Table produced by Atlantic Cities

Philadelphia ranks 9th on an Atlantic Cities list of most powerful U.S. cities, behind Dallas and a step ahead of Miami.

Given that Philadelphia tends to qualitatively compare itself to east coast brethren like Washington D.C. and Boston, ranked 3rd and 4th respectively, coming in 9th suggests quite a bit of room for quantitative improvement.

The list was generated by applying Atlantic Cities Senior Editor Richard Florida’s Combined Global City Index just to U.S. cities. On a global scale, New York, LA and Chicago were the only U.S. cities to make the cut, according to The Atlantic.

More than 2,000 IT job openings this year ended with awkward stock photo handshakes like this.

The Philadelphia region had 2,163 open IT jobs in January, a 26 percent increase from a year ago, and the 10th highest total in the country, according to a list compiled by IT Business Edge using Dice.com data.

“While the economy remains tight, IT job availability continues to outpace other sectors, especially in hard-to-fill skill areas. Tech hiring managers are resolute in their staffing priorities for 2012 — they need innovative professionals who design, code, build and operate. Indeed, developers dominate the new year’s most pressing hiring needs for a second straight year, although ops professionals make their list debut.

A combined New York and New Jersey total topped the list, followed by a combined D.C./Baltimore region and Silicon Valley. Philly was beat out by Chicago, Los Angeles, Boston, Atlanta, Dallas and Seattle.

Other big cities like Houston, Phoenix and San Diego didn’t make the list, but still, as the country’s fifth largest, there’s surely more room for IT sector growth.

• Is Philadelphia in Decline? New Report Shows a City with Marked Challenges [The Daily Beast] “The city’s unemployment rate is 10.5 percent, significantly higher than the country’s average. Its real-estate market has dropped substantially every year since 2005. And its K-12 enrollment has slowly receded, as more students turn to charter schools than ones run by the public district, but with fewer students in the city overall. Violent crimes have increased over the past few years, and the poverty rate—one of every four people—is now among the highest of the country’s.” The story was answered by an op-ed from former Inquirer city hall reporter Patrick Kerkstra.
• Local group to buy Phila. Media Network for $55 million [Philadelphia Inquirer] Later in the week, the New York Times and other outlets reported that Bill Marrimow, former Editor of the Philadelphia Inquirer from 2006-2010 will return as Editor under the new leadership.
• Hack Philly: Deadline Extended to April 9th [Hack Philly] “Hack is an open call for technology-based projects. We are asking for a range of works: From 2D to 3D works, applications, wearable’s, installation, objects, and performances.” Hack will take place during Philly Tech Week.
• Ten States Where Green Jobs Thrive  [24/7 Wall St.] Philadelphia is number 8. “Green job growth in Pennsylvania is slower than the national average growth of clean economy jobs. Public mass transit is the largest green segment for employment in the state, employing nearly 25,000 people.”
• Philadelphia: Texting While Walking Is No Joke [NPR] “Philadelphia has installed a pilot lane for distracted pedestrians. The first of its kind in the world, the lane was installed on a city sidewalk just in time for April Fools Day. The lane will be up all week as a creative campaign to raise awareness on pedestrian safety. “
• Philly gets a credit upgrade — still, only Detroit has a worse rating [The Naked City: City Paper]
• Should an Eco Brand Put Money Before Mission? [Inc.]
• His mission: To rid Philly of ‘bandit’ signs [Daily News] — Using a website to crowd source solutions

• The 10 most social media savvy City Halls in America [PR Daily] Philadelphia ranks 9th, tied with Long Beach, CA. “A new study from the University of Illinois at Chicago ranked the 75 largest cities in America by their government’s social media acumen.”
• Fresh food and “connectivity” coming soon to Front and Norris [Plan Philly] “A small grocery store and cafe with free wi-fi, take-out or eat-in American and Middle Eastern dishes and free community space is set to soon open at the corner of Front and Norris streets, beneath the Market-Frankford El. Mike Ahmad and Walid Mustafa will open the doors of their 5,000 square-foot establishment, called Liberty Choice, in early-April.”
• InstaMed another Phila. tech firm on the upswing [Philadelphia Business Journal] “Marvin said InstaMed is looking to add 10 people to its staff of 85.”
• New advertising software automates ad-buying – and cuts out workers [Joe DiStefano/Philadelphia Inquirer] “Jeremy Bloom – former Olympic skier, Philadelphia Eagle, and nonprofit-foundation boss – has been raising millions for his next career: replacing corporate ad-purchase professionals with automatic ad-view and spend-tracking software.”

• Smartphone App Makes It Easier To Locate Liquor In PA [Geekadelphia] “That’s right – a new free application, titled Fine Wine & Good Spirits, was released by the LCB at the end of February. The app provides searchable databases of alcohol and alcohol stores, a feature that allows people to search out nearby locales, shop for wines online, and get more information about a beverage in which they have interest. There are currently about 40,000 products included in the application.”
• Senate Passes Crowdfunding Bill With Added Protections for Nonaccredited Investors [All Things D]
• Venture Capital and Entrepreneurial Communities Commend Congress on Passage of The JOBS Act [National Venture Capital Assocation]
• Kembrel’s Killer Business Model: A Pop-Up with Weekly Flash Sales [215 Magazine]
• University of the Sciences Names Dr. Helen F. Giles-Gee Its 22nd President [PR NewsWire]
• Shunra and Jamo Solutions Announce Integration Points For vCat and M-Eux [MarketWatch]
• Arduino Show & Tell @ The Hacktory in April [Geekadelphia]
• WTF is Michael Jordan Wearing: The Viral Blog With Philly Roots [Geekadelphia]
• Spotlight on NJ Tech Startups: Mount Laurel-based UFeud’s Jared Scherz [Philly Tech News]
• Bentley Donates Software to Engineers Without Borders – USA in Support of Volunteers’ Important Work Sustaining Infrastructure [BusinessWire]
• Oracle set to update analytics strategy, go after SAP customers  [NetworkWorld]
• Fitocracy Finally Exits Private Beta, Celebrates With A New iOS App [TechCrunch]
• Exporting America: Groverman Blazes Global Entrepreneurial Trail [Flying Kite]

In terms of how fast on average you can download something off the web, Philadelphia ranks eighth out of 35 U.S. cities with populations greater than 500,000, according to a 2011 broadband study Pando Networks released last week.

Philly edged out Chicago, Los Angeles, Houston and others with a download speed of 723 KiloBytes per second (KBps). Austin led the pack with a speed of 841 KBps, followed by San Francisco, Seattle and New York, as smeet.org reported.

Below find the full ranking from smeet.org (emphasis added):

1. Austin 841
2. San Francisco 828
3. Boston 827
4. Seattle 805
5. New York 787
6. Baltimore 781
7. Washington DC 750
8. Philadelphia 723
9. Louisville 701
10. Chicago 692
11. Los Angeles 665
12. San Jose 661
13. Indianapolis 657
14. Milwaukee 635
15. Fresno 633
16. Portland 630
17. Sacramento 629
18. Tucson 625
19. Nashville 624
20. San Diego 612
21. Dallas 604
22. Jacksonville 600
23. Columbus 595
24. Las Vegas 592
25. Phoenix 581
26. Memphis 581
27. Houston 579
28. Detroit 565
29. Charlotte 560
30. San Antonio 555
31. Denver 550
32. Albuquerque 537
33. OK City 518
34. Fort Worth 517
35. El Paso 483

Philadelphia ranks among the top cities for social enterprise. Infographic produced by Give to Get Jobs and Visual.ly

Philadelphia is rising to the top of the charts in a duo of rankings that tell a positive story about where this city’s economy is headed.

Give To Get Jobs, a social enterprise job search site, which is creating a Social Enterprise Database, ranked Philadelphia 10th among other top U.S. cities for social enterprise in its analysis of the state of social enterprise. Cities and urban area leading Philadelphia include, the Bay Area, New York, the LA and Orange county dyad, Boston, Washington DC, Portland, Chicago, Seattle and Boulder.

The full infographic, “The State of Social Enterprise,” is available here.

Philadelphia is also the 30th most competitive city on the planet according to a report called, “Hot spots: Benchmarking global city competitiveness [PDF],” produced by the Citigroup commissioned Economist Intelligence Unit.

