There’s two main residential parking situations in Philly.

There are PPA permitted blocks that have parking time restrictions unless you have a PPA parking permit for that district (only available to residents of that district), and the PPA will aggressively ticket violators.

Then, there’s the non-permit residential blocks where, in theory, the police enforce parking rules, but never do, and people do whatever they want, like park on the sidewalk.

I’m assuming this person is talking about the residential PPA district parking permit.