What’s not to love?

Although Philadelphia is the second largest city on the East Coast and the fifth largest in the U.S., most business and tourism takes place in the easily manageable and yet cosmopolitan downtown known as Center City. This vibrant area stretches just over 20 blocks between two rivers—the Delaware and the Schuylkill—and is so jam-packed with museums, historical destinations, parks, cultural events, cafés, top-notch shopping, restaurants and bars that business travelers will find themselves wanting to schedule a few extra meetings to extend their stay.

It wasn’t always this way. Not long ago, Center City went through a major slump, with hordes of residents flocking to the suburbs and graduates of the more than two dozen area colleges heading to New York for work and play. But the new millennium brought with it an onslaught of development and a sparkly new image, and people have taken notice. Suburbanites find themselves buying million-dollar condos in town, while wealthy New Yorkers are buying second homes here—so many, in fact, that The New York Times last year declared Philadelphia “the sixth borough,” and National Geographic recently labeled Philadelphia the Next Great American City.

The city’s character

Philadelphia is at once gritty and glitzy. Dive bars happily coexist with opulent bottle-service lounges. Some of the best restaurants in the country are here, and yet everyone who visits seems to want the ultimate street food: the Philly cheesesteak. Similarly, while the city is shedding some of its baggage and becoming a first-rate destination, it still has its share of problems, and crime is the one that tends to get the most attention. While Center City is generally safe, it’s best to stick to well-lit, populated streets and, if you’re going more than a few blocks at night, there are plenty of cabs available to shuttle you back and forth. That said, locals are usually a very friendly, helpful bunch. If you get lost or need help, it’s not hard to find someone willing to live up to Philadelphia’s nickname, the City of Brotherly Love.