Delaware County, Pennsylvania
Delaware County, colloquially referred to as Delco, is a county located in the U. S. state of Pennsylvania. With a population of 562,960, it is the fifth most populous county in Pennsylvania, the third smallest in area; the county was created on September 26, 1789, from part of Chester County, named for the Delaware River. Its county seat is Media; until 1850, Chester was the county seat of Delaware County and, before that, of Chester County. Delaware County is adjacent to the city-county of Philadelphia and is included in the Philadelphia–Camden–Wilmington, PA–NJ–DE–MD Metropolitan Statistical Area. Delaware County is the only county covered in its entirety by area codes 610 and 484. Delaware County lies in the river and bay drainage area named "Delaware" in honor of Thomas West, 3rd Baron De La Warr, Governor of the nearby English colony of Virginia; the land was explored by Henry Hudson in 1609, over the next several decades it was variously claimed and settled by the Swedes, the Dutch, the English.
Its original human inhabitants were the Lenni-Lenape tribe of American Indians. Once the Dutch were defeated and the extent of New York was determined, King Charles II of England made his grant to William Penn in order to found the colony which came to be named Pennsylvania. Penn divided his colony into three counties: Bucks and Chester; the riverfront land south of Philadelphia, being the most accessible, was granted and settled. In 1789, the southeastern portion of Chester County was divided from the rest and named Delaware County for the Delaware River. According to the U. S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 191 square miles, of which 184 square miles is land and 6.8 square miles is water. It is the third-smallest county in Pennsylvania by area. Delaware County is diamond- or kite-shaped, with the four sides formed by the Chester County boundary to the northwest, the boundary with the state of Delaware to the southwest, the Delaware River (forming the border with the state of New Jersey to the southeast, the city of Philadelphia and Montgomery County to the east and northeast.
The lowest point in the state of Pennsylvania is located on the Delaware River in Marcus Hook in Delaware County, where it flows out of Pennsylvania and into Delaware. The highest point in Delaware County is 500 feet at two points southeast of Wyola in Newtown Township. Waterways in Delaware County flow in a southward direction and drain into the Delaware River; the waterways are, from west to east: the Brandywine River, Naaman's Creek, Stoney Creek, Chester Creek, Ridley Creek, Crum Creek, Muckinipates Creek, Darby Creek and Cobbs Creek. Crum Creek was dammed in 1931 near Pennsylvania Route 252 to fill Springton Lake, an 391-acre drinking water reservoir maintained by Aqua America, the county's largest lake; the Trainer Refinery and the Port of Chester along located along the shores of the Delaware River. Montgomery County, Pennsylvania Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania Gloucester County, New Jersey New Castle County, Delaware Chester County, Pennsylvania Delaware County is one of four counties in the United States to border a state with which it shares the same name.
John Heinz National Wildlife Refuge 2,600 acres of the county are occupied by the Ridley Creek State Park. Delaware County is divided by the boundary between the humid subtropical and the hot-summer humid continental climate; the hardiness zones are 7b. As of the 2010 census, the county was 71.1% White non-Hispanic, 19.7% Black or African American, 0.2% Native American or Alaskan Native, 4.7% Asian, 0.0% Native Hawaiian, 2.0% were two or more races, 0.9% were some other race. 3.0% of the population were of Hispanic or Latino ancestry. As of the 2000 census, there were 550,864 people, 206,320 households, 139,472 families residing in the county; the population density was 2,990 people per square mile. There were 216,978 housing units at an average density of 1,178 per square mile; the racial makeup of the county was 80.32% White, 14.52% African American, 0.11% Native American, 3.29% Asian, 0.02% Pacific Islander, 0.56% from other races, 1.19% from two or more races. 1.52% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race.
24.6 % were of Irish, 10.1 % German and 6.7 % English ancestry. There were 206,320 households out of which 31.50% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 50.80% were married couples living together, 12.90% had a female householder with no husband present, 32.40% were non-families. 27.60% of all households were made up of individuals and 11.60% had someone living alone, 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.56 and the average family size was 3.17. In the county, the population was spread out with 24.80% under the age of 18, 8.90% from 18 to 24, 28.80% from 25 to 44, 21.90% from 45 to 64, 15.60% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 37 years. For every 100 females there were 91.20 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 86.90 males. The median income for a household in the county was $50,092, the median income for a family was $61,590. Males had a median income of $44,155 versus $31,831 for females; the per capita income for the county was $25,040.
About 5.80% of families and 8.00% of the population were below the poverty line, including 10.00% of
Barack Obama 2008 presidential campaign
The 2008 presidential campaign of Barack Obama junior United States Senator from Illinois, was announced on February 10, 2007 in Springfield, Illinois. After winning a majority of delegates in the Democratic primaries of 2008, on August 23, leading up to the convention, the campaign announced that Senator Joe Biden of Delaware would be the vice presidential nominee. At the 2008 Democratic National Convention on August 27, Barack Obama was formally selected as the Democratic Party nominee for President of the United States in 2008, he was the first African American in history to be nominated on a major party ticket. On November 4, 2008, Obama defeated the Republican nominee, Senator John McCain of Arizona, making him the President-elect and the first African American elected President, he was the third sitting U. S. Senator, after John F. Kennedy, to be elected president. Upon the vote of the Electoral College on December 15, 2008, the subsequent certification thereof by a Joint Session of the United States Congress on January 8, 2009, Barack Obama was elected President of the United States and Joe Biden Vice President of the United States, with 365 of 538 electors.
On June 3, 2008, after the Montana and South Dakota primaries, he secured enough delegates to clinch the nomination of the Democratic Party for President of the United States. His opponent in the general election, Republican John McCain, passed the delegate threshold to become the apparent nominee of his party on March 4. On June 7, Hillary Clinton, Obama's remaining opponent in the quest for the Democratic nomination, conceded defeat and urged her supporters to back Obama. After a June 26 dinner at which Obama encouraged his fundraisers to donate to Clinton's debt-saddled campaign and Clinton ran their first post-primary event together in Unity, New Hampshire, on June 27. Over the first two weeks of July, the campaign ran a heavier schedule of fundraising events, drawing from former donors to Clinton's campaign. Obama strategically had pictures made with financial experts Warren Buffett and Paul Volcker so the public would perceive him as having inside knowledge of Wall Street. Obama's vice presidential running mate had been a subject of speculation since the end of the primaries.
As of August 2008, some of the most popular choices for vice president included, but were not limited to, New York Senator Hillary Clinton, Delaware Senator Joe Biden, Indiana Senator Evan Bayh, Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius, Virginia Governor Tim Kaine, retired General and former Secretary of State Colin Powell, New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, retired General Wesley Clark. On August 21, 2008, Obama announced that he had made a selection for his running mate, but would not reveal until August 23 who it was. Obama's campaign encouraged supporters to sign up for a text messaging system that would alert them the moment he announced his choice. On August 22, KMBC News of Kansas City spotted bumper stickers of an "Obama/Bayh'08" ticket that were being printed in Lenexa, Kansas. Three sources close to a local printing plant reported; the image of the bumper sticker circulated on the internet. However, NBC News quoted sources stating that Bayh had been informed by Obama's campaign that he was not the pick.
According to an Associated Press report that same evening, Joe Biden was selected as Obama's candidate. The Associated Press report was confirmed several hours on August 23, on his official campaign website and by a mass text message to supporters. Obama selected Biden to be vice president for three reasons: he could relate to blue-collar Americans. In July 2008 Obama traveled to Kuwait, Iraq, the West Bank, Germany and Britain. During the course of this trip he met with assorted international leaders, including President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki of Iraq, King Abdullah II of Jordan, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Prime Minister of Israel Ehud Olmert, Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, Prime Minister Gordon Brown of the United Kingdom, as well as former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Conservative opposition leader David Cameron. On July 24, 2008 he gave a speech at the Victory Column in Berlin before a crowd of estimated 200,000 to 240,000 people.
