I attended the South Philly GreenPlan meeting last night. I was very impressed with the process set up by the GreenPlan team. It was a refreshingly dynamic and engaging community meeting, one of the best I’ve ever been to, and lately I’ve been to plenty. The community meetings are designated for the planning areas drawn up by the Planning Commission. So people from different neighborhoods end up coming to discuss topics important to the whole group, as well as more specific neighborhood related open space issues. We were encouraged by Robert Allen, assistant director of The Managing Director’s Office, to think as creatively as possible about the future of green, open space in the city.

Neighbors then got to work, discussing their smaller areas (though still rather large- my table encompassed FDR Park to Washington Ave., Broad St. to the riverfront) and trying to prioritize their hopes for the future. While litter and safety problems came up, people at my table agreed on three or four basic issues for our area: we wish to preserve the open spaces we already have, and figure out how to add to them; their maintenance needs to be funded, perhaps by requiring developer fees go to open space projects; we need to make the entire area more pedestrian-friendly and build connections to the river; there needs to be continuous community input and education on a variety of issues.

Yes, it’s a tall order, and I have nothing but respect for the folks who are running the meetings. Last night’s meeting was facilitated by people from a variety of city agencies and organizations, including the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, Neighborhood Transformation Initiative, the Office of Housing and Community Development, the City Planning Commission’s Office of Strategic Planning, the Fairmount Park Commission’s Office of Volunteer Services and the Office of the Managing Director. It’s a hard thing they’re doing, trying to listen to the cacaphony of individual community voices and find the major themes. But it’s a hard thing they’re doing well. Their model is good, one that other city plans would do well to adopt.

If you haven’t been able to attend a GreenPlan meeting, take the time to fill out their online survey- the issue of preserving open spaces in Philadelphia could not be more important. GreenPlan is evolving a comprehensive view of the city that involves us, the people. That’s a first, folks. Don’t squander the opportunity to give your thoughtful two cents about the future of open, green spaces in Philadelphia. If you want to read more about the plan, check out my article.

Finally, if your civic association would like to conduct a more comprehensive GreenPlan meeting for smaller neighborhood areas, contact the project via info@greenplanphiladelphia.com. The Pennsylvania Horticultural Society has prepared kits so neighborhood groups can conduct meetings and become even more involved. Do it soon, though, because they plan to start collating the information over the winter months.

Good opinion piece about the current fiscal crisis in the School District by Brett Mandel of Philadelphia Forward. In it he argues for a more open and transparent budget process that involves citizens, so there are no more nasty surprises like the ones that keep cropping up for Philadelphia schools. A change of process is the only real solution to Philadelphia’s School District woes, as well as a host of other city problems. It’s a powerful idea to involve the entire citizenry in the budget process. Just think how the world might change if citizens debated and set budget priorities, not just in cities, but for states and even the nation. It’s time to embrace the “trickle up” theory of public policy.

The U.S. Army’s plans to transport, treat and dump over a thousand tons of VX nerve gas waste into the Delaware River has been put temporarily on hold while the Government Accounting Office conducts a costs-benefits analysis. There is a much safer method for destruction of this deadly chemical which yeilds no toxic residue requiring dumping into waterways. Read my article about it, and contact Delaware Riverkeeper for more info.

Yesterday, attorneys Irv Ackelsberg and John J. Grogan filed a lawsuit against the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board (PGCB) on behalf of citizen groups, businesses, and individual residents of Philadelphia. The suit charges that the legislature has not issued clear guidelines concerning the social impacts of casinos on neighborhoods, and that to let the PGCB be the sole arbiter of those impacts is unconstitutional. Read my article about it on Hallwatch.

Across the world, cities are joining the “Slow City Movement“. The idea is to counter the ever-quickening pace of life in the wake of globalization with a conscious effort to build community, foster sustainable goals for businesses and within cities, and preserve the uniqueness of smaller cities. The main idea is to slow down and enjoy life, and to support what adds to that sense. Cities must have fewer than 50,000 residents to be considered a Slow City. They must also agree to a 54 point charter defining the goals of the movement. These cities have started sharing information and best practices across the globe. More info here.

The Inquirer has a wonderful front page story about Manhattan’s riverfront, complete with a list of all the things it offers: biking, fishing, walking, picnicing, rock climbing, movie watching, boat rides, playgrounds, ice-skating, golfing, you name it. It recounts some of the hurdles New Yorkers had to overcome, like ways to fund public waterfront projects (that included making developers chip in) and how these spaces would be maintained into the future (community volunteer and nonprofit organizations). It talks about how residents had to reign in Trump’s gaudy conception of what should be on a river, of the years spent in planning and building citizen consensus. In many cases in NYC, pedestrian bridges had to be built to link neighborhoods to the water’s edge. Does all this sound familiar? The article quotes a NYC Parks official, “We’ve really reached some sort of tipping point where public access to the waterways is demanded.” Philadelphia has every reason to believe we can do the same here. So let’s get cracking. Most importantly, write your elected officials and tell them to SLOW DOWN THE PACE OF DEVELOPMENT ON THE RIVER until we have a plan that reflects a citizen’s consensus. Yeah, it takes a while, but that’s the right way to go about it. Philly will be here a long time; there’s nothing wrong with going slower and being sure of what we do. If you haven’t read it yet, click over and check it out.

