And in the balkanized boroughs that hug the Southwest Philadelphia border, politicians tend to spend half their time wrestling with urban sprawl, the other half wrestling with each other.
"It's always been rough and tumble, because you're dealing with rough-and-tumble people," said Diane Leahan, a William Penn School Board member from Darby. "It's 'Rock 'em, Sock 'em Robot' politics."
Close-quarters, hand-to-hand combat is often the norm in Delaware County's inner-ring municipalities, where clashing personalities and shifting demographics continue to fuel some of the region's fiercest power struggles.
"Sometimes," Leahan confided, "I find it exhausting."
Darby
Hardscrabble Darby Borough (estimated population 9,903) has long been known for its volatile political scene, a raucous tragicomedy with intermissions but no end.
For decades, the main character was the notorious bomb thrower Paula Brown, elected to public office in the 1980s when she was a 26-year-old waitress. She's the villain or the hero, depending on your perspective.
As a councilwoman in 1989, Brown was handcuffed and arrested by the police chief when she refused to shut up during a council meeting. In 2004, there was the "Freedom Camp" saga, when Brown, then the mayor, locked herself in her office — for a second time — during what she said was a coup attempt.
The standoff generated national headlines as a group of her supporters pitched tents outside the borough hall and refused to leave, making for a bizarre scene that was part protest, part tailgate. It went on for weeks.
"It's definitely something in the water," Brown said with a chuckle, reflecting on Darby's penchant for knock-down-drag-out political brawls, and, occasionally, an actual brawl.
