Philly and the Pitts

The state government of Pennsylvania is notoriously biased against Western Pa. -- particularly Pittsburgh -- and biased in favor of Philadelphia, a social basket case second only to Detroit. I guess there's something about all that victimhood and dependency that appeals to the wise men of Harrisburg. For all of its current economic woes, Pittsburgh at least has a reputation as a place where people work for a living, and are proud of it. They'll take handouts in times of dire necessity, but the baseline is one of sweating brows and dirty hands. Philadelphia, on the other hand, has morphed over the years into a kind of hotbed of tax receivership, not to mention political corruption that rivals that of New Orleans, bureaucratic haplessness, and chronic random violence. But that seems just fine and groovy with the state capital crowd, who still use the rest of the state as a cash cow to maintain "Philly's" sinful ways. And what gets me is that Philadelphians can get downright snobbish about the whole thing, as if Pennsylvania stopped at the Appalachian ridgeline. Pittsburgh is over the mountains, "out there somewhere"... in the Midwest... and almost in West Virginia, to boot! Clearly no place where anyone with breeding or good taste would ever live. People live there who go to their grave with dirt under their fingernails. And it's full of prosperous peasants ("kulaks", in Stalinist parlance). Now, of course, there may be another side to the story, as there usually is. I'm amazed at the number of people I've met who have lived in this area their whole life, but have never been to the East Coast, to say nothing of New York or Boston. And the few who have have only been to the Outer Banks (seemingly the blue-collar vacation destination sans pareil, once you eliminate Branson, Missouri, Las Vegas, and Atlantic City). And they see Philadelphia as one of those cities that represent the reductio ad absurdum of liberalism -- along with D.C., Detroit, and large chunks of many others. Well, I guess this is one of those wounds that's never going to heal. Who knew the Appalachians were so high?