Billionaires may shape Philly’s landscape, but they do not define our character

One day, many years ago now, my late, great editor at the Philadelphia Daily News, Gar Joseph — a kind and cantankerous man who was as close to the Daily Planet’s Perry White as they come — stood in the newsroom and shouted, “I’ll never understand rich people!”

I forget what prompted his outburst, but the more I live, the more I get what he meant. First, despite playing some amazing Powerball numbers over the years, I’ve never hit the jackpot. So, while I’m incredibly fortunate and privileged in many ways, I am not monetarily rich and don’t know what it feels like to have unlimited disposable income.

Second, the more I see some rich people’s actions, the more befuddled I am by their decisions. In the last year alone, we’ve seen billionaires use social media networks, newspapers, communities, and entire systems of government as pawns or leverage to stay rich or get richer.

And now, it’s happened in Philadelphia, with the Sixers surprise decision to stay at the South Philly sports complex and to not build their own arena on Market East — after putting the city and its people, particularly the Chinatown community, through two years of hearings, headaches, and haranguing.

At Monday’s City Hall press conference on the matter, Sixers owner Josh Harris said: “Actually, we were really committed to Market East, but … our north star was doing the right thing by Philly.”

Somewhere in the distance, I could have sworn I heard a rim shot — not from a basketball hoop, but from a drum — because I knew this man must be joking.

Comcast Spectacor, the parent company of the Wells Fargo Center, never wanted the 76ers, which are owned by Harris' Blitzer Sports Entertainment, to leave the facility it shares with the Flyers at the South Philly Sports Complex. Comcast offered to work to keep them there but once the Sixers announced their plans for their own stadium on Market East, they said they wouldn’t stay in South Philly — no way, no how — after their lease expired in 2031.

If the Sixers “north star” was doing right by Philly, and they now agree that staying in South Philly is the best thing for Philly, which star did they follow to get to Market East in the first place? Which was the star that had them threatening to leave for Camden?

And what made Harris and the Sixers change their mind after two years of controversy, courting politicians, and a city council vote approving the move?

It wasn’t the people of Philadelphia or an altruistic passion to do good for this city, but another rich guy, NBA commissioner Adam Silver. It was Silver, who my colleagues reported, put an end to the feud between Harris and Comcast chair and CEO Brian Roberts, another billionaire.

Whatever the reason for the 180-decision, the fate of this major project was not decided by the people or the politicians we elected to represent us, but by billionaires who may never reveal what fueled their choices, because, frankly, they don’t have to.

In my experience as a journalist, the richer someone is, the less likely they are to share anything about themselves or their decisions. I’ve found people with very little tend to be far more generous with their stories, time, and information. Maybe that’s because they have less to lose, but I’d like to think it’s because they know the importance of giving.

And this, in a way, maybe what my old editor was trying to get at — not just that he’ll never understand rich people, but that most of us will never understand rich people because they make wacky decisions sometimes and keep things incredibly close to the vest.

It’s disheartening to know a small group of billionaires can have so much influence on this city and its future, especially since despite all that influence and money, Philadelphia remains the poorest big city in America. These billionaires aren’t major city-champion philanthropists like we’ve seen in other cities (Michael Bloomberg in New York, the Broads in Los Angeles) — they’re not here to enrich the city, as they claim, but to enrich themselves. Why are we relying on a football player and not these team owners to help ensure our public schools have air-conditioning? (And why doesn’t the city already have the allocated money to get it done?)

It’s easy to feel helpless and hopeless. If even our politicians can be played by billionaires, what hope is there that everyday people can make any difference? I’ve sat with this question and the shred of hope I’ve found is that while the billionaires may shape our buildings and institutions, they do not define our character.

The character of this city — our kind-but-not-necessarily-nice attitude, our tough-but-soft-inside heart, our brutal honesty, and our underdog spirit — comes from the everyday people of Philadelphia, not from billionaires. It comes from the folks who walk Market East to get to work everyday, and don’t just pontificate about it; the people with nothing who’ll give everything they have to help someone in need; and the strangers who share unexpected moments of kindness like the folks who gathered at the Mifflin Triangle in South Philly this month to help someone say goodbye to her dog before she had to put her down, because there was nothing the dog liked more than “a stranger with food.”

In this entire two-year Sixers debacle, you know what the most Philly part was? The No Arena Coalition protests.

Protesters held a fashion show, they released a music video parodying Miley Cyrus' “Wrecking Ball,” and during one protest alone, they had the Philly Elmo Drumline, the Indonesian Harley Davidson Club, puppets, and the Bearded Ladies Cabaret’s Beardmobile.

All of that wackiness made more sense to me — and said more about the character of this city — than all of the decisions made by the billionaires.