Great Expectations

Everyday we're told by the local and national media that we live in a complete craphole. What do you expect?

How many national stories have there been about the murder in Philly? How many ways have we been called the fattest, ugliest, stupidiest, least worldly, etc.?

Our sports teams are a stupid, pathetic joke.

It's ridiculous. Nothing ever positive comes out of this city. What do we have to look forward to?

I bet if you polled Philadelphians, they would tell you that their city is the murder capital of the country. That's not even remotely true.

That's how badly the media has damaged and distorted people's opinion of this city.

Thanks for your comment.

You sound like a Philly native to me.

As to what we have to look forward to, apparently sickness first and then death.
--TF

As a non-native of Philly I'm often struck by how downtrodden the people here are. I arrived here 8 years ago and I have to say that this place is substantially better - it's not even close. Downtown is so much more alive. New office and condo construction has been going on at a rate not seen in many years. University City, Northern Liberties and other neighborhoods are revived. The schools appear to be better, though there is a LONG way to go. My God, I'll never forget coming here for the first time and finding abandoned cars everywhere. Even the crime numbers are not horrible by historical standards (though still depressing). 1999-2003, though, were clearly on a faster track than 2003-present.

Look, I'm not saying that Street deserves credit for the above. But if people can get by their feelings for the Mayor and look at this place today as compared to when he took office, I don't see how you can not say it's a better place. Interestingly, the best evidence that people feel better about Philly relative to the past is the decline in population loss, especially among upper income people.

I hate "blame the media" claims, but I do think that the local media (and the candidates) overplayed crime during the last year. I agree with a previous poster that there is an enormous gulf between perception (worst homicide/violent crime year ever) and reality (troubling short-term increase, not exceptional by historical standards, including the beloved Rendell years). To be fair, the media portrayal probably has helped awareness and community efforts to cooperate with police. I fear that this has come at the cost of excessive fear and self-loathing.

I think, at least speaking for the Inquirer, the focus on murder (the running tally etc.) began as an effort to show the city that we took ANYONE'S killing seriously, that there were no throwaway people in our view.

I think over time this intense focus on homicide has taken on a momentum that has had unfortunate consequences. Tom Ferrick has nobly attempted on several occasions to put into rational perspective the actual, statistical crime picture. The real picture is as the commenter above says: a disturbing uptick in homicides, but overall crime not looking that much worse, and much better than Rendell's first term. But it's an uphill fight to change a settled perception. Particularly when your own paper is among those feeding it.

Killadelphia is an easy narrative to seize hold of, play with and sustain - and we in the media do love our easy narratives.

To me, the intersting thing is the very high favorable rating for Nutter, vs. the down in the dumps direction-of-the-city numbers. I think the latter have a lot to do with the current mayor's utter inability to craft, sell and sustain an upbeat narrative about progress in his city.

So Nutter's favorables, combined with the bad mood numbers, create a remarkable opportunity for the new guy to turn that frown upside down pretty quickly in '08. It will take some pr savvy, some smart work and some good luck, but it's very doable.

And, for pete's sake, how quickly we forget how good the Phillies made us feel for a while.

Tom,

I find it hard to believe that you have no clue why these numbers are where they are at. Your employer can thank themselves for contributing to this. Go through the past 6 months of local and national media coverage for Philadelphia. It's murder, murder, murder. The iPhone incident. The Katie Couric CBS special. The CNN expose about once a month talking about how Philadelphia is the deadliest city in the nation. KYW flashing a "City in Crisis" graphic after EVERY SINGLE SHOOTING. The Inquirer feeling the need to publish a murder count in the paper. It's gotten to the point of absurd. We are aware we have a problem. The non-stop, excessive media coverage isn't helping anything at this point. It has just caused embarassment and shame to the city. After a certain point, the digust and negativity consumes everything.

As for the Center City boom, the election of a reformer mayor, and slowing rate of job and population loss, these are seldom covered by the media, so why would you expect people to be aware of them?

I cancelled my subscription to the Inquirer. I got tired of their non-stop city bashing.

