Philadelphia 2009: The State of the City

A wide-ranging State of the City report from the Philadelphia Research Initiative depicts a city that has made progress on a number of key fronts but still struggles with long-term forces of decline.

Two versions of Philadelphia 2009: The State of the City are available for download. For best results, in print dialogue box, set page scaling to “fit to printer margins.”

• Full-size spreads — for reading electronically and/or printing on 11” x 17” (tabloid) paper.
• Single pages — for printing on 8.5” x 11” (letter sized) pages.
• Errata 

To jump to a specific chapter in the PDF, click on a link below.

Through lively and accessible graphics, Philadelphia 2009: The State of the City examines the city's strengths and weaknesses, its sources for hope and reasons for concern, and highlights key indicators that can be used to gauge changes in the city from this point forward. In addition, it compares Philadelphia to other major cities in terms of its tax burden, crime rate, educational attainment, spending per school student, and poverty rate.

Read the related press release.

The 2010 Update, published in March 2010, provides new data on a dozen key indicators about the state of the city and places that data in context.

Please acknowledge The Pew Charitable Trusts' copyright as you reproduce these materials in whole or in part.