Green City Journal

Green City Journal seeks to chronicle the transformation of Philadelphia into an economically strong, vibrant, vital, just, politically functional, sustainable, world-class city. The idea is to tell stories about the people and organizations who are working hard to build a positive future for the city. It is solution-oriented; if there's a good model in another city that might work for Philadelphia, then let's hear about it. Let's widen our pool of options by expanding our knowledge of what's possible. Nowhere is this more necessary than in thinking about the development of Philadelphia's riverfront. It's everybody's business. If we don't participate in our city's development, it will be developed all around us by people who don't have the same stake residents do in preserving Philadelphia's unique character and making it livable.

A goal of GCJ is to spread the desire for smarter growth of the riverfront specifically, and smart, sustainable development in general. One way to do that is to gather all the ideas about the Philadelphia riverfront that different groups may have, along with riverfront development ideas that other cities have put into practice, aggregate them in one place and make them available to Philadelphians. Over time, hopefully, the best ideas will become persistent and a consensus will begin to form.

Other stories: Philadelphia could be doing better on recycling, and there are great examples of success in recycling in different pockets of the city. The community gardens of Philadelphia offer refreshing areas of green, and also provide food for Philly's food bank. The Mural Arts program adds grace to old industrial neighborhoods and plain, nondescript facades. Throughout Philadelphia there are wonderful organizations that are working hard to build a strong sense of community, to tell the untold stories, and to make the city a nicer place to live.

Green City Journal, like you, has a lot of faith in the future of Philadelphia. There is still time to dream bold dreams of what that future can be, and to directly participate in making Philadelphia the forward-thinking, world-class city it can be, while preserving it's history and communities. Contribute to GCJ by pasting your article into an email and sending it to This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it .

Caryn Hunt
Publisher