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Is Philly too cocky for the DNC?

If you haven't been in Philadelphia for a while and are just hitting town this weekend for the Democratic National Convention, you may be in for something of a shock on your cab or Uber ride into Center City.

If you haven't been in Philadelphia for a while and are just hitting town this weekend for the Democratic National Convention, you may be in for something of a shock on your cab or Uber ride into Center City.

Yes, the ugly tangle of steel tubes and white-smoke-belching stacks of the refinery are still around, but in 2016, you may be too distracted by the cranes and skyward push of Comcast's newest skyscraper to notice that much. Take that hard right up the bank of the Schuylkill, and you'll see a medical center that looks like a Walt Disneyesque city of the future, and a lush new park on your left, a stream of urban hikers and bikers on the nifty river boardwalk to your right.

You just won't see the biggest change in Philadelphia in the 16 years since our last political shindig, the Republican Convention in 2000.

The change is in Philadelphia's once-battered psyche, the soul of our urban machine.

The repair job on our city's once-famously low self-esteem has been arguably the biggest psychological breakthrough since Sigmund Freud puffed on his pipe and watched a train go through a tunnel. Today, the onetime City of Brotherly Self-Loathing strides through the lists of America's hot cities with a swagger worthy of hip-hop's Jay Z (who tapped Philadelphia for his annual Labor Day music fest), wiping the stale chip off our shoulder.

In the run-up to this week's Democratic confab, in a year when the broader nation seems gripped in a nonstop anxiety attack, the city's no-sweat confidence has been remarkable. In fact, we may have taken this a tad too far. Let me explain.

You have to go back to November 1998, and the day then-Mayor Ed Rendell - a New Yorker by birth, a manic whirlwind who never bought into the "Negadelphia" views of many of his constituents - announced the Republican National Convention was coming here. Remember Sally Field's famous Oscar speech? "You like me! You really like me!" Philadelphia said that, too - but with a string of question marks.

In the late 1990s, the nation's opinion-makers mostly saw Philadelphia as the blur of crumbling and graffiti-covered century-old widget factories that they sped past at 130 m.p.h. on the Metroliner between New York and D.C. The only journalists who came here were sportswriters, who obsessed on the fan ugliness in the 700 Level of the circular concrete stadium ugliness of the Vet - whipped by a 25-year title drought. Almost nobody knows about this, but there had even once been a day when Philadelphia fans booed Santa Claus and pelted him with snowballs.

OK, that last part was sarcasm. The reality was that the Industrial Revolution had collapsed, and no one had a Plan B. Much of the understandable rage got channeled into racial issues; indeed, in late 1998, Philadelphia was consumed by the latest in a string of mayoral elections in which blacks voted for the black guy and whites voted for the white guy.

In the 20 months between the announcement of the 2000 RNC and the actual event, the newspapers were filled with scores of articles about the convention preparation, almost all with the same subtext: Will Philadelphia somehow blow its shot at redemption in the national spotlight?

The GOP showcase was a huge success. Well, not for America . . . remember George W. Bush? But it was a success for the host city. The streets glittered (literally, thanks to glass mixed into the asphalt). Muhammad Ali and Arnold Schwarzenegger partied in a shoe store. The fact that order was preserved by arrest-happy city cops didn't get the attention it deserved.

Nonetheless, Philadelphia built on that. We hosted other big parties - the Live 8 concert and, most recently, Pope Francis. The Phillies defined the new city by winning the series amid Chase Utley's brash declaration that we were "world (bleepin') champs." Comatose old-factory neighborhoods were revived with a youthful infusion of craft beer and taco meat. In our politics, whites started voting for the black guy and blacks started voting for the white guy.

It has been striking how little attention - compared to the angst of 1999 and 2000 - has been paid to the looming DNC. The vibe is completely reversed. We got this. Low civic esteem has become overconfidence, even cockiness.

That's not necessarily a good thing.

A few weeks ago, maintenance workers for SEPTA found alarming cracks in the underbelly of about a third of its commuter rail cars - the newer ones, the result of a contract doled out to a firm lacking the right experience but promising to bring some increasingly rare blue-collar jobs to town. The train crisis could make Philadelphia even harder to get around this week. It's also perhaps a metaphor for some deeper cracks in our civic underpinnings.

Meanwhile, overconfidence bleeds into arrogance. Unlike 2000, this year's DNC Host Committee has rejected transparency and insisted on keeping the names of its donors secret until after the convention - triggering protests and even a half-dozen arrests. You want to talk about cracks in the underpinning? Democrats will be welcomed to the Wells Fargo Center by a state and local party with epic numbers of its leaders convicted (ex-Rep. Chaka Fattah, ex-Treasurer Rob McCord), indicted (Attorney General Kathleen Kane, State Sen. Larry Farnese) or under investigation.

Here's a reality check: Philadelphia's comeback has been separate and unequal, fueled by gross income inequality that, in turn, is greased by political corruption. Anger over these same issues has fueled the Bernie Sanders political revolution - and it's why thousands of disaffected progressives are streaming into Philadelphia to protest and speak out. I'm not convinced the city is 100 percent prepared.

The next four days may prove whether Philadelphia is as good as Philadelphians say it is. Or whether we'll party like it's 1998.

215-854-2957 @Will_Bunch

ph.ly/Attytood.com