There were three presidential debates between McCain. No third party candidates or Independent candidates were offered an invitation to join in any of the debates, as Obama and McCain were the only candidates on the ballot in all 50 states and the District of Columbia; the Commission on Presidential Debates proposed, the candidates agreed, that two of three 90-minute debates would be in an informal, talk show format, while the third would be in a town hall format that allowed both candidates to walk around. The first presidential debate was held on Friday, September 26, 2008 at the University of Mississippi, Mississippi; this debate was held in a traditional debate format. The second presidential debate was held on Tuesday, October 7, 2008 at Belmont University, in Nashville, Tennessee; this debate was held in the town hall format. The third presidential debate was held on Wednesday, October 15, 2008 at Hofstra University, in Hempstead, New York; this debate was held in talk show format. On June 4, John McCain proposed a series of ten joint town hall meetings with Obama, at which the two could engage each other.
Obama first agreed in principle to the notion, but rejected McCain's proposal, offering instead one town-hall event on the Independence Day holi
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II is an American attorney and politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the first African American, he served as a U. S. senator from Illinois from 2005 to 2008. Obama was born in Hawaii. After graduating from Columbia University in 1983, he worked as a community organizer in Chicago. In 1988, he enrolled in Harvard Law School, where he was the first black president of the Harvard Law Review. After graduating, he became a civil rights attorney and an academic, teaching constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School from 1992 to 2004, he represented the 13th district for three terms in the Illinois Senate from 1997 until 2004 when he ran for the U. S. Senate, he received national attention in 2004 with his March primary win, his well-received July Democratic National Convention keynote address, his landslide November election to the Senate. In 2008, he was nominated for president a year after his campaign began and after a close primary campaign against Hillary Clinton.
He was elected over Republican John McCain and was inaugurated on January 20, 2009. Nine months he was named the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize laureate. Regarded as a centrist New Democrat, Obama signed many landmark bills into law during his first two years in office; the main reforms that were passed include the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, the Don't Ask, Don't Tell Repeal Act of 2010. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 and Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization, Job Creation Act of 2010 served as economic stimulus amidst the Great Recession. After a lengthy debate over the national debt limit, he signed the Budget Control and the American Taxpayer Relief Acts. In foreign policy, he increased U. S. troop levels in Afghanistan, reduced nuclear weapons with the United States–Russia New START treaty, ended military involvement in the Iraq War. He ordered military involvement in Libya in opposition to Muammar Gaddafi.
He ordered the military operations that resulted in the deaths of Osama bin Laden and suspected Yemeni Al-Qaeda operative Anwar al-Awlaki. After winning re-election by defeating Republican opponent Mitt Romney, Obama was sworn in for a second term in 2013. During this term, he promoted inclusiveness for LGBT Americans, his administration filed briefs that urged the Supreme Court to strike down same-sex marriage bans as unconstitutional. He advocated for gun control in response to the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, indicating support for a ban on assault weapons, issued wide-ranging executive actions concerning climate change and immigration. In foreign policy, he ordered military intervention in Iraq in response to gains made by ISIL after the 2011 withdrawal from Iraq, continued the process of ending U. S. combat operations in Afghanistan in 2016, promoted discussions that led to the 2015 Paris Agreement on global climate change, initiated sanctions against Russia following the invasion in Ukraine and again after Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections, brokered a nuclear deal with Iran, normalized U.
S. relations with Cuba. During his term in office, America's reputation in global polling improved. Evaluations of his presidency among historians, political scientists, the general public place him among the upper tier of American presidents. Obama left office and retired in January 2017 and resides in Washington, D. C. A December 2018 Gallup poll found Obama to be the most admired man in America for an unprecedented 11th consecutive year, although Dwight D. Eisenhower was selected most admired in twelve non-consecutive years. Obama was born on August 4, 1961, at Kapiolani Medical Center for Women and Children in Honolulu, Hawaii, he is the only president, born outside of the contiguous 48 states. He was born to a black father, his mother, Ann Dunham, was born in Kansas. His father, Barack Obama Sr. was a Luo Kenyan from Nyang'oma Kogelo. Obama's parents met in 1960 in a Russian language class at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, where his father was a foreign student on a scholarship; the couple married in Hawaii, on February 2, 1961, six months before Obama was born.
