[junkmail3]

Philly is great. Safe. Fun. I live in South Philly. 15 blocks south of center city (city hall) and 15 blocks north of the sports stadiums. The subway is right down the street from my apartment (the subway sucks, only two lines NS and EW, it's awful, and they're losing funding ... )

We're close to the Italian Market where we get all of our produce for very little, (10 limes for $1 etc), close to Pat's cheesstakes, Mmmm.

My wife takes the subway to work. She works in West Philly, 'the bad part of town', but she's never scared or anything. She walks around over there. She wouldn't walk around at night in that area, but she often runs to the pizza place a few blocks from our apartment (at night) and feels quite safe.

I live across the street from a go-go bar that's patronized by some pretty shady clientel, have been solicited by a prostitute while standing on the sidewalk in front of my place, see drug deals on the corner, and get ripped off at the Korean grocery store down the street, but have never felt scared/cautious/out of place.

My wife used to live in North Philly (another bad part) when she went to school (at Temple). That was a pretty shady part, but still I was never scared or felt threatened. She would always come home late from the library (1 - 2 in the morning), walk down all sorts of streets, and nothing ever happened.

Wonderful commute to AC. 50 min on the AC expressway, it's so great.

Property is average. If you get a place that's not in center city I would say it's pretty reasonable. You can get great deals on something that's not in great shape and fix it up. There are a lot of properties like this.

I don't think I really gave a good overview. Philly is great. Pretty safe, lots of fun, lots to do, with an awful subway system.