The city is still about 500k people below its peak population. In theory, there should be lots of room! (Much has been lost to blight though.)

The main issue is that a lot of people write off large swaths of the city because of crime. They tends to have a very short list of areas they’re actually willing to live in. Much of that is some of the densest residential areas in the country, so it’s hard to argue that land use is that bad. In fact, many places with bad land use often point to parts of Philly as a rare example where it’s not terrible in this country.

Like, there’s lots of areas along the MFL and BSL that, in theory, have good density, Walkability, transit access, good mix of commercial and residential. The land use is actually pretty solid, but it’s a shit show in terms of crime and opioids and it’s that that really limits living options.