page_title: History of Philadelphia
section_title: Into the 21st century
hierarchical_section_title: History of Philadelphia / Into the 21st century
caption_attribution_description: Português: Civil Unrest 2020
context_page_description: The written history of Philadelphia begins in 1682, when the city was founded by William Penn in the English Crown Province of Pennsylvania between the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers.
  Before then, the area was inhabited by the Lenape people. Philadelphia quickly grew into an important colonial city and during the American Revolution was the site of the First and Second Continental Congresses. After the Revolution the city was chosen to be the temporary capital of the United States. At the beginning of the 19th century, the federal and state governments left Philadelphia, but the city remained the cultural and financial center of the country. Philadelphia became one of the first U.S. industrial centers and the city contained a variety of industries, the largest being textiles.
  After the American Civil War Philadelphia's government was controlled by a corrupt Republican political machine and by the beginning of the 20th Century Philadelphia was described as "corrupt and contented." Various reform efforts slowly changed city government with the most significant in 1950 where a new city charter strengthened the position of mayor and weakened the Philadelphia City Council.
context_section_description: In 1992, Ed Rendell was elected as the city's first Jewish mayor. At the time, the city had numerous unpaid bills, the lowest bond rating of the top fifty largest U.S. cities, and a budget deficit of US$250 million. Rendell attracted investment in the city, stabilized the city's finances, and produced small budget surpluses. Revitalization of parts of Philadelphia continued in the 1990s. In 1993, a new convention center was opened, creating a hotel boom with seventeen hotels opening between 1998 and 2000 when the city hosted the Republican National Convention.  The city began promoting heritage tourism, and producing festivals and entertainment to attract tourists. In 2005, National Geographic Traveler named Philadelphia America's Next Great City, citing its recent revitalization and general compact cityscape.
  Former city council president John F. Street was elected mayor in 1999 and city revitalization continued into the 21st century. The Street administration targeted some of the city's worst neighborhoods for revitalization and made considerable progress. Tax breaks created in 1997 and 2000 helped create a condominium boom in Center City, increasing the population of Center City and helping slow the city's 40-year population decline. The population of Center City rose to 88,000 in 2005 from 78,000 in 2000 and the number of households grew by 24 percent.
  The city has had struggles: a series of scandals in the 1990s plagued the police department, including underreporting of crime. The Street administration was plagued with scandal, with administration people being accused of awarding contracts based on campaign donations for Street's 2003 reelection campaign. The 2000s had a rise of violent crime after a decline in the 1990s. In 2006, Philadelphia's murder rate was 27.8 per 100,000 inhabitants versus a rate of 18.9 in 2002.
  In 2008, Michael Nutter, with a background in business, was elected as the city's third African-American mayor.  From July 2007 to July 2009, the city's crime rate decreased 30%.  Nutter helped launch Philadelphia's Foreclosure Prevention Program, which seeks to help residents keep their housing and which has been copied by many cities.
  Tourism has become one of the city's main industries. As of 2018, Philadelphia was the 8th-most visited U.S. city. 
  In 2015, Pope Francis visited Philadelphia during his U.S. tour; he attended the 2015 World Meeting of Families and said mass to 1 million people on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway.
caption: George Floyd protests in Philadelphia on June 2, 2020
exif: {"Image Make": "Canon", "Image Model": "Canon EOS R", "Image XResolution": "300", "Image YResolution": "300", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop Camera Raw 12.1 (Windows)", "Image DateTime": "2020:06:02 21:21:41", "Image Artist": "Robert Bulmahn", "Image ExifOffset": "234", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "950", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "23403", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/250", "EXIF FNumber": "63/10", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Aperture Priority", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "640", "EXIF SensitivityType": "Recommended Exposure Index", "EXIF RecommendedExposureIndex": "640", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0231", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2020:06:02 17:40:12", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2020:06:02 17:40:12", "EXIF OffsetTime": "-04:00", "EXIF OffsetTimeOriginal": "-04:00", "EXIF OffsetTimeDigitized": "-04:00", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "995723/125000", "EXIF ApertureValue": "331919/62500", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "3", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire", "EXIF FocalLength": "168", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "7", "EXIF SubSecTimeDigitized": "70", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "61166933/32768", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "61166933/32768", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "3", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF BodySerialNumber": "032021001922", "EXIF LensSpecification": "[70, 200, 0/0, 0/0]", "EXIF LensModel": "RF70-200mm F2.8 L IS USM", "EXIF LensSerialNumber": "8200003920"}