Great Expectations

Very nicely put. One technical note. I do wish you'd hyperlink within your posts. No reason not to do that for "crime and poverty" or "citizen agenda"...

I have written day-by day- comments. I copy them below. I shall be there on Sunday. They can be read piece by piece.

Ideas for Great Expectations: Magali Sarfatti Larson,
magalisl@temple.edu

EDUCATION AND KNOWLEDGE ECONOMY
After 20 years as a college teacher, I am skeptic about the value of “just any degree.” While “any degree” represents discipline, motivation and a not indifferent expenditure of money, it does not necessarily impart skills other than reading and writing (if we could even be sure of the latter).
1. We need a determined emphasis on hands-on vocational education, especially for today’s high-school juniors and seniors who have fallen too far behind to become “college material.”
2. Multiply initiatives such as the Fairhill Community High School for quasi dropouts. Involve local community groups and churches in them.
3. We need to educate the adult work force. My organization teaches computer skills, ESL, G Ed courses and gives certificates of completion for less than $500 per student. We need to help and develop this kind of neighborhood-based organizations and to help all efforts at educating the work force based in the community.
4. Small scale business and enterprise must be encouraged in poor neighborhoods with the help of local business people and activists.
5. I have no firm position on local control of schools (the least corruption the best) as long as the users are heard, meaning parents and students –and not only the vocal minorities.

TAXES AND BUDGET

In the frenzy to build new and costly projects partly financed by tax abatement) the life of the neighborhoods is ignored. The casinos are the most glaring case –as was the planned stadium for the Art Museum area a few years back-- but there is an example in my neighborhood: an 11 story hotel with on the street valet-parking would send the middle class neighbors who can afford it scampering away. There is no parking in University City and what the developers want to do is truly damaging.
Citizens will fight full market revaluation tooth and nail if homestead exemptions and relief for seniors and less affluent citizens do not accompany it. Right now the disparity in effective tax rates is scandalous and unjust. Residents have no reason to believe in the fairness of tax reform.

CITY SERVICES
Cutting out the corrupt, rude and patronage-ridden City Council people from the business of improving public services is imperative. Also, the city is FILTHY! We must get help enforcing sanitary fines. People must be fined for dumping trash or littering and neighborhoods must be encouraged in every possible way to perform a “filth-prevention” and trash recycling function, as GE pointed out in the section on Environment.
Reach-out to citizens.
For this we need a mayoral presence in the neighborhoods, and not only a council person who helps when he or she finds it in her interest. I do not see that Great Expectations has taken seriously the idea of neighborhood City Hall branches that was pushed in several forums I attended. In fact, these branches could be central for bringing planning and other concerns (including town watches and policing!) to the neighborhoods. Paris is less extended in surface than Philadelphia yet it has 20 “arrondissements” or official neighborhoods, each with its City Hall and agencies. They are very effective.
The presence of city government must be decentralized. The Internet is not enough and access is very unequally distributed.
This is the idea that matters the most to me because it comes closest to making implementation possible and to reach out to all the residents, including immigrants and newcomers.

PLANNING AND ENVIRONMENT.
Yes, we must learn form other cities, and other countries as well. Zoning should insist on green building and parks, and it must fund Philadelphia Green and the Mural Arts Program that are our salvation, pride and joy. However, planning must encourage the diversity of stores, medium and small, in residential neighborhoods. Every neighborhood should be like a village, or have the equivalent of a village main street. Commerce makes for diversity, pedestrian traffic, lighted windows, convenience and …life!
Never, never, never should the City allow SEPTA to create and continue generating the eight or so yearlong disaster it has created on upper Market Street in the renovation of the EL. There must be powers the Mayor and City Council can invoke and use to prevent such destruction and generation of blight.

Affordable housing development and neighborhood sustenance must be planned together with transportation. This is the only way to encourage neighborhood revival and prevent sprawl. Strong legislation against predatory lending and abusive foreclosures is desperately needed in the US, but our city must lead the way in doing what it can to avoid the tragedies that will affect individuals and destroy whole blocks in our neighborhoods. I would not put all my trust in lending institutions, unless they have proven that they deserve it (or all my eggs in that basket).

