The end of American cities? Philadelphia now has San Francisco’s disease – office buildings are on sale for 50% off.

Photo above - this gorgeous 30 story office building at 2000 Market Street Philadelphia just sold for $68 a square foot. There's a glut of vacant office space in America right now.

Attention – due to high crime, falling population, and crappy schools the city of Philadelphia is having a close-out special on office space. Here’s just one example of how you can save big-big-big: How about a 30 story, 665,000 square foot skyscraper for $45 million? That’s only $68 a square foot !!!! (See link below for details.)

In an era where downtown condos can start at $150 a square foot, and go as high as $450, that $68 a foot Philly skyscraper looks like a steal. Let's do a little rehab and turn it into affordable housing, okay? Well, that’s not actually going to happen. Celler dwellers, this is not your moment. The new owners of the 2000 Market Street tower vow to keep it as office space and not spend a dime rehabbing it for residences.

And who can blame them? Philadelphia’s population has plummeted 40% over the past several decades. People are moving to the ‘burbs. Because of the public schools. Philadelphia’s schools are so lamentable they rank behind Washington DC, Pittsburgh, and Cincinnati. I have a link at bottom ranking urban schools in America, but I’m suspicious. It claims Miami is the number one school district in the nation. No comprende!

Murders in Philadelphia are down 40%, which sounds encouraging, until you remember that population is down 40% as well.

Vacant buildings are becoming a scourge in almost every American city. Middle class migration to the suburbs, and population replacement with undocumented workers and public-school dropouts has become the norm.

Earlier this month I posted a column about the 50% service cutbacks forced on Philadelphia’s Septa transit system. But these cuts also make perfect sense if your office buildings are vacant, and you lose almost half your population.

Raising taxes on Philadelphia's retail and residential survivors is not an option. I doubt if high Trump tariffs are going to entice many businesses to build factories there either. If you want to know what a “cooling economy” looks like, this is it. If you want to know why this is happening, look at the Federal Reserve, which tells us that high interest rates are the only way they know to stop inflation.

If anyone didn’t see vacant buildings and job losses as an outcome, they’re too stupid to be working as a government economist or a business reporter.

I’m just sayin’ . . .



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