I lived in central Philly for a decade, and if I think about why I left, yes it was partly that COVID shuttered public transport which meant I had to get a car and I discovered that parking in central Philly is worse than dental torture. Yes, maybe it was the crime and disorder surge, which at least in my old neighborhood (Broad + South) predated COVID (began around 2018 or so). But the thing that pushed me away the most was the emerging monoculture, the total impossibility of escaping the Same Opinion on every sign, in every conversation, a constant feeling of being horizontally surveilled for wrongthink…terrible for trait openness, in which case the “charming artsy pedestrian friendly old urban core” loses a great deal of its appeal and just becomes claustrophobia inducing. Moved to suburbs, and these have all the problems I expected them to. But the ambience of neutrality makes it easier to hear one’s own thoughts.