Campus protests. Empty lot of homeless camp. Significant reductions in shootings, homicides, and overdose deaths. “Save Chinatown” protests. Shooting incident at SEPTA bus stop. Illegal car assembly. A city employee called the office back. SEPTA strike averted.
These are just some of the headlines that dominated Philadelphia politics in 2024.
So what does 2025 mean for the city?
I’m a political science professor at Drexel University, and in 2023 I published a short book, Philadelphia Reform, 1682-2022, which tracks the city’s political development with an eye toward the future of policy and politics.
Here are six important stories that will shape Philadelphia’s political landscape in 2025.
1. Party change
Entering 2025, Philadelphia is significantly more politically diverse than it was five years ago.
Partisanship in Philadelphia is less a Democratic-Republican divide than a divide between more conservative Democrats and more liberal Democrats versus progressives, what local journalist Larry Platt once called “reform versus progressive.” This is a word that refers to the division between people. the other third party.
Progressive candidates have shown some momentum in recent years. Seven of the 17 Philadelphia City Council members are elected at-large, but no political party may nominate more than five members to run for these seats in the general election. This means that for as long as anyone can remember, there have been five Democratic and two Republican at-large councilors.
And in 2019, Working Families Party candidate Kendra Brooks won one of the two seats previously held by Republicans. A year later, Nikil Saval and Rick Krajewski, two Democratic Socialists who ran as Democrats, were elected to the state Senate and state House of Representatives, respectively. And in 2023, another Working Families member, Nicholas O’Rourke, won the 2nd City Council seat reserved exclusively for small parties, completely replacing a Republican in that position. .
At the same time, Mayor Sherrell Parker, elected in 2023, is a fairly conservative Democrat, at least in the sense that she focuses on classic municipal issues of cleanliness and public safety rather than social justice issues. is.
And in the 2024 election, Republican votes rose in Philadelphia, as they did almost everywhere else in the country. Republicans won the city’s state Senate seat for the first time in 20 years.
The recent surge in Republican support would ostensibly threaten the City Council’s two Working Families Party members. They are most vulnerable to electoral challenges to win back support from Republican lawmakers. But they will be safe until 2027, by which time many voters will likely be dissatisfied with the Trump administration, and by then Democrats will likely rise again in Philadelphia.
Lisa Lake/Getty Images for MoveOn
2. Will Krasner stay or go?
The most-watched city election in 2025 will be the district attorney race, and it seems like it could be ripe for change.
The incumbent is Larry Krasner, who was first elected in 2017 as part of the post-Trump progressive wave. He won another decisive victory in 2021 against a Democratic primary challenger with major support from the Fraternal Order of Police.
But as Parker’s mayoral race and Trump’s presidential campaign suggest, Krasner may face voters seeking a more law-and-order message in May 2025. Philadelphia’s prosecutor’s office has historically been a bastion of conservative Democrats and even Republicans. Mr. Krasner could face a more significant challenger this time around, especially in the primary.
Christon Jay Bethel/AFP via Getty Images
3. Kensington standing at the crossroads
Parker has benefited from a sharp decline in crime and violence following a spike during the pandemic. But she also increased the police budget to hire 400 new officers. It hired Police Chief Kevin Bethel from within, who had previously won praise for his work on diversion and juvenile justice. and focused on quality of life issues, such as cracking down on ATV gangs.
Parker also focuses specifically on the Kensington area and its notorious open-air drug market. This is especially important. Because Kensington contributes significantly to the unfortunate situation of being a leader in drug overdose deaths.
The drug trade was also suppressing development and property values in gentrifying areas, and thus property tax revenues. From my perspective, Kensington Cleaning is expected to provide the highest return on investment in the city.
Spencer Pratt/Getty Images
4. Parker administration vs. Trump administration
Of course, another new issue the city will have to contend with in 2025 is the incoming Trump administration.
The former Trump administration clashed with then-Mayor Jim Kenney in 2016 over the city’s sanctuary policy regarding federal immigration enforcement. Essentially, the Kenney administration won and got back the federal aid that had been withheld.
If Parker intends to maintain some kind of sanctuary status for the city, he could find himself in a tough situation. The Trump administration (not a friend of Philadelphia under the best of circumstances) has met with less resistance and, to some extent, as seen in Chicago, where some aldermen have proposed removing the city’s sanctuary status. likely to face acquiescence.
The president-elect has also repeatedly announced his intention to deploy the military for mass deportations, thereby avoiding necessary cooperation from local law enforcement. This is an important issue because immigrants are an important economic asset for Philadelphia. Immigrants in Philadelphia tend to be younger, more likely to participate in the workforce, and more likely to start businesses than native Philadelphians, according to research from the Pew Charitable Trusts.
Matthew Hatcher/AFP via Getty Images
5. Stalled Market East
And then there was the proposed 76ers arena downtown, which was approved by the City Council on a 12-5 vote in December 2024 and completely abolished in early January 2025. Was this entire project simply some kind of bargaining chip used by Sixers owners and management? Could South Philadelphia get a more lucrative deal from Comcast Spectacore, which owns the team’s current home at the Wells Fargo Center?
Either way, the whole project is sure to leave a bad taste in the mouths of Chinatown businesses and other interest groups who opposed the new stadium and felt they were being sold on by the mayor and city council. But the next municipal and mayoral elections won’t be held until 2027, so by the time elected officials are punished at the polls, all is likely to be forgotten.
The failure of the downtown stadium deal opens up the future of the East Market Street corridor. The proposed arena was part of the re-envisioning of the Fashion District, a redevelopment project by the Pennsylvania Real Estate Investment Trust that opened in 2019. PREIT has since filed for bankruptcy twice after the pandemic and rising interest rates led to store closures and financial problems. . In addition, Macy’s, the corridor’s anchor tenant, announced it would close its store in the historic Wanamaker Building next to City Hall.
Market East, which is essentially the city’s gateway, doesn’t seem well-suited for the 2026 celebrations planned as part of the nation’s 250th anniversary. In fact, the Constitution was drafted at Independence Hall, part of the Market East Corridor. Although it seems highly unlikely that things will get any better in 2025, there are plans to convert this space into apartments or small shops.
Other major infrastructure projects are also likely to work in the mayor’s favor, most notably a new park covering a portion of I-95 that will reconnect the Delaware Riverfront with the Society Hill and Old City neighborhoods. is. This is expected to be completed during Mr. Parker’s first term.
Jeff Fusco, The Conversation US, CC BY-NC-SA
6. Inflation and housing
And finally, one of the bigger issues in the last presidential election was the housing affordability crisis. The crisis is a little less intense in Philadelphia than in other major cities, but it’s still real.
However, in a sense, this city has also been fortunate in some ways. 2021 was the last year developers could take full advantage of the city’s 10-year tax break for new construction, which resulted in a record number of building permits being granted in the same year.
The number of building permits in 2022 plummeted to 2013 levels. Nevertheless, the 2021 permits are likely to cause a building boom, especially in residential construction, keeping home prices lower than they would otherwise be. This trend is expected to continue through 2025, even if the amount of new permits declines further.
