This is a nice visualisation but it's not clear to me what the purpose of it is - other than the immediate "WOW look how much is spent on Police + Prisons!" that struck me. Or is it simply a "check it out, I know what comprises Philadelphia's budget...".
I'm a total outsider so I admit it's entirely likely that this means something to folks living there. But either way it would be nice if there was a little blurb on what he's trying to say or some attempt to explain what the budget would look like if he was elected. As it is this is simply "Look at this budget, just look at it".
It also seemed odd to me that so much was under "Finance Department". I'd figured Finance would cover the actual bookkeepers, interest on bonds, and other things related to money in the abstract. From its size that budget must also be "Stuff that doesn't go anywhere else".
In most cities this also covers revenues, aka tax collection. It would be nice to see the breakdown on how much of the budget is dedicated to collecting taxes to fund the budget.
When you drill down you get to the actual entries in the budget that correspond to the particular thing you are looking at.
It was interesting all the Director of Finance salaries of 900K - 1.4M. Seems like a lot of money to pay a civil servant but I may have been misreading the budget item.
I was looking at things like this:
192 FICA TAXES 0192 DIRECTOR OF FINANCE - - - 2012 - $1,369,489.56 PPE 07/10/2011 FICA MATCH CITY OF PHILADELPHIA
Seems to suggest that this director made $1,369,489.56 in compensation.
Nothing compared to the $15 million it shows as total compensation for the sheriff. (Don't know how to link it; just go to the farthest-right gray square that touches the bottom of the overall rectangle.)
If you had been to Philly recently it would make total sense how much money is spent on police and prisons. They're doing yeoman's work making the city habitable again.
EDIT: No offense to Philly, but it's by a large margin the most dangerous city with more than 1 million people in the U.S. And that danger isn't as segregated as it is in say Chicago or New York, making policing harder.
Due-south/south-east are fine, southwest is awful (~15th and west). West is okay provided you don't go further than, say, 40th. North is a warzone aside from the narrow strip following the Schuylkill river. Fishtown is okay.
Thankfully the Delaware river provides an adequate barrier between east Philly and Baghdad... err, I mean Camden. You can go as far east in Pennsylvania as you like and be fine.
Philadelphia is sort of an inversion of the stereotypical "ghetto in the middle, suburb surrounding" model, the main line being an exception to this.
No problem! I lived in Philly off and on (mostly on) for 5 or 6 years up until about a year ago. The 'grunge'/grime is probably a bit of a culture shock at first (depending on what you are used to) but it's a pretty nice city once you get over that.
If I were to move back, I would probably outside of the 'city' Philly along the main line. Lowest grime-factor there is, as far as I know.
Unless you've got kids or are going to school, I'd live in center city. For a fairly small and completely walkable area, it's got variety, from high rise apartments to "George Washington slept here" houses two blocks south. Best overall option in the city. Or live outside the city, but that's not living in a city.
The campus is nice, but it'll push you west. Unless you're going to Penn, there's no advantage to living at, say, 40th and Spruce vs 20th and Spruce.
I walked all over the city looking at neighborhoods. If I were doing it over, I'd start at one river and walk down Market to the other, then back on Walnut, then back on Pine, then back on South. That's like 3-4 hours and gives a good feel for the area.
I'm a total outsider so I admit it's entirely likely that this means something to folks living there. But either way it would be nice if there was a little blurb on what he's trying to say or some attempt to explain what the budget would look like if he was elected. As it is this is simply "Look at this budget, just look at it".