Young Adults

The New Jersey Division of Youth and Family Services has served as both mother and father to Anthony Rastelli for more than half his life. Rastelli, 20, entered a group home at age 9, then bounced through more than 15 foster and group homes until he got his own apartment two years ago in Penns Grove, N.J. About 300 young adults like Rastelli age out of the state's foster-care system each year and face adulthood with no support services and...

Nelson Dorny recently received a calling he was happy to accept when the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints named him the new bishop of the Philadelphia Third Ward, ministering to young adults. Mr. Dorny, 57, who lives in Broomall, views his ministry as particularly meaningful because he counsels people who are thinking about marriage and the relationships between the sexes. Mormons believe a marriage is sealed through eternity, he said. "Marriage is a covenant between the two people and with God," he said.

At 3 p.m., it's the hottest spot in this quiet, leafy borough: a zoo of carpooling parents and schoolchildren scrambling into minivans. And in the coming months, the sidewalk in front of 101 E. Atlantic Ave. in Haddon Heights, just across the street from Atlantic Avenue Elementary School, will also be the front yard of a transitional group home for young adults with serious psychiatric problems and no family support. So yesterday morning, parents, neighbors and even pint-size protesters picked up picket signs and waved them at passersby outside the home.

Tim Hufnagle can rattle off the minutiae of Sellersville history as fast as some folks zip through baseball statistics. He knows how the local newspaper has changed, what buildings housed what businesses decades ago, and how the borough fared during its cigar-making heyday. Yet the Sellersville Historical and Achievement Authority member has no firsthand memories of those days. After all, he was born during the Gerald R. Ford administration. Hufnagle, a 26-year-old disc jockey, is one of a growing number of Generation Xers who are getting involved in local historical societies.

Philadelphia is becoming a test case for a new theory of American urban development. The conventional wisdom used to be that economic development was the key to cities' dynamism. Create jobs, the argument went, and people would follow, incomes would rise, and all would be well. Now an alternative idea is being preached by a growing number of urban analysts. It holds that quality of life has become more crucial to a city's prospects, because young adults demand it, and many jobs no longer have to be in a particular place.

BORN-AND-RAISED Philadelphian Danielle Harvey never really saw herself moving away from her hometown. Then, last spring, she witnessed a shooting at the same bus stop where she had been robbed about a month before. Harvey, 24, who worked at a law office in Center City, said that she was able to shake off the robbery, in which her phone was stolen and pockets rifled through at a bus stop outside Frankford's Margaret-Orthodox El station. "You live in the city, this stuff happens," she said.

Prepare to polka at the 30th annual Polish Festival July 27 to 29 at Sacred Heart Roman Catholic Church in the Swedesburg community of Upper Merion. The festival will feature polka music by a different band each evening and an abundance of homemade Polish food, organizers said. Festivities are scheduled from 6 to 11 p.m. July 27; 4 to 11 p.m. July 28; and 4 to 10 p.m. July 29 at the church grounds at Fourth and Jefferson Streets in Swedesburg. Admission and parking are free.

The beat of a lively downtown is evident in full tables at restaurants such as El Vez, in lines to see movies at the Ritz theaters, and even in the strut of the dog walkers who traverse Rittenhouse Square. That energy is no illusion. An explosion of 20- and 30-somethings is changing the look of Philadelphia - and helping to drive a dining, shopping, and arts scene that thrives in the face of a dismal economy. New census figures document the youth movement: Northern Liberties had dramatic growth in the number of people in their 20s and 30s, up 77 percent in 10 years.

Infectious syphilis spiked 45 percent in Philadelphia in 2009. Gonorrhea jumped 36 percent in 2010. Most troubling of all: A new analysis shows that teenagers who have had either one are at 2.5 to 3 times greater risk of contracting far more deadly HIV within the next few years. Teenagers and young adults already make up a quarter of new HIV cases - a statistic that has been steadily rising while numbers for the rest of the city population have started to fall. Mayor Nutter on Thursday will announce the city's biggest new prevention effort in 20 years, beginning with the winning wrapper design for a free new Philadelphia condom - an attempt to make prophylactics fun and, it is hoped, get more people to use them.

The Philadelphia region will need a strong corps of 25- to 34-year-old writers, designers, engineers, architects and researchers to guide the economy into the 21st century. They have the most current education; they work the longest hours; they're the most mobile. Their skills, flexibility and potential are coveted by employers. But our area has done a poor job attracting and retaining those workers. Yet another study, this one called "The Young and the Restless: How Philadelphia Competes for Talent," ranks Philadelphia 41st out of the top 50 metro areas in its share of young adults.