Tom, just wait. I can see it now. The Inquirer and local news will run non-stop coverage about this poll, reminding everyone locally that Philly is a terrible place to live. Then the national media will pick it up as a major story because of you guys and make an even bigger deal of it.

Then, here's the kicker: When Michael Nutter is elected mayor, the national story won't be about progressive, forward-thinking Philadelphia electing a reformer mayor, it will be about this poll and how desperate and downtrodden the people are in the most deadly (completely false claim) city in America.

Tom and all,

What struck me most when reading reports of the survey is how starck the contrast was between those numbers and what we found in doing citizen conversations as part of Great Expectations in virtually every neighborhood around the city. yes, people could site plenty of fears for the future of the city, and they had criticisms as well. But, in neighborhood after neighborhood, people had no trouble at all discussing what they liked about their neighborhood and their city, and they had plenty of hope for the future -- and optimism that those hopes could be realized in the future.

Chris,

Thanks for the response (I posted previously). You suggest that it is difficult to "change a settled perception." Since you acknowledge that the Inquirer (among many) played a role in this settled (mis)perception, perhaps a stronger mea culpa is in order. By the way, I'm not saying that the Inquirer had bad intentions, just that there was insufficient perspective. (Though I must admit that some of the Street castigation has seemed personal rather than substantive at times; that's a story for another day) Would it be out of line to run a front page story discussing the rapidity of the recent decline, even if no credit were assigned? Moreover, you could acknowledge an overreaction and failure to look at the data from a longitudinal and unemotional perspective.

It's funny, I thought that the daily murder tally graphic was excessive for a long while, but I came to accept it. It bothers me that it runs less frequently now that we are below last year's pace. It feels as if The Inquirer feels that it less newsworthy for things to improve (however so briefly and unexplained). That said, perhaps the sheer magnitude of the number scares people too much and they ignore the comparison to previous years even when its an improvement (however minimal). It's a tough call.

Whatever you guys do, I hope you are reminded of your power. You basically admit that you and your colleagues/competitors played a substantial role in shifting perceptions such that they are inconsistent with empirical evidence. (Indeed, I was at a dinner in Chestnut Hill last week with very well-informed professionals. 4 of 8 people swore to me that we were on a record homicide pace. And they at least try to read the news carefully.) When you think about it, it's pretty scary. It's an enormous power that requires caution and humility.

Mike - You're killing me here.

Ferrick and I have spent just about every waking, working moment for the last year covering and writing repeatedly about the very things you say the Inquirer never covers.

We've published dozens and dozens of essays by civic leaders talking about the dreams and hopes for the city.

The name of the Web site you're posting on is called what? Great Expectations, for crying out loud.

So who's the one being negative?

Chris

Chris,

Mike can speak for himself on this, but surely you recognize that there is a difference between talking about hopes and dreams for the future and analysis of current conditions. I seem to clearly recall seeing you on WHYY on election night engaging in a debate with Elmer Smith about whether the city was in crisis. Crisis connotes an unusual condition of tumult or risk. Our discussion here indicates that the city has not been in crisis and has actually been improving on many dimensions. I don't think this portrayal of crisis was limited to this discussion. My sense is that The Inquirer and other media have played the crisis angle pretty heavily.

So, yes, you can hope for the future and aspire to better (as we all should), but that does not mean that you should misinterpret or exaggerate current conditions in expressing that hope. I think that Mike and I (and your prior post suggests even you to a degree) think that the narrative about the city has been excessively negative in its contemporaneous view, even if ultimately hopeful regarding the city's prospects.

Fair enough.

What I really think, I guess, is that the city is poised on a knife's edge. There are a lot of wonderful things happening that the Negadelphia attitude refuses to see or acknowledge. And there are a lot of bad habits plus a brewing FISCAL crisis (not a general malaise, but a deep problem with the numbers inside City Hall) that could drag us back down.

The May election I would characterize as a triumph of hope, belief -- and impatience with bad habits.

Re: the murder stuff. I agree with the comments on journalists needing to be more thoughtful about perception, and the unintended impact of their work.

