{"id":1552,"date":"2006-07-17T21:25:29","date_gmt":"2006-07-18T02:25:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.marcstier.com\/wordpress\/?p=1552"},"modified":"2012-05-27T06:47:00","modified_gmt":"2012-05-27T06:47:00","slug":"were-all-in-this-together-in-philadelphia-too","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/?p=1552","title":{"rendered":"We’re all in this together in Philadelphia, too."},"content":{"rendered":"

This is the second in a series <\/a>of efforts to articulate in broad terms what it means to be a progressive or liberal in Pennsylvanian and Philadelphia today. In the last post, I tried to show how the idea that \u201cWe\u2019re All In This Together\u201d enframes many of our aspirations as liberals and progressives in general. Here I want to say a more about this idea applies to politics in Philadelphia. <\/em><\/p>\n

To say that we are all in this together, is to say we have common problems and that can only be solved if our government recognizes and act on our common interest. In some ways, this claim is just obvious. But, quite often I think, Philadelphians don\u2019t recognize the commonality of our concerns.<\/p>\n

If we don\u2019t suffer directly from some problem, and don\u2019t imagine we will, we may not recognize how much we suffer from it indirectly. So we ignore problems that are not obviously our own.<\/p>\n

Other times, we don\u2019t think ahead. We don\u2019t recognize that a problem that affects another neighborhood could be our problem some day.<\/p>\n

And, in other circumstances, we are too busy fighting about the issues on which we disagree than focusing on those issues where we do agree.<\/p>\n

A chief task of progressive political leadership is to do everything we can to help the citizens of Philadelphia just how much we\u2019re all in this together. We can\u2019t solve our common problems, if we don\u2019t recognize them.<\/p>\n

Some Examples<\/strong><\/p>\n

Here are some examples of what I mean.<\/p>\n

Crime<\/em><\/p>\n

We are plagued by a continuing crime wave in this city and a murder rate that is horrifying. We are losing our children to murder and toe the chaos that the fear of crime creates. But because that crime wave is concentrated primarily in the African American working class neighborhoods, only a small part of the city has been galvanized to fight it. If we look closely, however, we all suffer from this horrendous murder rate in at least three different ways.<\/p>\n

First, murder can\u2019t be contained in one area forever. When I was President of West Mt. Airy Neighbors, I spoke at a number of anti-crime vigils in East Mt. Airy. Someone once asked me why I went to the other side of Germantown Avenue to talk about crime. My answer was simple: if you can guarantee me that crime would never cross the border from one community to another, I could stay home. But, we all know that crime can\u2019t be contained. You all recall that a Philadelphia treasure, the journalist Russell Byers, was gunned down in Chestnut Hill a few years ago. How many prominent white men are going to have to die before this whole city is galvanized and we recognize that we are all in this together?<\/p>\n

Second, crime is one of the greatest barriers to the economic development we need in the city. Liberals and conservatives have had a long debate about whether poverty causes crime or crime causes poverty. We know now that both perspectives are true. There are commercial corridors all over this city that are blighted. Some are slowly coming back to life. I will talk in a moment about some of the investment that we could adopt that would simulate this rebirth. But let me tell first that government investment will accomplish nothing if people are afraid to shop because they fear random violence and if the cost of doing business is out of sight because stores and shops are constantly at risk of being robbed or worse. Again, only if we recognize that we are all in this together will we address this fundamental barrier to economic development and job creation.<\/p>\n

And, third, we won\u2019t get economic development in the high tech sectors of our economy\u2014our medical, pharmaceutical, and educational industries\u2014if we don\u2019t provide the technical workers these businesses need. But crime is literally and figuratively killing the next generation of our city and we are losing the talents of thousands and thousands of our young. It is bad enough that our schools leave much to be desire. But the chaos and temptations of crime-ridden makes the job of our schools infinitely more difficult. The gunfire and sudden death many of our children see around them undermines their confidence and hope for the future. It is immoral, it is unjust for children to be brought up in these circumstances. But it also killing our city to lose the talents of so many of our children, the children who should be growing up to be the workforce in our high tech industries. Our city can\u2019t progress if we don\u2019t recognize that we are all in this together and that we need the talents of every one of our young people.<\/p>\n

Economic development and job creation<\/em><\/p>\n

Reducing crime will contribute to economic development, but it is not the whole solution. Again, we are to find the right solution, we need to realize that we are all in this together, that what happens to one part of our economy affects all the others.
\nFor the last five years, when we talk about growing our economy, all we talk about is tax reform. And tax reform has come to mean basically one thing, cutting or eliminating the Business Privilege Tax.<\/p>\n

Now I agree that the BPT is a terribly tax and should go. It is a barrier to economic growth and while it is officially a tax on business, it is in fact, a tax that is partly passed on to consumers in a highly regressive way, taking more from the poor than the rich.<\/p>\n

But here is my problem with an economic development strategy that focuses only on giving tax breaks to businesses, including the largest businesses in the city including Comcast and Sunoco. This strategy forgets that we are all in this together and that we a variety of approaches to economic development and job creation are needed.<\/p>\n

