Philadelphia, city, United States: Modern Philadelphia

Modern Philadelphia

Despite an ambitious program of urban redevelopment initiated in the 1950s, the city experienced the decay of its economic base and a sharp decline in population through subsequent decades. Longstanding tensions erupted in race riots in the 1960s. In the 1970s, Frank Rizzo, a former police commissioner with a political base among the city's working-class whites, was elected mayor. Wilson Goode became Philadelphia's first black mayor in 1983. His administration was shaken by the controversial firebombing of a city block containing the home of an armed organization of black radicals. The decline of the central city was met in part by the construction of new office buildings downtown and development projects on the Delaware River waterfront, but the metropolitan area, long noted for its wealthy and exclusive suburbs (especially along the fabled Main Line), witnessed dramatic growth. Since 1986, however, when developers were first permitted to build higher than Penn's statue atop the city hall, the center city skyline has undergone dramatic changes. The city government came close to bankruptcy in 1990. The city has made a comeback since then, including major new building in the city center and its population steadily growing since 2007, after decades of decline. Service industries have replaced older manufacturing jobs and tourism has grown with the opening of new museums and concert halls.

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