Just to clarify something that's obscure to the average reader. Even when I was editorial page editor, which I no longer am, I had no power or influence over how the other side of the room, the news operation, did what they did. News and editorials are separate operations, bizarre as that may seem.

Neither did Tom have any sway over news coverage as a columnist. Now I've joined Tom in the ranks of columnists i.e. independent commentators; I don't call the shots for any dept. anymore.

All we can do is cover the city as best we can using our best judgment; sometimes that will mean echoing or me-tooing newsside coverage, sometimes it will involve presenting a dissenting or contrarian view.

I think Tom has consistently, with a lot of effort and a lot of research, presented a contrarian view about the crime situation in the city, not minimizing or sugarcoating it, but trying to place it in national and historical perspective.

I really do think a big part of the problem is that the current leadership, mayor and police chief, seem to go out of their way to project an attitude of defeatism and bafflement about the crime situation. They don't push a persuasive contrarian narrative to challenge the Killadelphia one.

Chris

Chris,

I do not mean to sound accusatory or harsh; I know you guys take your role as protectors of the public interest seriously and I appreciate your efforts.

Reread your last paragraph. Isn't the point of this entire discussion that the crime situation as publicly perceived is based on misperception? After all, we've concluded that the "crime situation" was severely overstated.

So, of course they're baffled. They're baffled because the public perception differs so much from a reasonable interpretation of the evidence. If they had stood up and analyzed the situation as we have today (look at the long term, place it in historical perspective, look at the lack of scholarly consensus, difficulty of deterrence of emotional violent crimes), I imagine that people would have accused them of pollyanna-ism (after all, they would be covering up their asserted ineptitude) or being defeatist because this analysis does not support clear policy initiatives (as Ferrick concluded on Sunday). Indeed, when they have claimed limited powers to reduce homicide, based on the challenge of deterrence due to the localized, personal nature of homicide, people mock them. It seems that you demand that they act as if there were a crisis even though there was not one. You want them to boldly and confidently present policy prescriptions when doubt abounds.

I feel as if the implication of your criticism is that this is about public relations rather than evidence. I find that very uncomfortable. Perhaps I am just naive about the requirements of democratic governance or the limits of people to engage in rational analysis.

HW (anonymous in prior posts)

Let me add my two cents.
To a large degree, Philly is -- with apologies to Charles Dickens -- a tale of two cities. And it is the best of times and the worst of times.
As I have written, I was born in Philly in 1949 and it immediately began a half-century of decline. I deny any cause/effect in that.
But, the majority of my career as a reporter has been in covering the politics of decline. Fewer people, Fewer jobs. Fewer opportunities. Urban decay. Corrosive poverty, etc.
I have seen it all.
In recent year, that narrative arc has changed. For the first time in my adult life, there is cause for optimism. And hope. And I think that Nutter's soon-to-be election personifies that.
But, there is also -- literally -- the issue of how the other half lives. If you take Median Household Income in the city (which, last time i looked, was about $36000-$38000, you will see that roughly half the city makes below that and half above it.
We have close to 25% of our pop living in poverty. Another 25% living close to it.
The recent gains -- in center city and elsewhere -- has mostly passed them by. For the most part, they live in another world.
And that world is dominated by violence and fear of violence.
When we went to these poor nabes as part of Great Expectations, people spoke of that fear. They spoke of relatives killed or shot. They spoke of the fear even of sitting on their front steps. They talked about crime -- particularly violent crime -- as a palpable presence in their lives.
The homicide numbers are a barometer of this crime. In fact, if you talk to any criminologist or anyone who has covered crime and criminal justice for a long time (as my colleague Craig McCoy has) you will find that they find homicide the only reliable barometer. (Because the other numbers can be manipulated to meet various ends. I am not saying that is being done today, but it certainly was before.)
And if you look at the homicide numbers, it tells another story. A story if crisis among young, African-American males.
I am talking the 15-29 age range.
I did a piece on this in August and I charted the deep and troubling state of this relatively small sub-group (about 60,000 guys citywide).
Whenever I do pieces like this, which lay out the stats, I get emails and voice mails that say, in effect: What can you expect? It's the blacks. They are all like that.
It makes me cringe. Most of them are anonymous, so I can't tell them the interesting stat that in 1875 in Philly, 65 percent of all criminal defendants were first generation Irish. (When you add in 2nd generation -- which the author did not do -- I imagine you could easily reach 75-80 percent.)
The Irish were the criminal underclass of Philly.
Now they are the cops -- not to mention the fire fighters, the FBI agents, the bankers, the pols, the power elite.
So, over time, the situatiom changes, but there are forces that make it change or keep it the same. Remember, the Irish began to arrive in this nation in great numbers in the 1840's and it wasn't until 1960 that they achieved full political power and acceptance. That's 120 years.
These things do take time.
One more point:
The press is not a subtle instrument. We do not do nuance, as a rule. We lay things out in stark and simple terms.
It doesn't please the folks who prefer such nuanced discussion, but there it is.
So, when you read that daily homicide box, and before you complain about it being simplistic and giving the wrong impression, you should know it is telling you -- in black and white, in stark numbers -- an unfolding tragedy among a large segment of people in Philadelphia.

