Drexel chief Fry warns Philly Chamber: Smaller cities 'eating our lunch'

Philadelphians might be feeling self-congratulatory about the estimated $11 billion invested in the Comcast and FMC headquarters towers, in the suburban-like Navy Yard office campus, in University City labs and clinics, and in the apartments, retail and restaurants transforming Center City and the college neighborhoods, and other new construction over the past three years.

But cranes on the skyline aren't enough to make Philadelphia the "world class" globally-connected knowledge, wealth and employment center city leaders keep talking about, Drexel University President John Fry told 1,400 Chamber of Commerce of Greater Philadelphia members at the group's yearly Pennsylvani Convention Center conclave.

A couple of dozen cities worldwide will likely prosper disproportionately from the new technology transforming communcations and medicine, and Philly has the basics -- research scientists, a rich corporate history, affordable homes, rapid transit, Fry said, citing Brookings Institute research. But smaller cities like Pittsburgh or Stockholm -- he didn't need to mention Boston or Seattle -- look more focused on turning local brainwork into successful companies with spectacular hometown offices. Despite Philadelphia's "historic" new construction pace, there is little "sense of urgency" here, he told the crowd: "As we sit down to breakfast, they may be ready to eat our lunch."

Fry called on Philly business leaders to back efforts to grow Philadelphia companies at home.

He praised Comcast second-generation CEO-Chairman Brian Roberts as "a visionary." But generally, local academic and business institutions need to work more closely together to avoid becoming what urban sociologist Manuel Castells calls a "globally connected (but) locally disconnected" string of ivory towers among a slow-growing business community and a large population of poor people, Fry concluded.

Roberts spoke later, taking softball questions on stage from Comcast NBC White House reporter Kristen Welker, whose mother Juliet Welker is a well-known Philadelphia real estate brokeage owner and past City Council candidate.

Roberts, as he often has in the past, praised Philadelphia as his home since childhood and an attractive place for Comcast to operate, adding that the new Comcast tower will be an unusually urban tech campus, where he hopes engineers will bike to work.