In late August 1961, Barack and his mother moved to the University of Washington in Seattle, where they lived for a year. During that time, the elder Obama completed his undergraduate degree in economics in Hawaii, graduating in June 1962, he left to attend graduate school on a scholarship at Harvard University, where he earned an M. A. in economics. Obama's parents divorced in March 1964. Obama Sr. returned to Kenya in 1964, where he married for a third time and worked for the Kenyan government as the Senior Economic Analyst in the Ministry of Finance. He visited his son in Hawaii only once, at Christmas time in 1971, before he was killed in an automobile accident in 1982, when Obama was 21 years old. Recalling his early childhood, Obama said, "That my father looked nothing like the people around me – that he was black as pitch, my mother white as milk – registered in my mind." He described his struggles as a young adult to reconcile social perceptions of his multira
Pennsylvania General Assembly
The Pennsylvania General Assembly is the legislature of the U. S. commonwealth of Pennsylvania. The legislature convenes in the State Capitol building in Harrisburg. In colonial times, the legislature was known as the Pennsylvania Provincial Assembly and was unicameral. Since the Constitution of 1776, the legislature has been known as the General Assembly; the General Assembly became a bicameral legislature in 1791. The General Assembly has 253 members, consisting of a Senate with 50 members and a House of Representatives with 203 members, making it the second-largest state legislature in the nation and the largest full-time legislature. Senators are elected for a term of four years. Representatives are elected for a term of two years; the Pennsylvania general elections are held on the Tuesday after the first Monday in November in even-numbered years. A vacant seat must be filled by special election, the date of, set by the presiding officer of the respective house. Senators must be at least 25 years old, Representatives at least 21 years old.
They must be citizens and residents of the state for a minimum of four years and reside in their districts for at least one year. Individuals who have been convicted of felonies, including embezzlement and perjury, are ineligible for election. No one, expelled from the General Assembly may be elected. Legislative districts are drawn every ten years, following the U. S. Census. Districts are drawn by a five-member commission, of which four members are the majority and minority leaders of each house; the fifth member, who chairs the committee, is appointed by the other four and may not be an elected or appointed official. If the leadership can not decide on a fifth member, the State Supreme Court may appoint her. While in office, legislators may not hold civil office. If a member resigns, the Constitution states that he or she may not be appointed to civil office for the duration of the original term for which he or she was elected; the General Assembly is a continuing body within the term. It convenes at 12 o'clock noon on the first Tuesday of January each year and meets throughout the year.
Both houses adjourn on November 30 in even-numbered years, when the terms of all members of the House and half the members of the Senate expire. Neither body can adjourn for more than three days without the consent of the other; the governor may call a special session. As of 2017, only 35 special sessions have been called in the history of Pennsylvania; the Assembly meets in the Pennsylvania State Capitol, completed in 1906. Under the Pennsylvania Constitution, the Assembly must meet in the City of Harrisburg and can move only if given the consent of both chambers. During the mid-19th century, the frustration of the people of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania with the severe level of corruption in the General Assembly culminated in a constitutional amendment in 1864 which prevented the General Assembly from writing statutes covering more than one subject; the amendment was so poorly written that it prevented the General Assembly from undertaking a comprehensive codification of the Commonwealth's statutes until another amendment was pushed through in 1967 to provide the necessary exception.
This is why today, Pennsylvania is the only U. S. state. Pennsylvania is undertaking its first official codification process in the Pennsylvania Consolidated Statutes. Speaker of the House of Representatives: Mike Turzai President pro tem of the Senate: Joseph B. Scarnati 2005 Pennsylvania General Assembly pay raise controversy Pennsylvania Provincial Assembly, for the General Assembly before 1776 Pennsylvania Legislative Black Caucus Pennsylvania General Assembly Legislative Process
Upper Darby Township, Delaware County, Pennsylvania
Upper Darby Township is a home rule township bordering Philadelphia in Delaware County, United States. Upper Darby is home to a historic music venue on 69th Street built in the 1920s. Upper Darby's population is diverse, representing over 100 ethnic cultures; the township hosts a range of housing types including densely populated rowhouse sections similar to houses in neighboring West Philadelphia, tree-lined neighborhoods of turn-of-the-century single-family houses and mid-century developments. It is Pennsylvania's sixth most populous municipality. Upper Darby is 65% residential, 25% commercial, 8% other; as of the 2010 census, the township had a total population of 82,795. Because of a home-rule charter adopted in 1974 and effective in 1976, Upper Darby utilizes a mayor-council form of management, unlike communities that are still under the Pennsylvania Township Code. Upper Darby, along with Lower Merion and Cheltenham form the major inner ring suburbs of Philadelphia. In 1650, the area that became Upper Darby had been inhabited by the Lenape tribe of Native Americans for hundreds of years, but war with the Susquehannock to the west, along with devastating smallpox and measles epidemics, had reduced their numbers.
