sooner rather than later due to environmental and economic trends:
Atlanta
Miami
Detroit
New Orleans
Las Vegas
Well, I wasn’t planning to move to any of those places anyway. Philly’s looking better all the time.
Cities that may die…
This race is over
Postscript: Poor Johnny Doc. I feel for you. Maybe if you change the way your union operates you’ll have a better chance next time.
In answer to a question by Ray over at YPP: I think it doesn’t matter–the race is over.
From where I sit–in my little row house on the edge of Old Richmond or whatever you call this little slice of a community between fully gentrified Fishtown and the Kensington ghetto–the PA Senate race for the 1st District is over.
I was leaning towards voting for Anne Dicker. Farnese gives me the creeps with all the forged signatures on his candidate petitions (even if he was just lazy with his campaign volunteers and not intentionally committing fraud). Dougherty is old. I figured even if Anne was imperfect and was likely to piss off the PA Senate by being a holier-than-thou liberal, she is young. Given time, she could amass some power and become a good voice for the city.
Now, it doesn’t matter. If the race continues with Anne Dicker, Larry Farnese and John Dougherty, Dougherty is going to win handily. The election is in one week. As one astute politician said, an Irish last name gets a lot of votes in the river wards. It’s been interesting living here for a year. Sure there is a lot of new blood around but a lot of it is busy working to pay the bills in whatever part of the service economy they work in. The yuppies rent, a few have mortgages, but for the most part they are really busy trying to sell insurance in a flagging economy and getting second jobs at big box stores. Others are working night shift as sound techs or as managers on Delaware Avenue. Some are trying to open bars. Most are not paying all that much attention to politics. That might change eventually but it’s not going to change in a week. Contrast that with the local ward and block captains who are retired and work for the city or a union. The oldies know all the senior citizens and will get them out to vote. Dougherty is going to carry this community in a landslide.
I won’t be voting for him. I can understand why someone might. On the plus side, he’s got the Bill Green endorsement and maybe with someone so pragmatic whispering in his ear, he’ll be able to do some good stuff in the Senate. In particular, he might be able to swing some votes on gun control and probably bring some bacon to Philly. Personally, however, I think a person must be judged by their history. If I didn’t support John Edwards because he talked a game that he never lived, why should I support John Dougherty, a man who has inflicted substantial harm on this city when he is likely to continue to do so? The first rule of politics is to vote for the person who does the least harm. Dougherty is a walking magnet of thuggism. He is simultaneous despised by both African Americans and the business community with good reason.
Apparently, Anne was given advice by a pollster affiliated with John Dougherty that she was in second and that she could win if she beat up on Farnese. Whether the advice from the pollster was given with bad intentions or not, it rings true. Her and Larry Farnese are fighting for the liberal independent Center City vote because Dougherty’s got the working class neighborhoods surrounding Center City locked up. Farnese’s supporters probably are more winnable than Dougherty’s.
We live in a democracy and hence, I’m hesitant to say anyone shouldn’t be a candidate. I learned my lesson in the Mayoral race. Let everyone race and let the chips fall where they may. It’s not worth burning bridges over some stupid race when Philly’s macroeconomic course is largely set in stone. The politicians can’t really fix it but they can’t really screw it up much more than they already have for the most part. Unfortunately, there is an exception. John Dougherty could seriously screw things up.
Still, if we believe that it’s possible to make a difference at the margins, we probably should. It sucks that life entails so many compromises. Sometimes the best candidate has to give way–based on principles–not because there is much upside but because the alternative has so much downside.
Larry Farnese is probably the most boring representative the 1st District could have. He’s also the safest choice. He’s young and he could have the chance to amass power. He’s not John Dougherty.
I wish I could easily figure out which candidate I should support. Unfortunately, there is probably only one person who can help me make that decision. Anne Dicker appears idealistic, ambitious and in the admiring words of a neighborhood political observer, she is a political animal. She’s got a ground game and committed supporters. It’s not enough to get us anything but four years of John Dougherty. I wish it weren’t so.
Lastly, the fact that this conversation is on a blog is terrible. I feel bad for you Anne. Don’t take it personally.
April ORCA meeting: Cleanups Galore
Greens Grow came to the this month’s Olde Richmond Civic Association meeting.
In a special announcement:
Michael Nutter thinks we need to give our city a good Spring Cleaning.
On April 5th, join thousands of your fellow citizens in neighborhoods across the city as we try to make Philadelphia a more beautiful place.
Find out more by clicking here!
ORCA will be having cleanups later in the spring and summer. ORCA has a new website up and running and it looks like FACT has run up the pro-casino votes on the mini poll. Please go vote against them–just on principle.
ORCA Beautification and Special Event Committees are now up and running.
The Memphis Tap Room will be open in about three weeks.
P.S. I think that ORCA needs to adopt a mascot: how about a whale?
Obama: The Community Organizer
Watching Obama’s speech last on race in Philadelphia last week was amazing because throughout the speech, he very cleverly wove community organizing maxims and principles, including those embraced by Saul Alinsky and his Industrial Areas Foundation.