The ranking was derived from an overall competitiveness score that was produced by evaluating the city’s economic strength, physical capital, financial maturity, institutional effectiveness, social and cultural character, human capital, environmental hazards, and global appeal.

Philadelphia scored well in institutional effectiveness (tied for 10th place) and human capital (16th place), but placed near the middle of the pack in terms of physical capital (tied for 36th place), economic strength (tied for 44th place), financial maturity (tied for 33rd place), social and cultural character (tied for 31st place), and environmental hazards (tied for 43rd place). The city tied Santiago for 50th place in terms of global appeal and ranked 13th out of 15 North American cities, so there’s room for improvement.

Still, the report evaluated 120 global cities, and Philadelphia beat out high profile cities like Berlin, Oslo, Beijing and Rome.

For more information on global city competitiveness, you can download a PDF of the report.

The 10th best read Technically Philly story of the year focused on broadband adoption in Philadelphia.

What is the end of December if not full of inevitable year in reviews?

We at Technically Philly are always interested in seeing what were the 10 best read stories of the year, so we collected the 2011 batch.

10. Where will broadband competition take Philadelphia?

See the rest of the top 10 below.

9. myYearbook sold for $100 million

8. Play Eternal becomes Philly’s first high-budget video game studio

7. Naked Philly outed as OCF Realty, to launch real estate tool

6. Apps for SEPTA hackathon features new data sources and mass transit projects [VIDEO]

5. Adel Ebeid: Meet the first ever Chief Innovation Officer of the City of Philadelphia [and our follow up Q&A]

4. This is Not a Cheesesteak: new Tumblr follows the worst cheesesteak variations

3. Philadelphia Media Network Android tablet Arnova 10 G2 hands-on [VIDEO]

2. Google’s Philadelphia office hideout

1. TransitView: SEPTA unveils real-time bus and trolley app, also SMS and smartphone schedules

EVEN in Philadelphia, with its 40,000 vacant properties and a quarter of its population living below the poverty line, the Kensington neighborhood still shocks. On a frigid afternoon, a prostitute lingers in the shadow of the elevated train tracks, waiting restlessly for customers. Husks of long-closed factories stand amid thigh-high winter wheat. Streams of garbage flow down the streets, as if both the people and the city government had agreed to forsake the effort of propriety.

We’ve pulled together a list of our 11 most trafficked stories from 2010.

You can notice things like:

• Oh, yes, people like lists. You know, in case you didn’t already know that.
• Original reporting really drives traffic: Five of these 11 posts involved actual reporting, two were lists and one was the winner of a contest we created and just one was mostly aggregation, by way of posting a video someone else created. Doesn’t that bode well? We think so.

11. Science Leadership Academy: A new model for schools — Feb. 9

Below find our 10 most trafficked posts in 2010.

10. Smart home technology increases automation while lowering energy consumption — May 4

9. 10 Twitter users every Philadelphian should follow — July 27

8. Ten most followed Philadelphia Twitter users — March 30

7. Comcast COO makes most expensive Philly rowhome purchase ever — Aug. 11

6. 10 ugliest websites in Philadelphia — voter’s choice awards — Dec. 7

5. myDunkTank.com makes a cowboy out of Blake Jennelle — July 23

4.CEO: Inquirer to host startup incubator next year — Nov. 3

3. Review: Sprint 4G WiMAX wireless service in Philadelphia — May 5

2. 10 coolest (mostly interactive) online maps of Philadelphia — Sept. 28

1. Our City of Philadelphia logo design contest winner: Sara DeMarco — Jan 5.

Any favorites of these stories?

The creative economies of Philadelphia are still small but jobs in those sectors held relatively stable during the build up to the Great Recession, according to a William Penn Foundation-funded report released last week. The creative economy included jobs like graphic designers and animators and spanned from 2006 to 2008.

Commissioned by the Mayor’s Office of the Arts, Culture and Creative Economy and its chief Gary Steuer, the Nutter administration quickly trumpeted the research as showing a vibrant creative community.

The report showed a region that spent money on the creative arts above the national average but was still behind in those sector jobs. More up to date numbers, which will reflect more of the pains from the current recession, are due out in the spring.

From Inquirer columnist Mike Armstrong’s take: