True success cannot always be measured, even in business. For over a decade the Buy Local movement has been gaining ground, promoting a view that supports economically, environmentally, and socially sustainable business practices that strengthen communities. The sustainable business model advocates profitability through such unorthodox practices as collaboration, even with competitors, profit sharing with employees, and implementing earth-friendly processes. Socially responsible business owners recognize that their impact on the communities they serve goes beyond the jobs they provide the local economy, and that their commitment must run deeper than to shareholder profits alone. They pursue a "triple bottom line", a return on investment of not only profits, but also community growth and planet stewardship.
On my vacation to Peru- a country abounding with natural and cultural beauty- there were numerous occasions when I saw the landscape diminished by man made blight. Dry stream beds and ditches in the countryside around Cuzco were filled with a community's worth of garbage, the trash filled craters often lying not more than thirty feet away from the adobe structures where said waste was produced. In the bustling capital, Lima, one can join the throngs along an esplanade that looks upon the Pacific. A walk towards the coast takes one through a corridor of magnificent colonial architecture, narrow winding streets where the local artists- invariably poor mestizos- sell resplendent offerings of their souls, renditions as colorful and striking as the city itself. But the vibrancy in the paintings speaks nothing of the smog and the trash left to accumulate in copious piles throughout the city. Not far from that section of streets, there is a reservoir, choked full of refuse, which mars the foreground along the approach to the sea.
In Philadelphia we feel that we handle things in a far superior fashion. We not only have orderly trash disposal and pickup but, more importantly, we process a large portion of our trash in a forward thinking manner- we recycle. For if we merely stuffed it in landfills or destroyed it in environmentally unsound ways, such as incineration, then we wouldn't be as advanced as we thought we were. Thankfully, the city enforces a 1987 ordinance, Bill 1251A, which made recycling mandatory.
Foxwoods Casino presented their proposal for the South Delaware Avenue site at the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board (PGCB) Tuesday November 14th. I was there to hear them out. Foxwoods fell short when answering a few key questions:
I-95 Ramp - Who will pay for the proposed I-95 ramp cutting through the Pennsport community? Foxwoods said that it's a tricky solution but they never gave an answer.
Neighborhood Traffic - How will the surrounding communities deal with the traffic increases in their neighborhoods? Foxwoods believes that adding an I-95 ramp into a community will cut down on some of the problems. They also claim that all other problems created by traffic traveling through neighborhood streets (to avoid the gridlock on Delaware Avenue) can be worked out after awarded the casino license when nearly 7 million visitors patronize this site.
Written by William Epstein, Multi-Community Alliance
Wednesday, 15 November 2006
Not All Think Trump is Fabulous
This week's hearings by the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board "are taking place with no true community input and will allow the slots applicants to make any unsubstantiated statements they want, without examination or comment by the people and communities who will be most directly impacted by casinos," the representatives of six neighborhoods that would be adversely affected by one applicant's proposal said today.
Ralph Wynder and Irv Ackelsberg, representing the Multi-Community Alliance (MCA), a coalition of 27 neighborhood organizations surrounding the proposed casino site in the Nicetown/East Falls area on Roberts Ave. near Henry Ave., said the Gaming Board should have allowed community leaders to participate in this week's hearings.
"Instead, the applicant in our case, Trump Entertainment, has hand-picked two representatives from organizations that have negotiated a financial arrangement with the company. These individuals have been listed in Trump's filing for the hearings and will be put forth by the Trump organization as allegedly representing a series of residential communities that in reality have been left out of the proceedings this week," Wynder and Ackelsberg said in their statement.
Ever wonder why your neighborhood supermarket is stocking apples from the Pacific Northwest or even China instead of varieties grown closer to home? Ever notice how watery and bland supermarket tomatoes taste? Usually they're grown across the country, in California, picked while green to ripen in transit. Worldwatch Institute reports that "in the U.S., food typically travels between 1,500 and 2,500 miles from farm to plate, as much as 25 percent farther than in 1980". Because, until recently, the fuel necessary to transport food for distribution has been relatively cheap, the agribusiness model, with its continued consolidation of commercial food growing and processing centers, has been considered the most efficient way to distribute food. In fact, many of the costs of this system have been externalized, that is, not taken into account. In addition, the commercial farming this system depends on is heavily subsidized by taxpayers. In reality, the environmental, economic and social impacts of corporate farming are staggering.
Features 
On my vacation to Peru- a country abounding with natural and cultural beauty- there were numerous occasions when I saw the landscape diminished by man made blight. Dry stream beds and ditches in the countryside around Cuzco were filled with a community's worth of garbage, the trash filled craters often lying not more than thirty feet away from the adobe structures where said waste was produced. In the bustling capital, Lima, one can join the throngs along an esplanade that looks upon the Pacific. A walk towards the coast takes one through a corridor of magnificent colonial architecture, narrow winding streets where the local artists- invariably poor mestizos- sell resplendent offerings of their souls, renditions as colorful and striking as the city itself. But the vibrancy in the paintings speaks nothing of the smog and the trash left to accumulate in copious piles throughout the city. Not far from that section of streets, there is a reservoir, choked full of refuse, which mars the foreground along the approach to the sea. 