In community organizing there are many principles, but the most important one is that: power is in relationships. I found it telling that Obama ended his speech telling a storying about an elderly gentleman who came to a campaign event, not because of an issue or of an experience, but because of a relationship with Ashley, a campaign volunteer.
Why can’t I watch the “News Hour” and “Democracy Now”?
I joined the Philadelphia Sports Club last week so I could exercise more. The branch that’s most convenient for me is in Cherry Hill, NJ, about five minutes from my job.
So far, I’ve exercised there three times. It’s okay. It’s a little bit of a factory.
The only thing that really annoys me is that it’s TVs don’t offer PBS (channels 12 and 35) so I can’t watch the News Hour with Jim Lehrer or Democracy Now. Given that it’s on during the time I’m most likely to be working out, the lack of access is really glaring. Apparently, the head corporate honchos in NYC decide what channels will be available from their satellite provider. Blah.
When I have enough money, I’m starting my own gym.
Some not so subtle propaganda
Yeah, Obama’s fandom is a little over the top but who cares.
This is beautiful. People need to be inspired.
Are tax breaks really innovative?
It looks like Innovation Philadelphia (IP), one of the City of Philadelphia’s “economic develompent” initiatives, is probably going to get the axe in the midst of the city’s budget crunch.
Innovation Philadelphia doesn’t really cost all that much in the scheme of things and maybe it’s marketing of itself–which is what it is good at–somehow makes Philadelphia a more appealing place and somehow leads to more economic development. Recently, they did a study that talks in detail about the creative economy in Philadelphia that has been getting some press.
A Philadelphia Inquirer Article notes that IP might be a little top heavy:
According to Innovation Philadelphia’s most recent Internal Revenue Service filing, nearly $3.5 million in funding in 2006 came from the City of Philadelphia, with less than $350,000 coming from other government agencies.
In that year, Innovation Philadelphia reported that nearly 78 percent of its total spending - $1.87 million out of $2.4 million - went to “management and general” expenses. In comparison, $537,071 was spent on “program services,” according to the filing.
I might be inclined to give the agency more leeway or support further funding if their Executive Director had a better answer as to how to create more jobs in the creative economy than a) give us more money, b) cherry pick some entrepreneurs who will probably be successful or not anyway and c) hand out tax breaks and financial packages.
Here are first three of the previously mentioned study’s recommendations:
a) Continue to Promote the For-Profit, Creative Economy through a Designated Institutional Driverb) Develop Innovative Financing Programs and Resources Targeting Creative Entrepreneurs. Financial programs may include the development of special loans and/or opportunities for private investors or venture capitalists to fund “creative” start-ups.
c) Work with Local and State Government to Establish Financial-Incentive Packages to Attract Creative Economy Businesses to the Region. Innovation Philadelphia and other regional stakeholder organizations can work to influence decision-making at the state level in order to develop financial-incentive packages that stimulate entrepreneurial activity and attract new creative businesses to the region.
The study also selects Austin, Boston, Denver and Seattle as comparable cities. I’ll let you be the judge of whether the agency should get more funding.
I, however, prefer investments in the School District.
An update on the 100K house
It looks like the initial proto-types will be more than 100K but still, it’s an awesome project. According to the article in Metropolis Magazine:
Ludeman embarked on a research project, trying to figure out a way to build affordable, green Modern houses in his own neighborhood. He financed the new business by selling the house he and his wife had rehabbed. Ludeman decided he didn’t want to go the fashionable prefab route but preferred to start a “stock-houses program” that would allow buyers to choose from a small inventory of designs, much like KB Homes or Toll Brothers. He thought his best bet was to use structural insulated panels (SIPs), a common cut-to-order wall, floor, or roof component. And he wanted to build these houses on a budget of $100,000. They would be small—1,000 to 1,200 square feet. (The average American house hit 2,300 square feet last year.) Ludeman’s blog—yes, he’s blogging his way through the process—lists some arguments for the small dimensions: “Homeowners will be able to say things like, ‘I can fit five of my houses in your McMansion,’ or ‘My house is smaller than your garage.’”
Assuming they make it through Philly’s permit process, the collaborators are planning to put their first two 100K Houses on a lot in Kensington in early 2008. The houses will be Modern in style and built with recycled materials, state-of-the-art insulation and seals, passive solar heating, and Energy Star appliances, all points eligible for LEED-for-homes certification. “More aggressive greening is offered as an add-on,” Phillips notes. The houses will be oriented so that a photovoltaic array could be added in the future. One of them will be roughly 1,035 square feet with two bedrooms, which Ludeman hopes to price at about $215,000. The other will be a slightly larger two-bedroom that will sell for $245,000. “Hopefully, I’ll make a little bit of money so that my wife doesn’t tell me I have to close down my business,” he says.
