Office & Employment

This comprehensive annual research report from CCD and CPDC examines the key drivers of downtown vitality and investment – new housing, return to the office, retail, employment, arts and culture, transportation, health care and higher education, and travel and tourism.

Can downtowns in the U.S. rebound and prosper? This fundamental question lingers more than three years after the global pandemic. This report seeks to counter misinformation and provide some of the data that can assist when making decisions and choosing actions that best support a robust and inclusive process of recovery.

Recovery is progressing by nearly all measures: employment, hotel occupancy, retail and restaurant sales, transit ridership, pedestrian volumes and city tax collections are all up. Job recovery is slow but steady and most significantly, Philadelphia’s unemployment rate fell in October, to the lowest point since 1990.

This report compares Philadelphia to five other urban areas in United States. It documents how Philadelphia lags in firms that sell services nationally and globally, but suggests that if we replicate the success achieved by others, we will grow more family-sustaining jobs and a prosperous network of small, local businesses.

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