-- TF

Sorry for the add-on, but I wanted to post the web address of the piece I did in July re young black men. I also wanted to correct a figure in the above post. I said there were 60,000. There are 66,000, according to the latest estimate.

Here is the link:
http://www.philly.com/philly/opinion/8794252.html

Tom,

Thanks for the post. I read your article in July and deeply respect your commitment to honest discussion of the empirical evidence. I'm an African-American male and know both that many fellow African-Americans don't like to face these data and that some whites view these data as reflections of biological predisposition rather than social context. It's not easy to write a piece like that and I thought it was important.

I would actually slice this a bit thinner than that 66,000. The problem is most intense among 16-29 year olds in several neighborhoods. It seems to me that young African-American males in Mt. Airy, West Oak Lane, and much of Germantown (among others) are not nearly as likely to engage in violent crime. This is clearly much more about class than race, as I would imagine we agree.

The story you tell of Philly's long-term decline strikes me as accurate. It is BECAUSE of this long-term decline (loss of industry loss and industrial employment, loss of population, loss of national prestige) that I find it odd that so many spend so much time talking about individual personalities or short-term trends rather basic structural problems. The story of the current Philadelphia political economy and social problems are evidently rooted in these long-term issues. The public discussion should be about these structural issues and how they influence schools, the economy, and crime, not the public relations skills of mayors and police commissioners.

I agree that the arc has changed to one of optimism, but I think the point that other posters and I have been making is that the nature of the crime reporting has placed an artificial damper on that positive narrative arc. Moreover, while I agree that there are 2 Philadelphias - distinct yet geographically proximate- this is not a new development. The Badlands, to pick just one area, didn't become the Badlands during the last couple of years. Do you think people in those neighborhoods weren't scared or feeling dispossessed 10 or 20 years ago when the homicide rate was as high or higher? The story of inadequate education and social isolation needs to be told repeatedly. However, it feels odd that there has been such a strong emphasis on homicide numbers that are not historical outliers at a time at which so much has gone quite well and there has been cause for optimism. Remember your initial question - how can we feel so bad when things have improved so much? Whether we like it or not, we need Center City, Chestnut Hill, and gentrified areas to flourish for this city to survive. It may bring inequality into sharper context, but this inequality would exist otherwise, it would just be across city/metropolitan lines rather than neighborhoods.

Maybe more importantly, the crime reporting of the last year did not tell the story of two Philadelphias effectively. While you have written on this effectively and fairly, I think most of the reporting and commentary doesn't get us anywhere near this story.

I agree that newspapers struggle with nuance. I'm not going to apologize for asking for more, particularly when newspapers (and other media) are doing a disservice while acting as if providing a public service. Journalists can't have it both ways, claiming that they speak to important social concerns but do a sloppy or crude job due to readership or other concerns. Once you compromise, well, don't expect (discerning) people to take the reporting as seriously. I know that sounds harsh, but I think it's fair.

