so the two cities were intertwined even then. Come to think of it, I didn't call Wilmington and Newark "satellite cities," I called them "secondary urban centers."

The "suburb" you reference in your definition is a product of a specific time, namely, the post-World War II Auto Age. Older suburbs that developed around the railroad more closely resemble traditional small towns, with commercial centers - usually near the train station - through streets with sidewalks and homes on relatively modest lots. Ardmore, to name one, is such an older suburb; there aren't all that many cul-de-sacs in it - and its southern third is very modest in physical form - there are a number of blocks of rowhouses, even - and historically African-American in its demographics. Yet it is a "suburb" in that second sense you use above in that its existence depended on the availability of employment a few stations east in Philadelphia. Chester, Wilmington, Camden, Bristol, Ambler, Coatesville, Pottstown, Downingtown and a bunch of other communities we could both name were indeed not dependent on Philadelphia in this fashion, but many of the people who moved out to the townships surrounding those places were, hence the confusion.

BTW, I refer to Northeast Philly often as "the vast in-city suburb." _Pace_ Frankford Avenue in Mayfair, its main commercial district is very much suburban in form. Even though it has its own employment hubs - some, like the Frankford Arsenal, whose loss is still felt decades later - most of its residents still commute outside the area for work, and many of those commute into the city center; and much of it developed after the Second World War. Its main thoroughfare is treated like a freeway by those who drive on it, and turning part of it into one might make it MORE pedestrian-friendly. And so on.

[randomuser]

I actually agree with you to a certain degree but even the ritzy suburbs of this area were often time founded and for a long time operated with the same independence to Philadelphia that the places that you name did. If anything most of South Jersey towns were originally suburbs to Camden not Philadelphia. It is not uncommon for towns to have been been originally settled 200+ years ago in this area and in many towns the employment centers are no longer Philadelphia but other suburbs themselves. The key reason for these towns being called suburbs is that Philadelphia is by far the dominant city. I think you are having a problem with people calling edge cities suburbs. From my understanding it is possible to be both.

You've got a point there. That's another reason I don't like seeing people call Camden a suburb because a suburb doesn't have its own suburbs.

Edge city is a tricky term. It tends to mean something like a "boom-town" that grows because of its proximity to a larger city. Montgomery County, Bucks, and parts of New Jersey have a few. It's kind of an insult to label a lot of these places "edge cities" though.

Either way, my problem is with the people saying what they're saying moreso than what's being said. They really don't have a right to talk any of the sh*t they're talking or a leg to stand on when doing so. Is it wrong regardless of who says it? Definitely, but it's at least understandable if it were coming from somebody who's actually from Philly. When I know that somebody who's saying something comes from a neighborhood that actually goes through the kind of sh*t ours go through or goes through worse, I don't have nearly as much of a problem with it.

And there are people that grew up in Ardmore that had it worse than some people that grew up in Upper Darby. There are bad parts to many places. What's your point?

I still don't think you get my point, though. Not being from somewhere does not mean you cannot make valid observations about the conditions of said locale. Why are you even on an internet BBS that is dedicated to Philadelphia if you don't feel like anyone who didn't spend every waking hour in a certain neighborhood doesn't have any right to discuss what happens there? Do you not realize that by sitting here saying these things you're doing the exact same thing that you accuse others of doing: making assumptions on what they've experienced or seen by where you assume they originated from?

In addition, I'd greatly appreciate you pointing out where I have ever once said anything that insinuated that I'm somehow better than someone from a "rough" part of anywhere. If you construed anything I said as such, then you were mistaken.

No, there definitely aren't. Compared to Drexel Hill? Definitely. Compared to Upper Darby or any of the actually working class parts of Delco though? Hell no. I never respected Drexel Hill though.

Actually what you're doing is projecting onto me things I never did and don't actually feel or think. Nobody I responded to with venom was anything but a douche about my area or another like it. If you can't see that then that's your problem.

I never said you did.

[randomuser]

Okay - and that's exactly what I meant when I said your definition of "suburb" is too class-bound.

Your point about Wilmington, Del., especially is well taken - it's part of the Philadelphia conurbation because its suburbs and Philadelphia's grew into each other, just as Baltimore's and Washington's did, and just as it's really inaccurate to call either Baltimore or Washington a "satellite city" of the other, it's not really accurate for me to have called either Wilmington or Newark (NJ) a satellite city. (OTOH, I am reading right now a recently written history of the Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company, the Walmart of its day and now a mere shell of its former self, much shrunken from the days when it ruled the American grocery trade, and in the chapter I'm on, it mentions one of the Hartfords - the family that ran the company throughout its glory years - moving his family from New York, where he maintained his office, to *Orange, NJ*, which is one of a string of middle-class suburbs lying just west of Newark. This was in *1869,* so the two cities were intertwined even then. Come to think of it, I didn't call Wilmington and Newark "satellite cities," I called them "secondary urban centers."

The "suburb" you reference in your definition is a product of a specific time, namely, the post-World War II Auto Age. Older suburbs that developed around the railroad more closely resemble traditional small towns, with commercial centers - usually near the train station - through streets with sidewalks and homes on relatively modest lots. Ardmore, to name one, is such an older suburb; there aren't all that many cul-de-sacs in it - and its southern third is very modest in physical form - there are a number of blocks of rowhouses, even - and historically African-American in its demographics. Yet it is a "suburb" in that second sense you use above in that its existence depended on the availability of employment a few stations east in Philadelphia. Chester, Wilmington, Camden, Bristol, Ambler, Coatesville, Pottstown, Downingtown and a bunch of other communities we could both name were indeed not dependent on Philadelphia in this fashion, but many of the people who moved out to the townships surrounding those places were, hence the confusion.

BTW, I refer to Northeast Philly often as "the vast in-city suburb." _Pace_ Frankford Avenue in Mayfair, its main commercial district is very much suburban in form. Even though it has its own employment hubs - some, like the Frankford Arsenal, whose loss is still felt decades later - most of its residents still commute outside the area for work, and many of those commute into the city center; and much of it developed after the Second World War. Its main thoroughfare is treated like a freeway by those who drive on it, and turning part of it into one might make it MORE pedestrian-friendly. And so on.

You and I are in agreement about a lot of this. I've probably mentioned before how the Main Line and the other railroad communities around it are basically suburbs even if they don't look like the typical US suburb. It's the same way Drexel Hill is largely considered a suburb of Upper Darby even if parts of it grew up around the mills of Clifton Heights and Drexel Hill, because it has safer, more middle-class and upper middle class communities and better schools than more working class UD proper. My whole thing is that the majority of suburbs in this metro even and especially in this country are in fact the way I describe a suburb. Therefore while people in Upper Darby can call Drexel Hill a suburb, people who are actually from the suburbs can't really talk that way because it's a whole other world in comparison to their suburbs. That's why places need to be separated by what they are instead of lumping them together based on things like proximity to a city. I mean look at this crap thread for example. People insulting Marcus Hook and Upper Darby and other places and celebrating the fact that places that have always had problems are having even more the same way they celebrate the actual suburbs finding out their sh*t don't stink, even if most of them are actually from the suburbs or not from the area at all.

I hear you on the Northeast. They did the same crap to my area. Damn "urban renewal" morons.