Philadelphia Culture

Philadelphia has a strong and slightly combative identity, formed by sitting between two larger cities and refusing to be a suburb of either. Directness is a civic virtue here.

The Mural Arts Program, begun in 1984 as an anti-graffiti initiative, has produced several thousand works and made this the most muralled city in the country. Most are in neighbourhoods rather than downtown.

Sport is close to a civic religion, and the reputation of the crowds is earned and rather enjoyed locally. The Mummers Parade on New Year's Day — string bands, feathers and a tradition running to the seventeenth century — is the city's strangest and most characteristic event.

The accent is genuinely distinctive: water is "wooder", and jawn is an all-purpose noun that can mean essentially anything.