Bleak fictional peek into city's difficult future

Former Inquirer colmunist Tom Ferrick has a fictional and still unfolding peek into the city's future up at his new publication PHLMetropolis. Ferrick's take is based on what he sees as the not-so-long-term consequences of the city's tax and spending policies, which, with a little bad luck and another recession, could yield a one year budgt deficit of $450 million by 2019-2020.

It's not a pretty picture. The city's infrastructure is literally falling apart and killing people in Ferrick's fictional future, and the elected leaders - Blondell Reynolds Brown is the mayor, Mike Huckabee is the president, and Butler County State Rep. Daryl Metcalfe is governor - are not exactly inspiring confidence.

But wait, John Street could be coming to the rescue...

Click here for Philly.com's politics page.