These houses won’t be the first examples of Modern architecture in the area. Gentrification has brought Modernism to the Northern Liberties and beyond. Apartments in the American Loft tower, a flashy new 11-story condo designed by Winka Dubbeldam, go from $300,000 to $1.5 million. Nevertheless, affordable, Modern, and green would be a breakthrough. Phillips says old row houses in the area can be bought for as little as $149,000, but prices for new Modernist houses with green amenities start at $500,000.
Facilitating Necessity-Based Entrepreneurship
Necessity-based entrepreneurs basically create wealth out of nothing. Necessity-based entrepreneurs are all around us. Between gypsy cab drivers, local food preparers and informal daycare providers, many people in Philly are creatively surviving. Many of these transactions are too small to be captured by private businesses or even facilitated by government.
Nonetheless, there are a thousand ways that government can facilitate necessity-based entrepreneurship rather than regulating it out of existence. One prominent example is that Philly has outlawed street vending on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway. Most of the BF parkway has little pedestrian traffic. Why not allocate a part of it for street vendors? Why not have food carts in Love Park? Some food trucks eventually will become restaurants. Some will become chains.
Why not install (or contract to have installed and rented) bootblack chairs in every heavy traffic subway station? More bootblacks would mean more eyes on the street and a little bit more safety–at least between April and October. Sure these jobs aren’t going to eliminate poverty but they will provide jobs for those with little capital and skills to start earning some money legitimately so they don’t have to risk life, limb and jail. I’m not sure whether there is a market for shoeshines but given the tens of thousands of suits in Center City and the major transport hubs, there may be. Unfortunately, technically you need to spend $450 just to shine shoes on a corner–between the business privilege license and the sidewalk vending license or L&I will come and hassle you.
Why not encourage the multitude of churches, using vans, GPSes, and cell phones to provide point-to-point service roaming the region? The challenge and cost of coordinating needed rides had always been too high but that cost is falling every day. 500 jitneys roaming around the city would complement Septa and increase access to jobs and activities in the burbs.
In addition, why doesn’t Philly have open air markets around City Hall for a week or two each year? Vendors can rent tables and have tents in case of rain. Let people sell Arts & Crafts from all over the world. Let the local Avon ladies hawk their wares to a larger audience. Find a corner for musicians.
Put a farmers’ market in City Hall? Maybe Michael Nutter gets it just a little.
A Fascinating Debate
Bill Gates and Bill Easterly are having a fascinating discussion about how to best reduce global poverty that has parallels to debates about addressing Philadelphia’s challenges and reducing its large poor population.
Gates gave a speech about how creative capitalism is needed to solve the worlds problems in which he said:
“We have to find a way to make the aspects of capitalism that serve wealthier people serve poorer people as well,”he told an auditorium packed with corporate leaders and politicians at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum. “I like to call this idea creative capitalism.”
Gates outlined how business worldwide can expand the reach of market forces to offer the benefits of science and technology to all.
“This is how I see the world, and it should make one thing clear: I am an optimist,” he said. “But I am an impatient optimist. The world is getting better, but it’s not getting better fast enough, and it’s not getting better for everyone.”
Gates went on to recommend increased corporate philanthropy and an understanding of potential markets that can be served in poor communities.
Easterly basically said phooey in today’s WSJ:
Mr. Gates seems to believe that the solution is to persuade for-profit companies to meet the poor’s needs by boosting the “recognition” of corporate philanthropy. But the dossier of historical evidence to suggest this would work is as thin as Kate Moss on a diet. First of all, the recognition motive has proven to be awfully weak compared to the profit motive. Otherwise we would have had a lot more than the $5.1 billion of annual American corporate philanthropy to the Third World (as of 2005, which has the most recent reliable figures). That was four one-hundredths of 1% of the $12.4 trillion of U.S. production for the free market. Is it really the poor’s only hope that the Gap will donate a few pennies per sexy T-shirt for AIDS treatment in Africa?
He continues:
Moreover, how do philanthropists choose just which product is going to be the growth engine of a country? Much research suggests that “picking winners” through government industrial policy hasn’t worked. Winners are too unpredictable to be discovered by government bureaucrats, much less by outside philanthropists. Why did Egypt capture 94% of Italy’s import market for bathroom ceramics? Why did India, an economy with scarce skilled labor, become a giant in skill-intensive IT and outsourcing? Why did Kenya capture 39% of the European market in cut flowers? Why did tiny Lesotho become a major textile exporter to the U.S.? Why did the Philippines take over 72% of the world market in electronic integrated circuits? Because for-profit capitalists embarked on a decentralized search for success.
Sure, let those who have become rich under capitalism try to do good things for those who are still poor, as Mr. Gates has admirably chosen to do. But a New-Age blend of market incentives and feel-good recognition will not end poverty. History has shown that profit-motivated capitalism is still the best hope for the poor.
That’s not the end of the debate, of course and I disagree, to a large extent, with both sides of this argument. Capitalism is not the answer to the worlds ills; rather it’s important for governments (especially ones with limited resources) to recognize the things they can do to make a difference versus undertaking actions that are basically spinning wheels.
