Blowing my top - election coverage - (rant)
Posted: Wed Nov 05, 2008 1:15 pm
It's been going on for weeks. And aggravating me for weeks.
YO, TV COMMENTATORS!!! Yeah, John King and David Gregory, I'm talkin' to you.
The four Philadelphia suburban collar counties are NOT "the affluent suburbs outside Philadelphia."
We are not some monolithic entity.
Yes, there are affluent suburbs outside Philadelphia.
There's the Main Line -- Swarthmore, Radnor, Villanova, Bryn Mawr. Gladwyne has, IIRC, the 15th largest per capita income for towns its size in the US. And Lower Merion (home of Kobe Bryant) is right up there, too.
And, Montgomery County (home to the Main Line) is also home to McMansions near Collegeville and new townhouse developments in Trappe (and lots of new stuff in King of Prussia).
But, it's also Norristown and Conshohocken, rowhouse towns with heavy Italian immigrant influences. And older industrial areas like Pottstown. And some of the area's first "real" suburbs like Cheltenham and Jenkintown which look a lot like the sections of Philadelphia that their residents came from.
Chester County has horse farms. And old steel towns like Coatesville, which houses the VA Hospital and, what is as far as I know, the only homeless shelter for women veterans in the country, the Walker House.
Bucks County is older stately houses (think summer retreats for Moss Hart and Oscar Hammerstein). The gay mecca of New Hope. And bucolic Doylestown. And Levittown-like suburbs (and Levittown, for that matter) -- places like Bensalem and Bristol, former industrial centers that are now at the edge of new energy technologies.
Delaware County is historic towns like Media, founded by William Penn. And Upper Darby (home of Tina Fey, BTW), a stop along the Underground Railroad, where the median income is under $40,000 per year. And Chester, which 40 years after the industry left town, is using waterfront entertainment to regain some economic stability. Including the new MLS franchise.
Just as the city of Philadelphia is gritty blue-collar rowhouses, universities, Center City elites, tough ghettos, snooty Chestnut Hill, historic Germantown, and Mount Airy, which is has been an integrated middle-class neighbrhood for forever, so the suburbs are many things.
We are America. Stop acting like we're some flipping elite Fabrage egg of an electorate.
Thank you.
YO, TV COMMENTATORS!!! Yeah, John King and David Gregory, I'm talkin' to you.
The four Philadelphia suburban collar counties are NOT "the affluent suburbs outside Philadelphia."
We are not some monolithic entity.
Yes, there are affluent suburbs outside Philadelphia.
There's the Main Line -- Swarthmore, Radnor, Villanova, Bryn Mawr. Gladwyne has, IIRC, the 15th largest per capita income for towns its size in the US. And Lower Merion (home of Kobe Bryant) is right up there, too.
And, Montgomery County (home to the Main Line) is also home to McMansions near Collegeville and new townhouse developments in Trappe (and lots of new stuff in King of Prussia).
But, it's also Norristown and Conshohocken, rowhouse towns with heavy Italian immigrant influences. And older industrial areas like Pottstown. And some of the area's first "real" suburbs like Cheltenham and Jenkintown which look a lot like the sections of Philadelphia that their residents came from.
Chester County has horse farms. And old steel towns like Coatesville, which houses the VA Hospital and, what is as far as I know, the only homeless shelter for women veterans in the country, the Walker House.
Bucks County is older stately houses (think summer retreats for Moss Hart and Oscar Hammerstein). The gay mecca of New Hope. And bucolic Doylestown. And Levittown-like suburbs (and Levittown, for that matter) -- places like Bensalem and Bristol, former industrial centers that are now at the edge of new energy technologies.
Delaware County is historic towns like Media, founded by William Penn. And Upper Darby (home of Tina Fey, BTW), a stop along the Underground Railroad, where the median income is under $40,000 per year. And Chester, which 40 years after the industry left town, is using waterfront entertainment to regain some economic stability. Including the new MLS franchise.
Just as the city of Philadelphia is gritty blue-collar rowhouses, universities, Center City elites, tough ghettos, snooty Chestnut Hill, historic Germantown, and Mount Airy, which is has been an integrated middle-class neighbrhood for forever, so the suburbs are many things.
We are America. Stop acting like we're some flipping elite Fabrage egg of an electorate.
Thank you.
