The cool thing about Philadelphia’s streets is that they’re mostly one-lane streets. They have cars parked on the street. They also have stops at most intersection. This leads to traffic going slowly on most of these streets. Some streets are wider, but they are relatively few and far between.
One nice bonus is that parks are plentiful and very nice, even in the urban core. Even small parks have great shade and are beautiful comfortable places to be.
Rittenhouse Square
I stayed for a week in Rittenhouse Square. This may be the most walkable neighborhood I’ve ever stayed in. Both for the reasons mentioned above and because it’s dense and has tons of places all around. I was within a half mile of a Trader Joe’s, a Target, dozens of restaurants… just about everything I could need.
The downsides begin shortly after that. People here seem slightly unhinged. I frequently experienced people doing burnouts and what sounded like donuts, although I can’t imagine where around here they would have had the room to do them.
My apartment didn’t help either. It was very loud. I could hear people talking on the street from the third floor. This made louder noises like cars and motorcycles hard to handle. I was woken at least twice by a truck backing up even though I was sleeping in the bedroom which was interior to the apartment.
East Passyunk
This neighborhood is further removed from the urban core. It’s still fairly dense, and it has great character. Still lots of shops and services nearby, but it’s much quieter. The apartment is nicer too which helps. It’s more noise proof, and I don’t hear much even though this apartment is right on the street.
I spent much of a day walking around in this area and really loved it. Then I started looking for possible apartments in the area. I spent another day going to each of the apartments that were within my comfortable price range. Most of them were not in areas I would be comfortable in even though I had filtered my search to what I believed was the area I’d already liked the day prior. Turns out, the acceptable area is much smaller than I thought.
Even within that area, 2,000 a month which would rent a very nice apartment in Seattle in almost any area I might want. It’s hard to justify this knowing the weather will also be more extreme.