Talk about the homicide rates, the drug problems and the political corruption all you want: According to Americans, the ugliest thing about Philadelphia is the people.
Travel + Leisure Magazine and CNN Headline News poll ranked 25 American cities in categories like culture, shopping, food and dining and cityscape.
But the most dubious distinction, the city with the least attractive people, went to Philadelphia.
Sure, Will Smith's ears look like a car with its doors left open, but he's not that bad looking.
Almost 60,000 travelers were polled, but the results didn't specify whether they were visiting North Philly's "Badlands" or the hoity-toity Main Line.
And evidently, the concept of "inner beauty" escaped the pollsters.
Despite ranking last in attractiveness, the City of Brotherly Love ranked fourth in overall culture, ahead of historical Boston, chic San Francisco and jazzy New Orleans.
The Cradle of Liberty also ranked 10th in shopping, in large part because of the town's ample antiques.
The people may not be pretty, but at least you can get some good grub in the city: Philly ranked fifth overall in the food and dining category. And cheesesteaks, hoagies and soft pretzels can only carry you so far -- the city ranked highly for its ethnic food and farmers' markets as well as its big-name restaurants.
Still, the "ugly" branding is hard to shake.
Interestingly enough, however, nearby cities like Pittsburgh, Baltimore, Cleveland and Cincinnati were all left out of the poll.
One wonders where Philly would rank if those cities were included in the poll.
The city's best feature was the attractiveness of its historical landmarks and monuments. So at least visitors who were staggered by Philadelphia's repulsive citizens had pretty things to look at while they were there. Those things just happened to be inanimate and made of stone. Sounds like the City Council! BA-ZING!
But ugly or not, Philly can always look to its emblem, the Liberty Bell, for a nice metaphor: It may have a crack, and it may show off its crack to millions daily, but hey -- at least they're proud of that crack.
