Philadelphia in a word: The good and bad

What is Philadelphia - in just one word?

Two of our summer staffers, Allie Caren and Luke Rafferty, wondered.

So at the end of June, the two students from Syracuse's S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications started talking to people they found around town - on the Art Museum steps, South Street, LOVE Park, the Gayborhood.

They asked each: What's Philly in a word? How would you distill 330 years of history and attitude, 142.6 square miles of proud neighborhoods, and the 1.5 million people who make up this regional hub of education, medicine and commerce, arts, culture and sports?"

The two interns spent more than a month putting together a video that you can watch at inquirer.com/thetalk.

You'll see that Philadelphians defined this place with words like:

Gritty

Vibrant

Broke

Violent

Perfect

Real

(These answers make me think of that line the creature from outer space tells Jodie Foster's character in the film Contact: "You're an interesting species, an interesting mix. You're capable of such beautiful dreams and such horrible nightmares.")

On Tuesday we asked readers to add their own words to capture Philly. Here's what they came up with:

Barbara Del Regino: resiliency.

Dale Staley: gritty.

Agnes Aagenes: amazing.

Matt Howland: underdog.

A Jackson: filthy.

Nagehan: uneducated.

Lance Charen: corrupt.

Paul Bencivengo: passionate.

John Connors Jr.: funky.

CsweeneyArtist: hardscrabble.

Some readers, like Lynda Desouza, found that existing words didn't do justice: stupidhole.

Others, like Samantha Slade bent the rules: in-your-face.

Susan Blatt Ibrahim apologized for not being able to narrow it down to one word. She chose Love/Hate.

And Jim Karustis said the whole question struck him as un-Philadelphian:

"We all know we are incapable of 'one word.' "

How to describe Philadelphia in one word? See the people pictured and others: www.inquirer.com/whatisphillyEndText