The Lenape were part of the larger late Woodland culture, living in longhouses and birch bark homes, engaging in the type of agriculture featuring Companion planting of the Three Sisters. The first permanent Europeans settlers arrived in late 1653 with a group from New Sweden. Soon after, in 1655, New Sweden was taken over by the Dutch, came under English rule in October 1664 as part England's overall conquest of New Amsterdam; the region was controlled as a possession of the English king until it was included in a large land grant to William Penn in 1681. Upon Penn's founding of the colony of Pennsylvania the next year, the area was designated as part of the municipality of Darby Township, in Chester County, it was subsequently part of the eastern section of that county, split off on September 26, 1789, to form Delaware County. The Lower Swedish Cabin, thought to have been built in 1654, is located on Creek Road along the Darby Creek and is believed by many to be a remnant of the early Swedes, who introduced the log cabin to this area.
Today the "Swedish Cabin" is designated with a Pennsylvania Historical Marker. The Cabin is on the National Register of Historic Places. Darby Township occupied the area between the current border of Upper Darby to the north, Cobbs Creek and Darby Creek to the east and south, Ridley and Springfield townships to the west; this continued until 1736, for the convenience of the inhabitants, it was decided at a town meeting to separate the upper part from the lower "in all matters save the levies made for the support of the poor," with the northern part thereafter to be called Upper Darby Township. The exact boundary was not established until 1787; the following is an excerpt from this petition: Beginning at Cobb's Creek on the Northwest side of a tract of land belonging to the heirs of Joshua Ash and in the line of said land, thence along said line and the line of land late Enoch Bonsall's & Joshua Bonsall's to Darby Creek thence down the said Creek to the northwest line of John Ash's land, thence along said line and the line of Samuel Ash and Nathaniel Smith to the line of Ridley Township, that the lower part may be called Darby and the other part Upper Darby.
Reflecting the Quaker background of its earliest English settlers, Upper Darby was active in the antislavery movement. At least one abolition society existed prior to 1830, sent a committee of twelve prominent citizens to the 1830 meeting of the Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society in Philadelphia. Many homes in the area were stops on the Underground Railroad, including Hoodland, the home of abolitionist Thomas Pennock, bequeathed to the township's public library and which houses the children's library, connected to a much larger modern annex which houses the Main Branch. Another prominent abolitionist, Thomas Garrett, grew up in the township and Thornfield, his home until the age of 32, still stands at Garrett Road and Maple Avenue in the Drexel Hill section of the township. Two regiments from Upper Darby took part in the fighting in the American Civil War, one, the 106th, was involved in the Battle of Antietam; the abundance of creeks and streams in the area favored the development of mills, it was in Upper Darby that the first mills in Delaware County could be found.
