From Natalie Pompelio:
Springfield resident Mike D'onofrio, 62, said he was pleasantly surprised from the moment he walked into the main room: 900 chairs were filled, people were standing along the walls, another group had spilled into a side chamber.
"I was shocked going in," he said. "You don't get this many people for anything."
He was impressed by the plan. The city, he said, has gotten better every year for the past 15 years, "but the one thing they had neglected addressing was the waterfront," he said. "We travel all over the world and in every successful city, there's a vibrant waterfront." A key factor for the Delaware's development is safety, he said, and the current proposal -- keeping the arae busy with parks, homes and businesses -- would make it so.
D'onofrio said he was also impressed by how the plan was made. "They really did ask people. That's what got me," he said. "I could never be that detail oriented. It could take 50 years, but they've got to start today."
Comments (1)
The passionate and unprecedented civic involvement in the planning process for our city proves that this is a priority that needs to be set into motion immediately. Our lateness to the party has presented our city the opportunity to learn from all that came before us, both good and bad, and gets it RIGHT from day one. I envision the riverfront(s) and its enormous acreage of mostly vacant land as the perfect setting from which to launch Philadelphia’s comeback on to the international scene. Just as Philadelphia led the Industrial revolution during the 19th & early 20th century, so must we lead the Green-Renewable Energy and technology Revolution of the 21st Century. Our city and nation was made extremely wealthy on the backs of industry based on Oil and coal. Now the economic revolution we started and exploited has come full circle. Just as the world needed us to lead the oil economy, we now must lead the Renewable Economy. The world quite literally needs us to save this planet from the crisis we help create. If you are going to truly fight and win the so called war on terrorism or more accurately war to keep oil flowing, we must change our ways TODAY. Common sense must prevail when it comes to this issue. Would we have triumphed in WWII or any war if we financially supported both our war effort as well as our enemies? The answer of course is a RESOUNDING NO! Yet that is exactly what we are doing and have been doing for decades. The nation needs a huge dose of common sense and call to consciousness. That wake up call must come from someone or someplace, I say that place is here where this great experiment began. The truth is our nation has always looked to this city for inspiration and more importantly innovation. I know we have lost our way in the past 50 years, but it doesn’t change who we really are, and who we should be again. It is time to reassert our historical place as economic and political catalyst of this country. The naval yard and the many industrial parcels along the river provides this city with the ideal place from which to launch this bold initiative. We are the only city in the country that has such an immense bulk of prime available land from which to base this economic revolution. These parcels are strategically located with every conceivable mode of transportation intimately accessible to it all. These lands are also within minutes of our Center City (3rd largest in the nation), and our Colleges (2nd most in the nation). We should direct these valuable and immense resources to accomplish the mandate of achieving complete energy independence for our city and ultimatelyour country. This will make us both the envy and model of the world. This plan, to be successful, needs to be adopted by and implemented by all our political, civic and business leaders. I truly believe if we clearly explain the benefit and the necessity of this vision the entire community must and will take ownership of it. We must be the leader in the development and implementation of this NEXT GREAT ECONOMY. Our geographic location which for years has been treated as a liability is actually a great benefit that should be embraced and exploited. How is being hours from New York the financial capital of the world and Washington D.C. the center of political power in the world a bad thing? The fact is we have led every single revolution in our nation’s history, so it's only fitting we take the lead on this one. The future of our city and more importantly our country depends on it.
Let us write a new proclamation that will again shock the world. This time let us write The Declaration of Energy Independence. This document will be every bit as bold and important as the first.
Sincerely
John F. Scorsone
Posted by John Scorsone | November 15, 2007 2:27 PM
Posted on November 15, 2007 14:27