ARTS AND CULTURE
I applaud the idea of a regional fund, but there should also be a regional information center –on the web and very attractively designed—gathering all possible information about city/region events and publicizing it in the suburbs, by informing their own chosen centers. It may exist but I have never found the information centralized except in the Inquirer. It is hard to consult by category and by location. I know by experience that the young people at, let’s say, Swarthmore, often only know “South Street” if that much.
But we also need publicizing and funding neighborhood arts initiatives. I add my concerns about the John Coltrane, Paul Robeson and Marian Anderson’s homes, even though I am not African-American, but only American and tremendously proud of these great artists (and what about Clifford Brown? and Judith Jameson?).

CRIME
While I believe that experts should address the subject, it seems to me that it should be possible to at least disarm young people who attend entertainment venues (such as the strip club at 38th. and Chestnut where a DJ was grievously hurt and the young man who shot him was killed). Whatever happened to leaving “your gun at the door?” Didn’t they have that in the Wild West? Concerts, theatres clubs should not let in anyone with a gun, although I understand that a metal detector would defeat the purpose.

POVERTY AND YOUTH
I can only insist on vocational education and youth works programs. West Philly High has proved that its workshop courses never experience any problem with violence. It is important to get teenagers to tutor young children. It makes them feel their worth and responsibility.

Congratulations on a very thoughtful and thought provoking series.

I think there's a 14th subject though that will be absolutely huge from here on out: Energy. Especially for Philadelphia which has 24.5% of its residents living in poverty, and already more than 70,000 utility terminations a year. As energy prices continue to rise, it drives up all prices: food, transportation, consumer goods and services. The rising price of energy will cause a loss of jobs, and will exacerbate many of the other 13 issues: notably Poverty and Crime.

The most effective way for Philadelphia to respond to the global energy crisis is by increasing its efficiency: reducing energy consumption in City buildings, homes, businesses and all other commercial buildings. This will reduce the upward pressure on prices, and will increase affordability while simultaneously lowering our carbon emissions and helping in the global fight against climate change.

Energy conservation is also a powerful economic engine, creating great local jobs: green collar jobs.

Mayor Nutter will find no social/economic initiative more beneficial than a massive investment in energy conservation and efficiency for all Philadelphians.

To "Get what you deserve" as an anti-poverty strategy (November 30) Pennsylvanians can utilize the free, Internet based, counselor assisted tool, The Benefit Bank which we produce. Any organization, congregation, business, union, school or neighborhood center with computers and Internet access can help their neighbors maximize their tax refunds and apply for Food Stamps, Medicaid, Children's Health Insurance, prescription drug coverage for seniors (PACE and PACENET), the seniors Property Tax and Rent Rebate, energy assistance,Child Care Subsidies and voter registration. There is no cost to host The Benefit Bank and there is no cost to consumers. Applications and tax returns can be filed electronically. Two days of free training enable a counselor to help users access all of these benefits and tax refunds in a community setting they trust. The United Way and Coming of Age are recruiting volunteers who want to help our neighbors overcome poverty and we work to help organizations add The Benefit Bank to their services. The Benefit Bank is currently available in English and Spanish. We are always looking for additional sites and volunteer to help our neighbors get the resources they need to move towards self sufficiency. Hundreds of millions of dollars of assistance is available every year to help overcome poverty in our region, but never gets to the people who need help because they cannot get through the maze of separate applications. The Benefit Bank can help. For more information or to help our neighbors "get what they deserve" email me at rbrand@solutionsforprogress.com.

To the Staff and Organizers:

Many Many Thanks and Kudos! The energy, enthusiasm and genuine affection for Philadelphia was palpable. I only pray we can take it forward and maintain our focus and momentum. Our common thread is our love of place - unique to other urban areas. We are from this soil or choose to be here but in any case we shared a common vision of what the legacy of William Penn's vision was and should be - the Greene Country Towne, the City of Brotherly Love. Corny as these concepts may be in a digital age, we collectively have a common goal. The day was extremely gratifying and I am hopeful for more citizen forums and input in the future.

Take a bow for a job well done!!!!

ENVIRONMENT and Transportation:
I think that the Environment issue is linked to transportation. I believe we need more and better public transportation.

POVERTY and Young people:
We need after-school programs and summer programs for everybody.
And we need mentors for low income students.

Thank you for this opportunity!

ENVIRONMENT and Transportation:
I think that the Environment issue is linked to transportation. I believe we need more and better public transportation.

POVERTY and Young people:
We need after-school programs and summer programs for everybody.
And we need mentors for low income students.

Thank you for this opportunity!