atlantic city is ending the year in motion. parades happened. venues filled. work continued. (re: a recent disappointing phil inquirer piece)

i SO was disappointed to read the philadelphia inquirer piece on atlantic city.

not because the reporting was factually wrong, but because it leaned so heavily into a familiar crisis framing that this city has worn for decades. the headline tells you what to think before you’re allowed to look around. trial. fire. fear. repeat.

the article stacks the mayor’s trial, new york casinos, and the peanut world fire into a single narrative and calls it a diagnosis. uncertainty is treated like a condition instead of a constant. atlantic city has always lived with uncertainty. it is not new here, and it is not something people wait around for permission to survive.

what the piece misses, deliberately, is agency. it treats atlantic city like a patient under observation instead of a place where people actually live. residents appear as quotes, not as drivers. the city is framed as something that keeps almost working despite itself, instead of something that works because of informal systems, stubborn locals, and parallel economies that do not need permission slips to function.

what’s missing are the things that don’t fit the frame. the holiday parade and market that brought the community out in real numbers. local groups showing up. families lingering.vendors actually doing business in the cold. the recent arteriors run, which proved that ambitious, thoughtful programming can thrive here, and its continued life through c.r.o.ps, keeping that space active and accessible instead of letting it go dark. this is what continuity looks like in atlantic city. not permanence, but reuse.

there is also a strange refusal to acknowledge the boring, unglamorous work of maintenance. streets are being paved. literally. entire stretches of atlantic avenue and surrounding roads are actively being resurfaced right now. that may not photograph as well as a fire, but it matters to the people who live here and use those streets every day.

the article also ignores the cultural infrastructure that continues to hold steady. anchor rock club, the seed, the noyes, hayday coffee and other local venues are consistently providing space for live music and community programming. these are not vanity projects. they are working rooms. the atlantic city aquarium is back up and running, bringing families, school groups, and visitors back to a public asset that had been dormant for years. none of this fits neatly into a collapse narrative, so it goes unmentioned.

peanut world burning is sad. it matters. but it is not a thesis. it becomes one because symbolism is doing overtime. a single fire is asked to stand in for an entire city’s condition because it photographs well and fits the story people already expect to read.

the comments beneath the article follow the same pattern. familiar cynicism. easy conclusions. the city reduced to corruption jokes and fatalism by people who don’t have to live here once they’ve closed the tab. crisis framing invites that response. it trains readers to dismiss instead of look closer.

the piece leans on consultants, developers, and outside voices to speculate about the city’s future while residents appear mostly as reactions. there is little attention paid to how people here are already building their own version of stability through routines, businesses, events, and mutual support that exist regardless of who is in power that week.

atlantic city is not pretending everything is fine. it knows exactly what its problems are. but it is also doing what it has always done. gathering. adjusting. continuing. courtrooms and cocktail bars stay busy at the same time. governance stumbles while daily life keeps its balance. outside forces keep predicting collapse while inside forces quietly adapt.

the city doesn’t need another dramatic headline to understand itself. it needs attention that can hold more than one truth at a time. if you look beyond the crisis framing, there’s a lot here worth paying attention to. and a lot of people already doing the work.

atlantic city is ending the year doing fine, actually

you can read the article here: https://www.inquirer.com/news/new-jersey/atlantic-city-mayor-trial-casinos-new-york-20251214.html

Ps - thanks to our friends over at crops for creating this great map:

https://www.canva.com/design/DAGqpS5DjZ0/jCnvLMa2xgvrq15Fm6DggA/view?utm_content=DAGqpS5DjZ0&utm_campaign=designshare&utm_medium=link2&utm_source=uniquelinks&utlId=h9cb47c6dec