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I Don’t Get How Anyone Could Be Mad About Philly Cleaning Up for the World Cup, MLB All-Star Game, and America 250
By Matt Schultz
Published:
With the World Cup, MLB All-Star Game, and America 250 festivities all coming to town this summer, city officials are expecting over one million visitors to touch down in Philadelphia in the coming months. To prepare for the influx of tourists, the city has launched a bunch of initiatives to shore up health, safety, and social options – new traffic patterns, bars staying open later, more walking paths, better transit, simplified tipping protocols, more rigorous food inspections, etc., etc. – all to make Philly the perfect place to celebrate all summer long.
To me, this all sounds pretty great. I was shocked to discover that not everywhere agrees:
FERGIE: “We’re getting ready for tourists. We’re getting ready for 250. We’re getting ready for World Cup. And so the city is like, ‘Oh, let’s clean the place up now. Oh let’s – new cobblestones down… Let’s tidy up. If you wanna stay open til 4 AM, you can now stay open til 4 AM. And then we’re all gonna charge 20% tip on everybody,’ and it’s like… No. What about us? What about the Philadelphians? They say Paris is wonderful because it’s for the Parisians. You know? They’re not like, ‘Let me make cheesesteaks because Philadelphia people are coming.’ No, they’re Parisian. Just like, no, we’ve got this. And it sort of feels like, ‘Oh, Philadelphia. We’re for tourists. We don’t really give a darn about Philadelphians. Let’s tidy up.’”
GARGANO: “You wanna create Disney World Philadelphia. And that’s not what we are. We’re not Disney Philadelphia.”
I truly don’t get this. I disagree with these guys’ sentiments very much. Here are my counters:
-When people are coming over to your house, you clean up first, right? You don’t leave all your dishes in the sink and dog fur on the couch and dried yellow egg flecks on the stove burners and beard hairs in the sink and piss droplets on the edge of the toilet bowl, do you? I don’t. I clean that shit up. I light a bluish Yankee Candle that smells like fresh laundry. I’ll get Parrot Head Radio on Spotify going on the living room TV. I’ll turn on my cool lamps instead of the overhead lights. I’ll take pride in my house. I want people to think it’s a nice house. If they thought my house was shitty, that would feel bad. If my house looked or smelled weird, I’d be embarrassed. So why shouldn’t Philly do the same thing?
-Just because Philly is making improvements to prepare for tourists doesn’t mean the city doesn’t also care about Philadelphians. It’s a weird binary that doesn’t exist – both things can be true, and I think they are. To say that the city either cares about tourists or Philadelphians is something a baby would say. Baby argument, all the way. Full-blown baby take.
-The improvements the city is making don’t go anywhere after the tourists leave. We still get to enjoy them. It’s the same thing with your house that you cleaned for guests. Once everyone leaves, your house is still way cleaner than it was before. The candle is still going. The dishes are done. The Parrot Head Radio playlist ended, but Spotify started playing similar-ish stuff, which is nice. Now it’s your time to enjoy your nice-smelling, tidied-up, Salt Life-sounding house. Nothing was lost. Much was gained. It’s all good. Go find something else to complain about.
Kinkead: I think you have to consider the possibility of a lengthy summer proof of concept. Take the topic of bars staying open until 4 a.m., for instance. Maybe it ends up being a huge success, and it becomes a permanent thing in the city that boosts the economy. Or – maybe it affirms concerns about rowdy drunkenness and disruption. Whatever the result, you’re not going to find out until you give it a try. I think the thing that was annoying about living in Philly for 10 years is that people wouldn’t hesitate to say “no” to something. You share an idea and immediately get 15 people telling you why it won’t work. But very few people ever say, ‘you know what? let’s give it a try.’ I think the best-case scenario is that the city looks good, and looks clean, and traffic and transit is smooth this summer, and it kicks everyone in the ass and motivates them to say, “let’s make this permanent, we can raise the standard around here.” It’s like Matt’s house analogy. When you clean up and everything looks good and everybody has a good time, you probably think to yourself, “man I should stay on top of this and maintain this level.” Otherwise, you’re complacent with a lesser standard.
Matt Schultz is a comedy and sports writer from Philadelphia. He’s written extensively for ClickHole, The Onion, and Conan O’Brien’s Team Coco. His work has been featured in Vulture, Deadspin, The A.V. Club, Paste Magazine, and other publications. Much of his sports journalism can be found on college basketball websites that don’t exist anymore (PhilaHoops Heads rise up…)