Philly City Hall Recognized for Social Media Savvy. Philadelphia mayor Michael Nutter is fairly well-known for utilizing social media to get his message across (as he did to combat city violence in September), and even participated in a social media town hall last fall here at NBC10. Now, Philadelphia City Hall is getting some national recognition for its open data initiatives and social media savvy.

A new study from the University of Illinois at Chicago ranked the 75 largest cities in America on social media savvy. They based their findings on “opportunities for citizen participation and information,” according to a release, and Philadelphia ranked No. 9 overall. The categories they monitored included:

• Hosting of open data portals;
• Comments allowed on blogs and social networks;
• The extent to which online discussions concerned policy as well as city services;
• Information on officials, budgets, city council meetings and neighborhood issues

The rest of the top 10 (some of the cities tied, according to the scoring system):

1. New York/Seattle
2. Virginia Beach
3. Portland
4. San Francisco
5. Kansas City
6. Denver
7. Mesa, Ariz.
8. Louisville
9. Philadelphia/Long Beach, CA/Sacramento
10. San Jose

Toledo, Ohio was ranked last in the survey.

-LD

[NBC10, PRDaily, h/t The20’s @DPBell and @RichNegrin]

Photo: Getty Images

Philadelphia Among Best Places to Relocate or Expand Businesses. For business owners looking to grow or relocate their companies, there are few cities better than Philadelphia. In fact, only six cities with metropolitan populations over 1 million top “The City of Brotherly Love,” (as noted last week by the Philadelphia Business Journal). Site Selection Magazine, a go-to magazine for business owners looking to move their locations, pulled the numbers and took into account new businesses that invested $1 million or more, hired at least 50 people, or built at least 20-thousand square feet.

The top ten cities, in order, were:

1. Houston
2. Chicago
3. Pittsburgh
4. Dallas/Fort Worth
5. New York
6. Cincinnati
7. Philadelphia/Camden/Wilmington
8. Washington, D.C.
9. Atlanta
10. Tampa

Also of note, in terms of cities with metro populations between 200,000 and 1 million, the Allentown/Bethlehem area (No. 5) and Harrisburg area (No. 6) both rank among the best.

-LD

[Philadelphia Business Journal, Site Selection Magazine, h/t The20’s @richnegrin and @DPBell]

Photo: Getty Images

Forbes: Philly 1 of America’s 10 Comeback Cities. Close to 40 million Americans move from one home to another each year, and Philly itself is doing pretty well in terms of keeping and attracting new residents, according to Forbes. Forbes selected its top 10 cities by “using IRS data to locate counties that were losing net migrants in 2005 and that either gained them in 2010 or stemmed their losses dramatically. Migration figures refer to the net members of taxpaying households that moved into and out of these counties in the years ending in April.” In other words, people are moving back to the city.

“Like Boston, Philadelphia continues to lose migrants, but saw many more in-migrants and many few out-migrants in 2010 than in 2005.”

As for the official numbers, Philadelphia showed a net loss of 13,481 people in 2005, a number that dropped to only 5,675 in 2010.

Other cities making a comeback include New Orleans, Denver, Pittsburgh, Boston, Washington, D.C., El Paso, Tex., Minneapolis, Milwaukee, Arlington, Va.

-LD

[Forbes, h/t The20’s @dpbell and @richnegrin]

Photo: NBC10

Time For Occupy Philly to Go? It’s been a tumultuous couple of days at the Occupy Philly camp down at City Hall. On Saturday, a 23-year-old woman was allegedly raped. On Sunday, Mayor Michael Nutter spoke about the group, saying (among other things):

“Occupy Philly is fractured with internal disagreement and disputes. The people of Occupy Philly have changed and their intentions have changed. All of this is not good for Philadelphia. We must change our relationship with them.”

The Occupy Philly camp responded on Monday, albeit briefly. Their permit at City Hall expires Tuesday, so the protestors need to leave Dilworth Plaza to allow the $50 million revitalization project to begin.

The 20’s @RichNegrin (also the city’s Deputy Mayor and Managing Director), who has been communicating with the protestors from the start (depicted in this Metro-compiled collection of tweets), said on Twitter early Tuesday that the Occupy Philly folks rejected a meeting, then claimed not to have information, linking to a Philly.com story.

@RichNegrin: Occupy Philly rejects meetings that would have provided info. Then claims not to have info. Cute. http://www.philly.com/philly/news/pennsylvania/133861283.html

The Philadelphia Daily News then wrote an editorial on Tuesday morning, listing eight reasons why it’s time to “Un-occupy Philly.” The reasons they list:

1. We want our space back.
2. The protest has cost $500,000 so far.
3. What are you doing, anyway?
4. The First Amendment isn’t absolute.
5. Dilworth Plaza’s renovation must start.
6. It’s getting dangerous.
7. There are complaints of public defecation and urination.
8. Speaking of gross: ear gauges. They should have stayed dead back in the 1980s.

The20’s @pkerkstra followed that up with a post of his own this morning for The Philly Post titled “Bloomberg Clears Zuccotti Park: Is Occupy Philly Next?” He concludes the piece by saying:

“So long as the police handle the eviction professionally—and we have every reason to think they will, given how well they’ve handled themselves to date—Nutter will come out of this ok. Occupy Philly? Not so much.”

So what do you think? Is the time up for Occupy Philly?

-LD

[NBC Philadelphia, Philly.com, Daily News, @RichNegrin, @pkerkstra]

Photo: Getty Images