Immigrants Help Revitalize Philadelphia

The Plain Dealer reported last week that community leaders in Cleveland have seen the positive impact immigrants have had on the city of Philadalphia, and are looking for ways to duplicate Philly’s success.

Not long ago, demographers packaged Philadelphia with Cleveland as a "former gateway" on a downhill slide. Then, in November, they spied a surprising trend. Immigrants were coming, bringing a culture of entrepreneurship and high-tech skills. The Brookings Institution declared that Philadelphia was poised to re-emerge as a destination city.

What happened? Some Cleveland civic leaders would like to find out so they can replicate the pattern here.

. . .

All agree, Cleveland has a people problem. The city lost half its population between 1950 and 2000 and became nearly entirely native-born. The slide continues. In 2006 and 2007, the city lost more people than any other big city in America. It could slip below 400,000 at the 2010 census.

Philadelphia once shared a similar trajectory. It shrank by 30 percent between 1950 and 2000. But in recent years, its population has stabilized. Immigrants began replacing people leaving. Today, they make up 11 percent of the city.

Behind the numbers are people like Calvin Pham, who opened an air freight service in a city shopping center astir with immigrant entrepreneurs.

Virtually every shop in New World Plaza, in South Philadelphia, is owned by a couple from Vietnam or China. Pham came from California three years ago, lured by word that Philadelphia was friendly to immigrants.

Well, we try!

My clients work hard.  Most of them take little for granted, knowing they will have to be twice as good as the next person in order to find success.  Philly still has a lot of problems.  But it has turned a corner in the last 10 or 15 years, and much of that change can be attributed to the revitalizing force of new immigration.

Matt Yglesias picked up on the story:

In national policy circles, immigration is often discussed as a “problem” wherein we need to deal with the terrifying phenomenon of people coming to the United States in order to do work in exchange for money. In urban policy, however, the reverse is more often the case. A city wants to be a place where immigrants want to come. It’s a sign of some of the relative failings of policy in Washington, DC—especially of crime control and education policy—that such a huge proportion of the metro area’s Asian immigrant population prefers to live in the suburbs.

My guess is the zero-population-growthers who rail against immigration haven’t met too many urban planners.  Or mayors of large cities.  When was the last time you saw Mike Bloomberg or Anthony Villaraigosa put up the “No Vacancy” sign and turn away aspiring New Yorkers or Angelenos?

But the desire to attract residents isn’t just an urban predilection—the Plains states are bleeding workers and trying to figure how to stop population loss.  Towns like Postville, Iowa, or Riverside, New Jersey, have experienced the negative impact of having an immigrant population driven away.

Now someone just needs to let Joey Vento know that his restaurant now sits in a Mexican neighborhood.