I would add that if the homicide box is simply about facts in black in white, then it should have been presented with the same frequency in recent months as it was earlier in the year. I sincerely doubt that it was.

I guess I've pestered you guys enough for one day. Thanks for you time and insights.

HW

I agree with your observation about class.
I also note Tom Wolfe's observation that class is the last taboo in America.
Assuming the most simplistic division -- that half of the 15-29 males live in or near poverty and half do not, then you are talking about a corps of 33,000 or so living in poverty.
And if most of the madness and mayhem in concentrated in this group -- as victims and perps -- then you are talking about a death & injury rate (not to mention incarceration rate) of epidemic proportions. In the literal-medical sense of the word epidemic.
Interestingly, this whole topic is mostly the province of polemicists, conservative and liberal, and not social scientists. if you search the literature there is little written about this.
I call it the Moynihan effect -- after the furor that surrounded his report in 1965.
I reread it recently and it was remarkably prescient. As he often was.
Here is one of the more famous quotes:
"There is one unmistakable lesson in American history: A community that allows a large number of young men to grow up in broken families, dominated by women, never acquiring any stable relationship to male authority, never acquiring any set of rational expectations about the future — that community asks for and gets chaos... "

TF

Philly does an amazing job with not just the low income, but the troubled, "criminal class" that WEB DuBois referred to. DuBois gave that class special treatment, and considered it less receptive to social intervention that worked for the merely impoverished.

Philly's prison system makes a health care system available to prisoners that includes a system better than likely what the journalists get at some level. There's no co-pay, for example. PPS has dentists, psychiatrists, general practice docs as well specialists such as OB/GYNs. Also, inmates can get to Planned Parenthood.

Then there is a cadre of nurses, social workers, chaplains, and counselors running programs such as AA/NA, anger management, future planning, literacy, work training.

It's really the one stop shop for comprehensive re-entry.

The only problem? It's crowded! The system's capacity is the only thing out of date.

Street and Johnson aren't just defeatist, they regard the systems in place as somehow failing everyone. What happens is that people have trouble, odd as this sounds, getting into prison. There's a sort of de facto waiting list.

Most of Philly criminals are on the outside, waiting processing from home, or are court no shows with bench warrants. These, more than race even, represent the boys and men who get killed.

If you want fewer homicides, hold people until their court dates if they are at risk of violence. Those risk factors are known.

Why Philly doesn't do this -- they'd have to collect overdue property taxes, for one, which for some reason is a taboo.

Philly can do what NYC did -- have a high end social service system in criminal justice that respects victims and the need of public safety by getting unstable actors off the streets, and gets them clean, sober, starting to make sense, and pointed in the right direction. NYC built and improved the crim justice system to the need presented by the public.

Why demonize this process, I ask the police commissioner and the mayor? It's not a tragedy that "black men" (who are troubled, angry, and dangerous to themselves and others, and not representative of a whole ethnicity) are incarcerated.

It saves lives.

Believe me when I say that inmates learn to respect authority, and learn to respect expectations, often for the first time, from the inside.

Why does the whole Street admin have this fatigue, this dysthymia? It's like their political philosophy can't accept positive change, or any change. Even if that change is proven to work.

Why?

Let me re-emphasize, some portion of some black men in Philly are not in the system who need to be, and they are the ones killing each other off like extermination crews.

Philly is to be commended for the superlative job it does given the revenue. We just can't keep pretending that we can't equalize, modernize, and collect the sources of that revenue.

The papers did a good job with the PPA, but what about the even larger forfeited revenue of the uncollected property taxes? Estimates range from $500 million to $700 million uncollected revenues.

I think Philly gets depressed when it's obvious that the system is so skewed -- Fumo gets a pass on an up to date assessment, while I get an assessment every time I do the right thing and pull a permit.

Philly is cynical that the source of the probe led to a prominent imam in politics, now the police commissioner is relying on a program comprised of - prominent imams in politics.

It's the il plus ca change that is depressing. Not the sports teams.

Plus we were voted ugliest.

We still have the wage tax, the BPT. That's depressing.