Since I’ve been covering this beat (starting late July), I’ve had a growing awareness of Philadelphia as two cities, a Jekyll and Hyde city, in both little and big ways. Yesterday is as good an example as any. I attended the Greener Cities Symposium at the University of Pennsylvania in the morning, a conference sponsored by Penn and area businesses and organizations. It focused on planning for sustainability as a city. There were representatives from different cities all over the country, all sharing best practices. There were open panel forums and lots of lively conversation.

The Pennsylvania Horticultural Society was one of the event’s sponsors. The PHS has been hired by the city to facilitate community engagement in the recently launched citywide Open Spaces initiative GreenPlan Philadelphia (read my article about the plan). Residents have been crying out for just such planning for years, but Council Members have been too busy wrangling development deals past legal hurdles designed to protect residents to take much notice.

The city has lately been plan-crazy. I guess election time will do that. The river wards felt a flicker of what our local politicians have been quick to point out is false hope when the Mayor announced that PennPraxis would undertake a plan of the Delaware Riverfront, from Oregon to Allegheny. Our local politicians, disagreeing with the Mayor’s initiative, believe it’s a day late and a dollar short. I can’t deny that our Mayor moves in mysterious ways. Both plans were initiated by the same Mayor, and yet the coordination between them will have to come now, after the announcements have been made, instead of being built in from the beginning. It’s a case of the right hand of Philadelphia not knowing what the left hand’s doing.

And this is how things work here. Or rather, don’t work.

Yesterday evening, I attended Vern Anastasio’s 3rd Zoning Reform Forum. All those who’ve signaled an interest in running for mayor were invited, but only three could be bothered to show up: Jonathan Saidel, Frank Rizzo, Jr., and Michael Nutter (the only officially declared candidate). The forum quickly moved to the issue of casinos and SB862, the bill passed by the State Senate and being considered today in the House (protest its passage here). This bill will strip Philadelphia of zoning authority over casinos, something you would think our elected officials would be against. Unfortunately, they’re the ones who invented it in the first place; Senator Fumo and Representative Perzel are its champions.

At last night’s forum, all these three men, who seek to represent residents, could say was, there’s nothing that can be done. Our State Representatives and other elected officials tell us the same thing, and have all along, despite the fact that Philadelphians have been unremittingly yelling their heads off about the the issue for five months now at least, without support from elected officials, and without much support from the press, certainly not from the Inquirer or Daily News. So we have residents saying, besides casinos, look at what’s possible to do in our city, let’s plan for that, and politicians shaking their head and saying it’s not possible.

Former Councilman Nutter defended the position he took on the casino that was proposed for his district- he was against it, but if it was to come, he wanted to be able to make the best bargain he could with casino operators on behalf of his constituency. When asked why he hasn’t done more to represent ALL the people of Philadelphia, he really had no good answer. Neither did Saidel or Rizzo, Jr. Politically, it’s risky, and politicians are not much for risk-taking.

Philadelphia has created a monster in our current ward system. City government is so dysfunctional, so opaque, and so unresponsive that the only way for citizens to get things done is by making personal appeals to their representatives, to whom they then are beholden. Thus patronage is perpetuated.

Politicians thrive in the balkanization of Philly neighborhoods. They play ‘good cop, bad cop’, conveniently blaming each other’s districts or the Mayor for the status quo. In this way, they continue to butter both sides of their bread. Essentially they say they have no power, when in fact, they have too much power, power that rightfully belongs to Philadelphians. Attempts by residents to unite as “one Philadelphia” are frustrated on the one hand by a divide and conquer strategy that feeds antagonisms, and a patronage strategy on the other that keeps constituents beholden to whoever will do them the favor of dealing with their issue. Change is a hard thing to accomplish. Of course, it will take work. But until we get transparent processes that put citizens in charge of outcomes that effect the entire city, we will continue to swim around and around in this political backwater.

Our current crop of politicians has a lot invested in this system; it preserves and augments their power. But it is unjust, and it is becoming painfully obvious that this backwards way of doing things is impeding our city’s progress into the future.

At the Greener Cities Symposium in the morning, people interested in moving our city to a better place met to carefully consider all that getting there would entail. Speaker after speaker presented problems and then offered solutions- this is what we did in Chicago, this is what worked in Seattle. They said, these are the things that are possible if we all get together and press forward. Not one person said it was going to be easy. They built the case for why it’d be worthwhile to develop our city sustainably, and then challenged those in the audience to rise to the occasion, to do the hard thing.

A lot of people think a new mayor will save the city. Personally, I think we Philadelphians will have to continue to do that ourselves. But it sure would be nice to have politicians who were clearly on our side. In the meantime, Philadelphians, back to work.

Between 200- 300 people attended the Casino Town Hall Meeting sponsored by NABR, the Multi-Community Alliance, Representative Youngblood and others. Read PhillyIMC’s coverage here. By all accounts, there were no reasons to be happy about casinos coming to Philadelphia. Vern Anastasio launched a new site: www.nowaterfrontcasino.com. Write Governor Rendell (and while you’re at it, write all our elected officials- you can do it at Hallwatch) and ask him to slow down development of Philly’s riverfront until we have a development plan that includes citizen input. This is a crucial issue that will effect Philadelphia forever. Waterfronts have been developed innovatively all over the world, in ways that increase property values and attract new residents. We have not begun to explore alternatives to casinos on our river.

In his article on this site, Song of the City author and longtime Philly resident, Nathaniel Popkin asks us to ponder the shape of cities to come in the “Age of Heat”. Oddly enough, two senators, Frank Lautenberg and Trent Lott, have called for the build-out of intracity rail service in an Inquirer op-ed.