Published in the Mt. Airy Times Express, June 2005 West Mt. Airy Neighbors (WMAN) is just beginning our annual membership drive. This, year, our membership drive is more important than ever. The results of the membership drive will determine the kind of organization we will be in the next few years and beyond. Continue reading
Mt. Airy Times Express and Germantown Courier, September 22, 2004. Also published as On Johnson Street, The Issue is Not Race, Philadelphia Public Record, October 7,2004 The current dispute over the West Johnson Street properties has been among the most complicated and contentious issues WMAN has dealt with in the six years I have been involved in the organization. I would like to explain to the communities of Mt. Airy and Germantown what this issue is about and, also, what it is not about. Continue reading
Mt. Airy Times Express, January 7, 2004 (WMAN) and East Mt. Airy Neighbors (EMAN) have invited members of the community to join the Boards of each organization at our annual joint meeting, which will be held Tuesday, January 13, 2004, 7:30 p.m. in Hagan Hall of the Lutheran Theological Seminary, 7301 Germantown Avenue. The purpose of this meeting is to begin a discussion about the future of the two organizations. Among the topics we will discuss is the possibility of merging the two organizations. In order to encourage the broadest and most inclusive discussion, the meeting will be led by a professional facilitator who does not live in our community. This meeting was prompted by a committee appointed to discuss the ongoing relationship between WMAN and EMAN. Derek Green, the president of EMAN, and I encouraged the two boards to form this committee earlier in the year. Our aim was… Continue reading
This paper draws on my experience as a leader of West Mt. Airy Neighbors in the early 2000s as well as on my academic work on communitarian political thought. It was written for an International Conference on Deliberative Democracy held in Hangzhou, China in December 2004. It was published in Chinese translation in 2005 in a book edited by Bao-Gang He. An earlier version was presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association in 2003. Abstract One of the oldest arguments in the history of political theory is that strong communities are only possible where people live a life in common. And one of the central themes of participatory democratic theory is that involved citizens are only possible where communities are strong. Together, these arguments lead to the conclusion that strong, democratic communities must be homogenous. Homogeneity is frequently thought to be a prerequisite for strong communities… Continue reading
Chestnut Hill Local, January 18, 2003 The dispute over the Sisters of St. Joseph’s (SSJ) proposal to place 49 units of low-income senior housing in the historic Pelham district of Mt. Airy has, as it should, generated a great deal of debate in this papers’ letters columns as well as in many private discussions. But along with reasoned argument and debate have come some serious mistakes and misimpressions about what is at issue in this dispute. I would like to correct one of them here. The most serious—and indeed appalling—charge that has been made in this debate is that WMAN is acting to protect the interests of well-off and mostly white homeowners who fear that the proposed project will bring low-income and mostly black senior citizens into their midst. This claim has been a sub-text in some letters to the editor that have recently published. And we have heard reports… Continue reading
Mt. Airy Times-Express, May 9, 2001 A New Supermarket for Mt. Airy Position Paper on the Proposal for a New Acme Supermarket In Our Community West Mt. Airy Neighbors (WMAN), Mt. Airy USA, (MAUSA), South Mt. Airy Task Force (SMATF) Mt. Airy needs and deserves a new, first-class supermarket. Why? A supermarket in our community is a necessity for neighborhood residents, especially those who come to the existing Acme on foot or by bus. Mt. Airy has the buying power to support a new first-class supermarket. Today, a majority of Mt. Airy residents do their grocery shopping elsewhere—often outside the city—where they have access to new stores that, unlike the current Acme in Mt. Airy, are clean, well-designed, stocked with fresh food, staffed by trained, courteous employees, and able to provide many of the services found in the best contemporary supermarkets. Not only will a new first-class supermarket be a much… Continue reading