Great Expectations

In the coming days and weeks, you’ll hear more ideas about making the most of what’s often called Philadelphia’s creative sector. There’s even a free ticket out there – if you can pull yourself away from the NFL this weekend.

First up is a town meeting (followed by wine and cheese) on Sunday at 5:30 p.m. at the Painted Bride Art Center, 230 Vine Street. The Culture, Creativity and the City Town Hall Meeting will feature several out-of-town experts from other cities that have grown their arts and culture scene – with a particular emphasis on the supporting role of city government.

In a theater full of artistic types, there had to be someone who would revolt against the regimen of color-coded index cards upon which we were supposed to submit our questions and inspired ideas for boosting Philadelphia as a creative capital.

Indeed, one artist in the crowd didn't disappoint. The bearded man couldn't contain himself as he sat amid the impressive (all right, incredible) crowd of at least 200 people at the Culture, Creativity and the City Town Hall Meeting, held at the Painted Bride Art Center on this muggy, Sunday night. So he blurted out a protest and later requested that audience members turn to each other – right then - and say what they wanted about art.

No word on what those individual conversations revealed. But, you know, those index cards, they were pretty darn impressive, after all.

I have a piece due to run Sunday on leadership -- specifically the kind of leadership we expect from the next mayor.

I divide the recent mayors into two categories: ones who engendered optimism, those who engendered pessimism.

But, it got me thinking. How would you rank the mayors, from best to worst, in the last half-century? Just to list them, we had: Richardson Dilworth, James H.J. Tate, Frank L. Rizzo, William J. Green 3d, W. Wilson Goode, Edward G. Rendell and John Street.

Here is my ranking, from best to worst:

1. Rendell
2. Dilworth
3. Green
4. Tate
5. Street
6. Goode
7. Rizzo

The ranking is skewed by the fact that I was a kid when Dilworth was mayor and have no memory of him in the job (which he quit in 1962 to run for governor). I do remember him as head of the School Board, though.

It's appropriate that Tate is in the middle of the pack because he struck me as well-meaning and competent, if not inspiring. I don't know if this is a coincidence or significant, but Tate (along with Street) became mayor after serving as City Council President. And both were stiffs as public leaders.

On Sunday, we began a series in The Inquirer that will run up to Election Day.
It's called Greate Expectations: The Challenges Ahead. It will be a series of in-depth looks at the issues that citizens told us they cared about most during forums this year.

Sunday's first package was about leadership. Tom Ferrick and I each wrote pieces, Tom focusing on the challenges of leadership facing the new mayor and other rising leaders inside the city; I looked at the "outside game" of changing Philadelphia's poisoned relationship with the suburbs and Harrisburg.

Next Sunday's package will be on education. Other topics to come in Sept. and Oct. include city services, crime, the brain drain, the environment, campaign reform, arts and culture, and zoning and planning.

Here are links to the columns from Sunday:
http://www.greatexpectations07.com/node/226
http://www.greatexpectations07.com/node/227

Tom and I will be hanging around on the blog for the next two hours to reply to any comments or questions. Fire away as a comment to this post, and we'll reply.

Chris Satullo

I did a post on my personal ranking of Philadelphia's mayor's best-to-worst (in the last 50 years) and got these two responses. One is from state Rep. Mark Cohen, who said I should have ranked Goode and Street higher. Another from a reader who says that Rizzo deserves some credit for the Gallery project.

Here are the comments:

I think that Street and Goode should be ranked ahead of Green and Tate because they both were public leaders with clear public agendas in a way that Green and Tate were not.

They also deserve credit for governing in a very inclusive manner, personally attending numerous events, and laying the basis for a politics that minimized racial conflicts.

They strived to be mayors of the whole city, and stand in contradistinction to Mayor Richard Hatcher of Gary or Mayor David Dinkins of New York, each of whom was somewhat paralyzed by identity politics. Nutter's victory owes something to the non-threatening precedents that Street and Goode established as to how a black mayor functioned as Mayor of Philadelphia.

Posted by Rep. Mark Cohen | September 16, 2007 6:53 PM

David R Smedley:

I do think Rizzo deserves some credit for, strangely enough, economic development with the Gallery. There never seems to be enough of an appreciation for that, considering that it was against his political instincts.

I also think Street would be more thought of, for his first term, due to his explicit focus on neighborhood politics, if he didn't have the issue of having followed Rendell.

And finally, doing something on the web highlighting the mayors since Home Rule would be good to educate about those prior to Rizzo since Tate and Dilworth would fall into them realm of "history".

My response: