One of my favorite blog posts from the mayoral campaign came early on as I riffed on the big picture significance of a minor story in the City Paper about tree planting in Philadelphia:
Aside from being an interesting story about the attitudes of longtime South Philly, West Philly and Fairmount residents towards street trees, it also serves as a symbol of all of the things that divide longtime neighborhood residents from the new people who are moving in as both the cause and result of the hot housing market. New residents bring cars, kids, pets, friends, demands for services, increasing property values and therefore taxes, all of which can rub some of the old timers the wrong way.
I bring this up because we need to remember that in spite of the high profile stream of new people who are moving into condos in Center City and rehabbed rowhomes in Fairmount, South Philly, Spruce Hill, Northern Liberties, Fishtown, Kensington, etc. the vast majority of people who actually vote for mayor are the ones who think trees are bad. Candidates for mayor in this city are uniquely challenged to communicate both with new people who always seem to want to go 'achangin' things and the old timers who like things just the way they are.
These riffs aren't just important during when folks are trying to get elected. As frequent City Paper contributor Nathaniel Popkin points out, they can make governing might difficult too:
Nutter, of course, has woken so many of us; now we're sitting up in bed awaiting a trayful of goodies.
And yet all week I've heard the somnolent muttering of people who would rather that nothing new happen in their neighborhoods.
(snip)
Doing nothing is de facto community planning in Philadelphia. It didn't start that way. In the 1960s neighborhood groups were empowered to promote their own ideas. But what began with strong democratic credo has evolved in so many cases into a rigid NIMBY "No!" As a result, according to Tom Lussenhop, who teaches urban development at Princeton and who hopes to build a Hilton Homewood Suites hotel near the busy trolley portal on 40th Street, "Nothing good has been built in some neighborhoods since the Great Depression."
The development of hotels, high rises and retail complexes isn't the only thing that will be affected by these attitudes. Efforts to equalize property taxes, fix infrastructure and go the "housing first" route in combating homelessness will all be more difficult unless, as Popkin writes, Mayor Nutter can convince everyone in Philly (long time residents and newbies) "that development might actually enrich their lives," while "still giving neighbors a strong self-governing voice."
(And I didn't even mention casinos... oops... I guess I just did.)