The mill trade increased the population of the township, from just over 800 in 1800 to 5,000 by 1890. However, beginning in 1885, the township lost large sections of territory as the citizens of more populated neighborhoods petitioned the state to be recognized as separate municipalities; the first of these was the borough of Clifton Heights, followed by the boroughs of Lansdowne, Aldan and East Lansdowne. In 1907, the Philadelphia Rapid Transit Company recognized the potential for growth in the township and extended the Market-Frankford elevated train line from just west of the Schuylkill River in Philadelphia to 69th and Market Streets in Upper Darby; the El terminus at 69th Street Station became a busy terminal serving several trolley
2008 United States presidential election
The 2008 United States presidential election was the 56th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 4, 2008. The Democratic ticket of Barack Obama, the junior Senator from Illinois, Joe Biden, the senior Senator from Delaware, defeated the Republican ticket of John McCain, the senior Senator from Arizona, Sarah Palin, the Governor of Alaska. Obama became the first African American to be elected as president. Incumbent Republican President George W. Bush was ineligible to pursue a third term due to the term limits established by the 22nd Amendment; as neither Bush nor Vice President Dick Cheney sought the presidency, the 2008 election was the first election since 1952 in which neither major party's presidential nominee was the incumbent president or the incumbent vice president. McCain secured the Republican nomination by March 2008, defeating Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, other challengers; the Democratic primaries were marked by a sharp contest between Obama and the initial front-runner, Senator Hillary Clinton.
Clinton's victory in the New Hampshire primary made her the first woman to win a major party's presidential primary. After a long primary season, Obama clinched the Democratic nomination in June 2008. Early campaigning focused on the Iraq War and Bush's unpopularity. McCain supported the war, as well as a troop surge that had begun in 2007, while Obama opposed the war. Bush endorsed McCain, but the two did not campaign together, Bush did not appear in person at the 2008 Republican National Convention. Obama campaigned on the theme that "Washington must change,"; the campaign was affected by the onset of a major financial crisis, which peaked in September 2008. McCain's decision to suspend his campaign during the height of the financial crisis backfired as voters viewed his response as erratic. Obama won a decisive victory over McCain, winning the Electoral College and the popular vote by a sizable margin, including states that had not voted for the Democratic presidential candidate since 1976 and 1964.
Obama received the largest share of the popular vote won by a Democrat since Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964; as of the 2016 presidential election Obama's total count of 69.5 million votes still stands as the largest tally won by a presidential candidate. Hillary Clinton, U. S. Senator from New York John Edwards, former U. S. Senator from North Carolina Bill Richardson, Governor of New Mexico Dennis Kucinich, U. S. Representative from Ohio Joe Biden, U. S. Senator from Delaware Mike Gravel, former U. S. Senator from Alaska Christopher Dodd, U. S. Senator from Connecticut Evan Bayh, U. S. Senator from Indiana Tom Vilsack, former Governor of Iowa Media speculation had begun immediately after the results of the 2004 presidential election were released. In the 2006 midterm elections, the Democrats regained majorities in both houses of the U. S. Congress. Early polls taken before anyone had announced a candidacy had shown Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama as the most popular potential Democratic candidates.
The media speculated on several other candidates, including Al Gore, the runner-up in the 2000 election. Edwards was one of the first to formally announce his candidacy for the presidency, on December 28, 2006; this run would be his second attempt at the presidency. Clinton announced intentions to run in the Democratic primaries on January 20, 2007. Obama announced his candidacy on February 10 in his home state of Illinois. Early in the year, the support for Barack Obama started to increase in the polls, he passed Clinton for the top spot in Iowa. Obama's win was fueled by first time caucus-goers and Independents and showed voters viewed him as the "candidate of change." Iowa has since been viewed as the state that jump-started Obama's campaign and set him on track to win both the nomination and the presidency. After the Iowa caucus, Joe Biden and Christopher Dodd withdrew from the nomination contest. Obama became the new front runner in New Hampshire, when his poll numbers skyrocketed after his Iowa victory The Clinton campaign was struggling after a huge loss in Iowa and no strategy beyond the early primaries and caucuses.
