The Player
Jan 13th, 2008 at 9:12 am by Susie
Chris Satullo, who until recently was the Philadelphia Inquirer’s editorial page editor, is a columnist now. He fancies himself a major city player and is always full of lofty pronouncements. (Oh, and he hates bloggers, just hates ‘em. Because we’re not all, you know, Serious and shit, like him.)
But you know what really bugs me? He doesn’t live here. No, of course not. He just has a lot of advice for people who actually do:
The mayor’s college focus, while dead-on, runs headlong into a Philadelphia quirk.
In a city where so few have degrees, many get prickly when told that their kids need something they themselves never had. They think that’s elitist, stuck-up, even racist.
“Not everyone is college material.” That phrase cropped up often in Dec. 2 forums on the Knowledge Economy agenda, which set a sheepskin goal less gaudy than Nutter’s. True, not everyone is cut out for campus. But a radically higher percentage of the city’s youth must be, if a city whose economy hinges on education and health care wants to soar. College needn’t mean Harvard; the fine community college offers a wealth of practical degrees.
Similar populist resentment will push back against Nutter’s tax agenda. He knows employers won’t settle in a city offering a combo platter of high taxes, low job skills, red tape and corruption.
But many Philadelphians have a huge quarrel with how capitalism works. Given how the winds of the global economy have buffeted them for 40 years, you can see why. Nostalgia for the city’s lost heyday of neighborhood factories and strong unions burns bright. Many don’t know what modern jobs look like, nor do they see how the tax issue links to jobs. They just view business tax cuts as favors to fat cats.
Uh, because maybe we’re right?
They also worry, with reason, how tax-cutting can be balanced with providing services to the needy. But a good mayor can’t refuse to mount that tightrope.
Philadelphians have wonderful traits - feisty love of neighborhood, reverence for the city’s green legacy, idealism about living in liberty’s birthplace. These helped propel a reform mayor to his upset victory.
But some other habits - insular naivete, class envy and populist nostalgia - will complicate the pursuit of his BHAGs (ed. note: “big hairy audacious goals”) more than many of his rapt fans now suspect.
What a elitist, pompous bobblehead you are, Satullo. As George Harrison once said, when you’re on TV, we turn down the sound and say rude things about you.
I guess we shouldn’t be so hard on you. After all, you live in Lafayette Hill, that leafy little suburban enclave surrounded by three country clubs and bordering Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia’s most elite neighborhood. The economic realities of city life are just a vague memory to you now.
Many city residents can’t even afford Philadelphia Community College. Yeah, it’s cheaper than a four-year college, but it’s nowhere near as affordable as the suburban community colleges. You know why? Because the city and the state don’t pay the subsidies they’re supposed to, so the credits cost more - $114 per credit hour, as opposed to $94 in Bucks County, $87 in Delaware County and $86 in Montgomery County - you know, your neighborhood.
When you’re working class, that extra $84 per class is a lot of money. And if you’re a single parent who needs child care to go to work during the day and then class at night, it becomes financially and logistically improbable.
I know your kids won’t have to worry about college, Chris, but try to at least imagine what it’s like for families that don’t have that nice upper-class cushion.
And let’s face reality about college degrees, anyway. Even before this impending recession, I knew probably a half-dozen people with masters degrees (some with two) and many more with bachelors degrees from good schools who are either chronically unemployed or underemployed. It’s not such a brave, shiny new world out here for those of us without the protective bubble of a high-status job like yours - one helped along the way by one of those unions you seem to disdain.
Many of the kids who did follow the path you recommend graduated, only to run head-on into the law of diminishing returns. All they can get are jobs that pay so little, they can barely cover their student loan payments. (And by the way, this problem isn’t indigenous to Philadelphia.)
And for this, a kid should give up the healthy paycheck belonging to one of the local trades can bring? I’m not seeing the logic.
For someone who fancies himself a visionary, you seem to lack the kind of imagination that would let you understand. So why don’t you go on home to Lafayette Hill and leave those of us who actually live here with our class envy and our insular naivete?
Scatullo is a dick Suzie but I told you before you don’t look good in green. Today, college is affordable IF someone will provide a roof over your head- that means it is very very tough for single Moms- but that is life! How would you fix that? Just give everyone free daycare, etc? That’s stupid- being responsibile and smart for yourself is the path to success and economic security. I always advise young people to re-assess their career path every five years at a minimum.
Susie,
The failure of states and counties to pay their fair share of community college costs is everywhere, unfortunately. We face it every year. Ideally, CC should be free.
The gross receipt portion of the BPT does kinda suck.
I agree. And I wasn’t arguing about policy, only about Satullo’s Olympian style.
Why isn’t it a priority for the left to start and support a newspaper?
Michael:
That is a good idea but the real “left” views profit as evil and dirty so any newspaper they run would have trouble surviving financially. Plus many people already view the MSM like the Inkquirer as already on the left. Just my two cents.
I knew there was a reason I’m not filthy rich: I view profit as evil and dirty! That also explains the guilt I feel every time I cash my paycheck and feed my family.
Thanks for the insight Wendy.
Agreed that Satullo is an elitist jerk. But he isn’t wrong about the future of those without college degrees. Unless you are in a skilled trade (effectively blocked to minority Philadelphians), you have to have some post-high school education to get a job that pays enough to support a family. There are always a few people with incredible energy and inborn entrepreneurial traits that will allow them to succeed without a degree, but these days a BA/BS is what a high-school diploma was a generation ago to the average person. And 20 years from now even that won’t be enough. In the large company where I work, most of the new hires have advanced degrees of some kind. The degree may not be necessary to do the job, but it’s a way of making yourself stand out among the dozens of qualified applicants for each opening. And companies see it as proof of goal orientation, persistence, diligence, commitment–all those good work qualities.
And re: cutting business taxes to lure companies to the city: when all the jobs are in the suburbs, most non-affluent city dwellers can’t get to them. We need more jobs in the city, and with companies focused on maximizing revenues and profit, they will go where they get the best tax break. There is no altruism involved.
One point — Satullo doesn’t hate bloggers. He wrote a wonderful piece on a group of local bloggers discussing what the voters owe democracy. It was in July 2005. Full disclosure — my blog was the one most mentioned in the op-ed. In our emails he was both courteous and respectful and did not seem overly concerned with my anonymity. Can’t speak for his interaction with other bloggers, but that was my experience.
While it’s possible his feelings have changed, I tend to think he’s merely doing the political thing. I didn’t pull this out of my ass; I spoke at a panel on blogging at the Inky, and it’s what several of the employees mentioned in discussions afterward when I noted his absence. (This was two or three years ago.)
I think he’d know better than to let it become obvious. After all, editorial board types are all about appearing to be “fair and balanced.”