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Philadelphia and Entrepreneurs - do they play nice together?

In addition to Wendy's detailed breakdown of the Fattah small business plan, there's a pretty heated discussion about it going on over at YPP. What started as one poster's call for a greater dialogue between the city and successful entrepreneurs has became (in some comments) another point-by-point breakdown of Fattah's small business agenda.

It's worth a read.

Meanwhile, on the subject of entrepreneurialism, I would remind readers that one of our Community Forums spent a good amount of time talking about that very topic:

I personally would prefer that we keep the zoning code but that when the city works on rewriting it, they include some input from successful small business owners.

Posted by Dan on February 7, 2007 11:00 AM | Permalink



Comments (6)
Dave :
Yeah, let's definitely not get rid of our zoning code. Zoning can be useful, but making it overly strict and encouraging the wrong kind of development, which I think Philadelphia often does, can often be worse than no zoning at all.
I think there's a happy medium somewhere between Philadelphia's overzealous smothering of development and a free-for-all. Mainly, I think we should have our zoning code encourage efficiant land uses, as well as optimizing accessibility for pedestrians. This would capitalize on the things that make Philadephia unique and that have helped attract so many people (like myself) to live here.
Posted by Dave | February 7, 2007 11:49 AM


Dave :
BTW, I love how policy discussion on YPP tend to turn into fights about how you should address other posters. The discussion still makes some good points (and has a post from somebody on Fattah's exploratory committee).
Posted by Dave | February 7, 2007 12:06 PM


Dave :
Oh, I wasn't criticizing the guy for posting there. He was open about who he was, and that's fine. I just thought people might be interesting in reading what he had to say.
Posted by Dave | February 7, 2007 2:02 PM


Dave :
I'm also not accusing any of you TNM bloggers of bias, if that's what you're getting at.
Posted by Dave | February 7, 2007 2:21 PM


Dave :
Ok, just making sure that was clear ;-)
Posted by Dave | February 7, 2007 4:46 PM


New Start-up in....Radnor?:
I'm considering launching a start-up and while my first thought was to launch the business in Center City, I'm at this moment considering somewhere in the Western Suburbs. The tax profile of Philadelphia simply does not encourage new (or even existing!) business. The zoning appears to be an issue, but not that much of an issue when you need office space.
The tough part is that I really WANT to start the business here - I live in Philadelphia and want the company, which will most definitely have a global footprint, to have an urban address. I've strongly considered New York, but the costs are simply too high. Philadelphia seemed like the obvious next choice, but now I'm not sure. Fattah puts the issue on the table, but it's still not clear what it will really do for my start-up in the long-run. Is there a candidate that's seriously addressing the tax issue??!!??
Posted by New Start-up in....Radnor? | February 9, 2007 10:22 PM


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