The news has just broken that Philadelphia has been eliminated from contention to host the 2016 Summer Olympics. The three cities that did make the cut were Chicago, Los Angeles and San Francisco. Houston was the other city eliminated of the five that were under consideration by the United States Olympic Committee.

This is bad news, of course, and for a few reasons. First, it would have been totally awesome to see the Olympics in Philadelphia. Not just because of the amazing reputation it would give Philadelphia as a global city, but also because it would finally give the Delaware Valley a firm dealine -- and a lot of federal funding -- to get done a lot of infrastructure improvements that are now only pipe dreams and blueprints. Without an Olympics to aim for, it's a safe bet that all those plans will stay that way.

Second, we were hoping L.A. would get the boot instead of Philadelphia, even though it has twice hosted the Olympics and turned a ridiculous profit in 1984. To eliminate L.A. and Houston would send a big signal that the USOC embraces cities that embrace urbanist ideas, even if they've only done so in recent years. Philadelphia, Chicago and San Francisco are all renowned as walkable, human-sized cities that are not beholden to the car and all of the excesses and planning ills cars bring to urban areas.

And finally, we know that there's just no way New York will get the Olympics. Sorry, Gothamist, but we just can't see fitting the Games into the five boroughs given the density and lack of existing facilities in New York, not to mention the uproar that came about over the Jets stadium last year. Holding the Games in Philadelphia would be as close as one could reasonably get to New York -- an hour and a half, maybe less with infrastructure improvements, by train, so people could conceivably stay in hotels in New York and take the train down to watch events. We had thought that would answer the question of whether Philadelphia had the hotel capacity to host all the dignitaries, athletes and fans. An Olympics in Philadelphia would also be a cash bonanza to NBC, because of its location in that ever-precious Eastern Time Zone.

So why did Philadelphia get cut? The answer to that question will likely arrive in the next few days, though there is of course a big chance that no answer will ever come. We hope the USOC wasn't turned off by the morass-like state government and the fear that so many political players would try to get a slice of the money. Given the USOC's strict rules on how cities can shape their bids, we're willing to think that wasn't the case... but hey, this is Philadelphia, and we're pessimistic.

There is one silver lining to this, though. The Olympic bid committee got some of the best, brightest and most powerful people in the Philadelphia region to come together for a common cause. We hope they can stay together and work on things like reforming city hall and -- most importantly -- doing something about the gun violence problems in the city.

Photo taken by the author.