Opinion: The Philadelphia Effect

In the penultimate moment of the 2016 Marvel movie ”Doctor Strange,” the title character leaves a fight against three zealots and ascends into the sky to meet a villain who has come to destroy the earth. Upon meeting this villain – named Dormammu – Doctor Strange announces, “Dormammu, I’ve come to bargain!” At the end of the scene, Doctor Strange returns to earth to let the three zealots know that Dormammu has spared the earth and granted the zealots their wish of everlasting life with the villain. 

It’s in that spirit that I say to New Jersey, “New Jersey, I’ve come to bargain.”

Take Philadelphia. Please.

A few years ago I wrote a column about longstanding efforts in upstate New York to secede from New York City and split the state into two new states of New Amsterdam (upstate) and New York (New York City and Long Island). These efforts have been ongoing for decades and, as we know, have been unsuccessful. Perhaps those of us in Pennsylvania who live outside the Philadelphia city limits should start similar efforts. But instead of creating two states, maybe we should just give Philadelphia to New Jersey.

In the 2020 census, the state of Pennsylvania contained 44,472 square miles of land and 13,002,700 people. Philadelphia contained a mere 134 square miles of land – just 0.3% of the entire state – but 1,603,797 people – 12.3% of the state’s population. Pennsylvanians outside the Philadelphia city limit live with a population density of 256 people per square mile, while Philadelphians live with a population density of 11,937 people per square mile – 46 times more people in every square mile than the rest of us.

The result of which is that Philadelphia – a small chunk of land along the Delaware River across from New Jersey – can have an outsize influence on the entire rest of the commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Basically, whatever Philadelphia wants is sometimes what the entire state gets, whether the rest of the state wants it or not. 

This outsize influence manifests itself in different ways, one of which is often evident on Election Day when statewide or nationwide offices are elected – just as it was one week ago. Regardless of my political beliefs, I found the following information interesting. 

In the race last Tuesday for United States senator from Pennsylvania, John Fetterman was elected. But wait, how could that be when 54 of the state’s 67 counties voted in favor of his opponent? Well, your answer is Philadelphia. If we remove Philadelphia from the vote totals, Fetterman goes from winning the state by 210,000 votes to losing by 96,000 votes.

Or in 2020, when President Biden won the state of Pennsylvania by 80,000 votes over Donald Trump. If you remove Philadelphia’s votes from their totals, President Biden loses the state by 390,000 votes. 

Or in 2016 and 2020, when Josh Shapiro won election and reelection as Pennsylvania’s attorney general by 166,000 and 307,000 votes respectively. If we remove Philadelphia’s votes from the totals, he instead loses both races by 304,000 and 147,000 votes respectively. And if he never gets elected attorney general in 2016 and 2020, it’s easy to project that he doesn’t have the name recognition and never runs for governor this year. 

Separately, in what could be an interesting case study for voter one-track-mindedness, Shapiro’s Philadelphia numbers in 2016 and 2020 varied by a grand total of 165 votes – 572,323 to 572,158 – a shockingly small difference of 0.04% in elections four years apart. 

However, Shapiro’s win in last Tuesday’s election by 735,060 votes over Doug Mastriano would not have changed if we remove only Philadelphia’s votes from the totals. And, Shapiro only lost 50 of the state’s 67 counties rather than the 54 Fetterman lost (yes, you can win the entire state by only winning 25% of the counties).

Granted, I’m fairly certain that my wish to bargain with New Jersey and pawn off Philadelphia will never come to pass. For those who think I don’t like Philadelphia, I did live in Center City for a short time in the mid-80’s, and then lived in Yardley, in Bucks County, for seven years at the turn of the century, so I do have some personal history there. Although in the Sheetz vs. Wawa debate, I’m firmly in the Sheetz corner.

In any case, obviously Philadelphia has a long and important history tied to not only the state but the nation. As the birthplace of our nation and one of its early capitals, it is indelibly associated with Pennsylvania. In fact, 200 years ago it was lobbying hard to be the permanent home of the nation’s capital. There’s an idea! Maybe instead of sending Philadelphia to New Jersey, setting it up as a separate entity such as Washington, DC would be a possibility for a city so steeped in American lore?

OK, that probably won’t get far either.

The point is, Philadelphia is unlike the rest of the state – a scenario played out in many areas around the country where there is a marked urban vs suburban/rural difference. And that’s unlikely to change. But it doesn’t mean that millions of people living on tens of thousands of square miles of land should like being dictated to by a much smaller number of people living on a comparatively tiny piece of land.

So, what can be done? What real possibilities are there to help alleviate this occasionally one-sided relationship?

Here’s a suggestion: make our state’s General Assembly and governorship more like the federal system – using the checks and balances built into our country’s leadership by the founders and authors of the Constitution.

In the federal system, the House of Representatives are elected by popular vote and apportioned by population. This leads to populated areas having larger numbers of representatives than rural areas. The Senate is elected by popular vote and each state is allocated two senators. This is a check on populated areas overrunning rural areas on decisions in Congress. The president is elected by the Electoral College which is a compromise between the election of the president by congressional vote and election of the president by a popular vote.

Currently in Pennsylvania all the members of the General Assembly – both representatives and senators – are apportioned by population. This is redundant, provides populated areas with larger quantities of Assembly members and provides no safeguards against their using that representation for their own benefit. The check on that would be to leave the representatives as they are now, but change senators to a one-per-county system. Each of Pennsylvania’s 67 counties would have one state senator responsible to it. 

Then for the governorship, mimic the federal Electoral College setup and provide each county a certain number of electoral votes. The allocation of those electoral votes would be decided by popular vote, and would serve to minimize, just a bit, the “Philadelphia effect” noted above. 

All of which will hopefully allow democracy to continue being distributed in the commonwealth of Pennsylvania by having a visibly “red state” occasionally have leadership or representation that matches that look. Or, worst case scenario, we really can start a movement to make a bargain with New Jersey!