The Philadelphia metro area is hot your trail:
During the Revolutionary War Philadelphia served as one of America’s first capital cities. These days, however, Philadelphia could be considered the capital of toxicity, since the city and its environs ranked No. 1 on our 2011 Most Toxic Cities list. One big reason: The sprawling Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA), including parts of four states (Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware and one county in Maryland), is pocked with more than 50 Superfund sites—areas no longer in use that contain hazardous waste.
I shouldn’t rag on this area too much though. Philadelphia is not prone to big booms, but it’s also not prone to big busts either. Housing prices here have been relatively stable, and we haven’t seen the inflation yet here that we’ve seen in other areas. Unemployment is still high but not as bad as it is in a lot of other areas. Pennsylvania’s government is better compared to that of New Jersey and New York’s.
I love the Philly AREA. (As much as I hate the city) I like that we have the Constitution center, but I so wanted to drive a duck boat!!! Damn Nutter! I like that we have the Phillies, Eagles and Flyers.
Close to AC casinos and South Jersey beaches, close to NY for shows and entertainment. Close to Washington, DC, Baltimore Inner harbor, Camden Yards, Fairfax, VA. Close to the Pocono mountains, close to Amish Country!
When I go to Colorado, everything is so darn far away!
Drowning as an execution method is much better than the death of a thousand cuts.
Being better than NY and NJ is not actually an achievement. That’s like being a better driver than Ray Charles.
Philly? A city of squalor? Pffft, East Coast weenies have nothing on the Fearsome Threesome of the Midwest: Cleveland, Detroit and the Pocket Battleship of Misery, Gary, Indiana.
Dream on, Philly.
Weirdly, Detroit didn’t even end up on the top-10-polluted-cities list.
It’s not like we don’t try, but the rivers and waterways were worse than the air. (The Rouge River has been cleaned up a lot since the 1990’s, but it is still not a clean river.)