According to The Vancouver Sun, Campaign strategists had "mapped a victory scenario that envisioned the former first lady wrapping up the Democratic presidential nomination by Super Tuesday on Feb. 5." In what is considered a turning point for her campaign, Clinton had a strong performance at the Saint Anselm College, ABC, Facebook debates several days before the New Hampshire primary as well as an emotional interview in a public broadcast live on TV. Clinton won that primary by 2% of the vote, contrary to the predictions of pollsters who had her trailing Obama for a few days up to the primary date. Clinton's win was the
West Philadelphia
West Philadelphia, nicknamed West Philly, is a section of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Though there is no official definition of its boundaries, it is considered to reach from the western shore of the Schuylkill River, to City Avenue to the northwest, Cobbs Creek to the southwest, the SEPTA Media/Elwyn Line to the south. An alternate definition includes all city land west of the Schuylkill; the eastern side of West Philadelphia is known as University City. The topography of West Philadelphia is composed of rolling hills rising from the Schuylkill River toward Cobbs Creek in the west and toward Belmont Plateau in the northwest; this gradual elevation makes the skyline of Center City visible from many points in West Philadelphia. The Wynnefield neighborhood is a location used by photographers and organizers of civic events. According to the 2010 census, 216,433 people live among the ZIP codes of 19104, 19131, 19139, 19143 and 19151. Non-Hispanic Black or African-American: 164,921 Non-Hispanic White/European: 37,010 Hispanic or Latino: 4,328 American Indian: 4,112 Asian: 3,246 Mixed or Other: 2,813 Starting with the first wave of Irish immigrants in the early 19th century, West Philadelphia was home to large numbers of European immigrants and their descendants.
The area's African American population began growing in the 1880s through the migration of blacks from the southern states. Since the 1980s, gentrification and the Urban Indian relocation movement have brought more racial diversity. Arrivals from East Asia and Latin America Dominicans, Puerto Ricans, Mexicans, have given the area small Hispanic and Asian American populations; the community has a fair number of Afro-Caribbean/Caribbean American residents, from the Jamaica, Haiti and other areas of the West Indies, as well as a growing number of African immigrants. The Woodlands Cemetery, located near the west bank of the Schuylkill River, was the estate of Andrew Hamilton who bought the property in 1735 from descendants of Blockley Township's founder, William Warner, who hailed from Brockley, England. Warner was the first known European west of the Schuylkill. In 1840, the property was transformed into a cemetery with an arboretum of over 1,000 trees, it holds the graves of many famous Philadelphians.
Satterlee Hospital, one of the largest Union Army hospitals of the Civil War, operated from 1862 to 1865. West Philadelphia's population expanded in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, thanks in large part to horsecars streetcars, Schuylkill River bridges that allowed middle-class breadwinners to commute into the Central Business District a few miles to the east. West Philadelphia was among the early streetcar suburbs, a portion of it is listed on the National Register of Historic Places as the West Philadelphia Streetcar Suburb Historic District; the western portion of the neighborhood was once home to some of the most expensive real estate in the country. The area has declined in prominence over the last 50 years, thanks in part to increasing crime and the migration of many middle and upper-class residents to suburbs and other sections of the city. West Philadelphia drew national attention in 1978 and 1985 for violent clashes between police and an Afro-centric, back-to-nature group called MOVE.
During the latter confrontation, police firebombed the group's headquarters, killing 11 people and destroying an entire block of Osage Avenue and Pine Street. In recent years, parts of West Philadelphia have undergone "Penntrification," a term that reflects the University of Pennsylvania's role in gentrification of the neighborhood. Many young professionals and families have moved into the area. In 2008, the area around the Please Touch Museum, Philadelphia Zoo, the Mann Music Center was designated the Centennial District: an area to be revitalized by the country's 250th birthday in 2026. Most of the houses in West Philadelphia are row houses, although there are areas of semi-detached and detached houses; the earliest developments began in 1850 and the final period of mass construction ended in 1930. Development was enabled by the creation of the horsecar, which pushed development to about 43rd Street, after the arrival of the electrified streetcar in 1892, accelerated to the west and southwest.
Commissioned by speculative developers and designed by some of the city's most prolific architects, they were purchased by industrial managers and other professionals who led the first movement of upper and middle class from the more crowded city center. Developers found they could increase profits by catering to this emerging group, shrinking lot sizes, building more compact, less ornate houses. Initial development was divided into block lots and sold in 1852 with the condition that "substantial stone or brick buildings" be erected; the houses in this grouping are three-story Italianate buildings, linked by material, decorative detail, form. Located around Chester Avenue, an additional but smaller and less ornate 16 Italianate, semi-detached houses, similar in form to the initial houses; the setback of these houses was 25 feet. Another development on Locust Street, a project by banker and West Philly
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