Skip to content
Link copied to clipboard
Link copied to clipboard

Which Philly neighborhood offers the best quality of life? New online tool takes measure

Using U.S. Census data, ProgressPHL divides the city into 372 “neighborhoods” and scores them based on social categories like personal safety, health, and walkability.

The city controller launched a new tool at its office, the municipal services building.
The city controller launched a new tool at its office, the municipal services building.Read moreMONICA HERNDON / Staff Photographer

The City Controller’s Office released a new online tool Wednesday that aims to inform policy decisions and everyday citizens by scoring Philadelphia neighborhoods on metrics such as access to medical care, personal safety, and environmental health.

Developed in partnership with the global nonprofit Social Progress Imperative, the office envisions its ProgressPHL database as a resource for everyone from elected officials to ordinary Philadelphians looking to identify and address gaps in services and access.

“We’re in budget season right now,” said Nick Hand, director of finance, policy, and data at the controller’s office. “We look forward to working with City Council or the mayor’s administration to … target investments to specific neighborhoods.”

He added that the tool can help study “why [some neighborhoods are] doing better than others, and trying to identify those as ways to improve parts of the city.”

Started under former Controller Rebecca Rhynhart, who is now running for mayor, the project cost the office $50,000.

Using U.S. Census data, ProgressPHL divides the city into 372 “neighborhoods” and scores them based on categories and subcategories:

  1. Basic human needs, encompassing nutrition and basic medical care, water and sanitation, shelter and personal safety

  2. Foundations of well-being, which include basic education level, access to internet, health and wellness, and environmental quality

  3. Opportunity, which includes things like homeowner and voter registration rates, neighborhood walkability, average commute times, gender pay gaps, and residents with higher education

The progress indicators, however, don’t account for poverty rates or household income.

“The idea with social progress is that it’s developed outside of economic indicators but can gain insight by comparing social progress scores to traditional economic indicators,” Hand said.

Social Progress Imperative publishes an annual report card grading more than 160 nations on health, safety, education, and technology measures. The controller’s office picked from a set of preestablished indicators to score neighborhoods on the criteria officials thought made the most sense locally.

Neighborhoods have populations ranging from 1,000 to 9,000 residents and they may not have the names you’d expect. For example, Dauphin Street east of Broad is identified as Poplar-Temple. That’s because the controller’s office is using neighborhood IDs that have been used by other city researchers to maintain uniformity.

According to ProgressPHL, Poplar-Temple Tract 7, for example, grew by about 300 people between 2010 and 2019 and has an average household income of about $31,500. It scored 38 out of 100 overall with its highest ranking in the category that includes walkability and the number of working adults. The neighborhood’s lowest score was in the “personal freedom” category, which includes homeownership, voter registration, and voter turnout.

A neighborhood near Mantua, around 40th Street and Haverford Avenue, is called Millcreek-Parkside on ProgressPHL. Its population grew by about 200 people between 2010 and 2019 and has an average income of around $21,500. It ranked above average in personal safety, with lower than average violent crime and vehicular accidents, but higher than average property crime.

Asked about excluding poverty levels from the tool, Hand said it can help officials and researchers assess why neighborhoods earn different scores independent of that metric. He noted that some affluent areas, for example, may rank lower than low-income neighborhoods in certain categories.