Bucks County vs Philadelphia

For this week, I decided to do a side by side comparison of my extended hometown, Bucks County, and Philadelphia. I love the city, like I really love it, so this is not an attempt to tell you that either the suburbs or city are better. In my opinion, both are great and each offer different things!

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Surrounding counties of Philadelphia

The five counties of Philadelphia include: Philadelphia, Delaware, Montgomery, Bucks, and Chester. These surrounding counties are almost like a sub-part of the city itself, because of the proximity and similarity of people (in my opinion). The counties are so important to the city itself that even the VisitPhilly website includes pages for each of these five counties, including one for Bucks.

Bucks County

Population: 627,367

Geographical Size: 622 mi²

Population per Square Mile: 1034.7

Largest Majority Race: White (89.0%)

Foreign Born Persons: 8.5%

 

Philadelphia

Population: 1.568 million

Geographical Size: 141.7 mi²

Population per Square Mile: 11,379.5

Largest Majority Race: White (44.8%) and Black (44.2%)

Foreign Born Persons: 13.1%

 

From the above numbers alone, it is pretty clear that these two places are incredibly different. For one, there are much less people in Bucks County, both in total and per square mile. In Philly, there’s about eleven times more people per square mile! Sometimes I feel like my hometown of Perkasie is too crowded, so living in a huge city like Philadelphia is something I can’t truly imagine. I eventually want to work and live in Philly (or another city) but now that I have been thinking about it more I feel like I’m gonna be shell-shocked. Oh well, I’ll worry about that later.

Another observation based on these numbers is that the racial diversity is lacking severely in Bucks County. I never really noticed it to be honest growing up. It wasn’t until I came to Penn State and met so many people from all different cultures and backgrounds, that I noticed that I had never known more than a few people of a different race. This is one of the biggest things that I appreciate about Penn State, and look forward to when I hopefully live in Philadelphia once I graduate. The racial diversity in Philadelphia has actually gone through a lot of change over the past couple of decades, as outlined in this article.

Another thing to compare is the physical size of both places. I actually assumed that Philadelphia would be bigger in size, but it is a lot smaller in reality. And the reason I determined that I thought this, is because I probably disregarded all the open space and large farms in Bucks County. Even though the geographical size is smaller, Philly has a lot more to do and be occupied by. I love the idea of getting to be a tourist in your own city, and with such an assorted city like Philadelphia, I feel like you wouldn’t ever get bored. There’s nothing wrong about open space, but I’ve never really experienced a place that is jam-packed with things to do and places to see. It seems exciting.

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Broad Street, Philadelphia

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New Hope, Bucks County

 

From the two pictures above, you can clearly see just a few differences between Philly and its suburbs. The most blatant thing in my opinion is the crowd size. The bottom picture is a pretty typical street in any town outside Philly, and the above picture represents the city pretty well. If you aren’t familiar with Philadelphia, Broad Street runs right through Center City and  Independence Hall. Not only is it a huge traffic spot, but also victim to a ton of foot traffic as well. It’s a busy place, but virtually every part of the city is busy, constantly populated with humans walking around or simply hanging outside. This fun article compares Philly’s crowds to that of Manhattan.

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Philadelphia skyline

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Yardley, Bucks County, PA

 

Despite the differences, I love Bucks County and Philadelphia both. I think the dynamic they have together is exciting for residents of both places, because it allows you to go somewhere that is both completely different, but new as well. Whenever I go to the city, I never feel out of place, I feel like it’s a second home and a place that I know and am comfortable with, but also I know that I can always have a new experience when I go.

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