Julian Castro, the recently appointed Secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) visited Philadelphia last Friday and toured the West Philly section of Mantua, designated as a “Promise Zone” by President Obama.

The former mayor of San Antonio, Texas, was joined by Philadelphia Mayor, Michael Nutter, Congressman Chaka Fattah and Councilwoman Jannie Blackwell.

The tour featured three stops: the Mount Vernon Manor Apartments, the People's Emergency Center, and the Montgomery Early Learning Center Families First location,

According to Nutter, Mantua may face a high poverty rate, low educational attainment, high crime, higher rates of unemployment and high rates of housing vacancy, but it also has assets like transit, new housing and commercial developments, as well as educational and skill development opportunities.

“The Promise Zone designation will help Mantua leverage those assets,” Nutter said of the federal initiative to accelerate revitalization efforts in targeted areas.

Nutter and Castro were joined by John Fry, president of Drexel University, and Laura Sparks, executive director of the William Penn Foundation, to highlight the new West Philadelphia Early Childhood Initiative.

“There are nearly 1,200 children ages 0 to 5 in the communities around here, and 75 percent of those children are in childcare settings of low or unknown quality standards”, Sparks said. “We are hoping to double the number of children in these neighborhoods that are attending high quality childcare by 2017.”

Philadelphia was one of three cities — along with Los Angeles and Castro’s San Antonio — and a total of five areas selected in January as Promise Zones.

Castro’s visit to Philadelphia took place only six weeks after he was appointed secretary of HUD.

“Being new on the job as you can imagine I reached out to staff there and asked around, and Philadelphia has the strongest reputation of the Promise Zones out there,” Castro said. “And that says a lot because San Antonio is one of the other cities”.

Although it was his first time in the city of brotherly love, Castro seems to have a special connection with Philadelphia. He says he grew up an Eagles fan after his twin brother, Congressman Joaquín Castro, took the Dallas Cowboys.

“As his competitive twin I had to take another team, and I took the Eagles,” Castro said.

Looks like it’s a touchdown for Philadelphia.