I have already pointed out that crime is a great barrier to economic growth. Of course education is as well\u2014new businesses need a highly educated workforce. After years of economic deprivations, we won\u2019t overcome the barriers to creating that workforce unless we show our children that there is a direct path between working hard at school and getting a good job, so we need new investments in school to work programs. We also need new investments in our communities. Our community based economic development agencies\u2014our CDCs\u2014need support from the city to invest in our commercial corridors We need sidewalks and streetlights and much more effort to keep our streets clean in all areas, not just a favored few. We need them to provide the help that small businesses so badly need to get started\u2014access to capital, funds to improve their facades, aid in creating business plans.<\/p>\n

Again, the only plausible strategy that can make this city work is one that recognizes the stake we all have in Philadelphia, that recognizes that we are all in this together.<\/p>\n

Neighborhoods and Development<\/em><\/p>\n

Another issue that shows how we are all in this together is one I have written about before<\/a>, gentrification. Middle income people, both black and white, are now interested in moving into (or back into) the city especially in neighborhoods near Center City. There is enormous potential in that movement. But there is enormous danger as well.<\/p>\n

The return of the middle class to parts of the city they fled years ago gives us a second chance to create the kind of city we failed to create once before, a city of economically, culturally, ethnically, and racially diverse neighborhoods that give everyone the opportunity to succeed as individuals, to be part of a vital community, and to feel at home in their own country. Neighborhoods that are on the rise will have lower crime, new city service, new jobs. And, by integrating our young people into mainstream life, they will give them hope for the future and the incentive to overcome the obstacles in their lives.<\/p>\n

If we are to take advantage of this second chance, however, we have to insure that those who have lived through the difficult times in distressed neighborhoods can stay around for the good times. If, instead, the working poor, who are mostly African Americans, are forced out of their neighborhoods by rising real estate taxes and the misuse of eminent domain, we will have compounded the problems created by white flight forty years ago.<\/p>\n

If we forget that we are all in this together, we will all pay the price. Of course, those who are pushed out of neighborhoods they have lived in all their lives will suffer the worst. But they won\u2019t be the only ones who suffer. Our city has started to grow again. But it will only grow so far if we improve our distressed neighborhoods. Everyone who might want to comes to Philadelphia cannot in three of four neighborhoods. If we don\u2019t begin to broaden the redevelopment of the city to include more neighborhoods, eventually prices will rise so fast in Center City and Mt. Airy and a few other places that the middle class will no longer be able to return to the city. And, finally, unless we start paying attention to the inequity that gentrification creates, the people being pushed out of their homes and neighborhoods finally draw the line and say \u201cstop.\u201d The conflicts that could develop then could tear the city apart and will certainly stop our growth.<\/p>\n

We need to act now to make sure that everyone is included in the rebirth of the city.<\/p>\n

Public Transit<\/em><\/p>\n

Like public education, public transit benefits everyone, including those who never use it. Yet, again, if we don\u2019t recognize that we\u2019re all in this together, it is easy to overlook how transit serves us all.<\/p>\n

Imagine what our roads would look like or how difficult it would be to find a parking space without our buses, trolleys, and trains. Think about how much money we would have to spend building and maintaining our roads. Consider the impact on our economy, if it were impossible for workers best suited to particular jobs to get to them. Imagine the impact of pollution on the air we breathe without public transit. Imagine how much more sprawl we would have and how much costly infrastructure development would be required if we didn\u2019t have a transit system that encourages high density development.. And finally imagine the impact on our school children if they couldn\u2019t ride SEPTA to school.<\/p>\n

We don\u2019t imagine those things enough. If we did, we would be thinking about how not just to save our transit system, but how to expand it and make it more convenient. And when people criticized public funding of transit we would point out all transit\u2013including travel by car\u2013is publicly subsidized because everyone benefits from convenient and inexpensive transit, whether we use it or not.<\/p>\n

There are lots of ways to improve our transit system. But first, we have to recognize that when it comes to transit, we really are all in this together.<\/p>\n

A Politics That Unites Rather Than Divides Us<\/strong><\/p>\n

There are many other examples of common concerns that are not widely acknowledged. Every neighborhood in this city suffers because the Department of Licenses and Inspections is under-staffed and over-politicized. We all suffer because our planning and zoning process is over-politicized. We almost all suffer because the city ignores the billboard law. And so on.<\/p>\n

But we don\u2019t always form a multi-neighborhood coalition that recognizes our common concerns. Or we let ourselves get pulled apart by politicians who emphasize our divisions rather than commonalities.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why I think political leaders can\u2019t say too often, \u201cwe\u2019re all in this together.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is the second in a series of efforts to articulate in broad terms what it means to be a progressive or liberal in Pennsylvanian and Philadelphia today. In the last post, I tried to show how the idea that \u201cWe\u2019re All In This Together\u201d enframes many of our aspirations as liberals and progressives in general. Here I want to say a more about this idea applies to politics in Philadelphia. To say that we are all in this together, is to say we have common problems and that can only be solved if our government recognizes and act on our common interest. In some ways, this claim is just obvious. But, quite often I think, Philadelphians don\u2019t recognize the commonality of our concerns. If we don\u2019t suffer directly from some problem, and don\u2019t imagine we will, we may not recognize how much we suffer from it indirectly. So we\u2026 Continue reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[57,15,59],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p35YuU-p2","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1552"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1552"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1552\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6583,"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1552\/revisions\/6583"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1552"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1552"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1552"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}