Fewer roads lead in and out of the area for criminals to use. Roxborough is popular with police officers, firefighters and other municipal employees, who are required to live in the city. Their presence may not actually make the area safer, residents and business owners say, but it sure makes it feel safer. The small-town touches are everywhere. Roxborough is a place of tall hardwoods and short fences, of gardens so small they wouldn't contain a croquet party, a place where impatiens and black-eyed Susans wave at passersby.
Several stores feature hand-lettered signs forbidding more than two students from entering at once.
Shopkeepers shrug when that's pointed out. Still, Mary Ann and Robert Patrick like the community just the way it is. They've lived in Roxborough for 27 years, having moved from Eighth Street and Hunting Park Avenue in North Philly. I didn't really want to, but we did,'' said Mary Ann Patrick, standing in the yard outside her house on the 400 block of Lyceum Avenue. It rests under conifers and is home to two friendly golden retrievers that slobber and thrust their noses through an old cast-iron fence.