Pennsylvania Spatial Data Access Center files on Philadelphia. Includes shapefiles from the City of Philadelphia, as well as some state resources. Important files here are Street Centerlines, local area boundaries (planning commission, police, councilmanic districts) and aerial photos.

Blondell Reynolds Brown and Curtis Jones Jr

Late last week, Councilman Curtis Jones and Councilwoman Blondell Reynolds Brown introduced legislation that would modify the 10-year property tax abatement of new constructions, conversions and big improvements so that it would be contingent upon obtaining LEED certification.

Gov. Rendell is pushing for Pennsylvania's legislature to enact a state building code that would require environmentally friendly, energy-efficient construction. Whether he wants both residential and commercial development included is not yet known.

SCRUB's mission is to promote healthy, vibrant and beautiful public spaces throughout all of Philadelphia by using advocacy, public awareness and education, community mobilization and legal action.

Philadelphia, PA — A comprehensive plan to make our nation’s buildings more efficient could save enough energy by 2030 to power all of the nation’s cars, homes and businesses for a year and a half, while saving Americans more than $500 billion, according to a new report by PennEnvironment. These findings offer a preview of what Pennsylvania could achieve by adopting green building policies, such as the statewide green building code proposed by Governor Rendell in February, and the many policies being pushed by state and local officials who joined PennEnvironment in releasing the report.

The Pennsylvania Environmental Council (PEC) released a new report, Building Green: Overcoming Barriers in Philadelphia, that identifies obstacles to green building in Philadelphia and recommends solutions to dissolving those barriers.

Maps pertaining to surface water (historically and currently) in Philadelphia, and the city's water supply and sewerage systems.  The site also provides links to many scanned, old atlases, topographical maps, etc. for Philadelphia (including some complete atlas volumes), nearby communities, and counties in southeastern Pennsylvania.

Aerial photography of  Philadelphia, the Delaware Valley, and the Mid-Atlantic region  produced by the Dallin areial Survey Co., 1924-1941.

Accessible via the Hagley Museum & Library's Hagley Digital Archives.

Key map showing which areas of Philadelphia are covered by which numbered, standard Sanborn Co. fire insurance map volumes for the city.

More-or-less essential starting point for using the Sanborn maps in printed or digital form.

Photos, info., compiled maps, scanned maps of Philadelphia region transit lines, especially trolleys.  Also has some info about Toronto and San Francisco areas.  An enthusiast website.

An occasional blog by Philadelphia Inquirer architecture critic Inga Saffron.  The page includes a link to her Phila. Inquirer weekly columns.

Covers sociology, demographics, policy studies, political science, family studies, and social security programs.

By Harold Brubaker

Inquirer Staff Writer

Darnell Deans Sr. spends $21 every other week to cash his paycheck because he does not have a bank account.

The 52-year-old North Philadelphia resident says he thinks banks are a hassle. "When you open up an account, you have to have a certain kind of money to put in there. There's always so many kinds of stipulations," Deans said.

Even so, spending $546 a year to access his paycheck pains him. "I could have used that money," he said, referring to the thousands he has spent over the years.

Deans is among the estimated 81,000 Philadelphians with no bank accounts, known in the financial industry as "unbanked." All Philadelphians spent $12.6 million at check-cashing services on $503 million worth of checks, the Brookings Institution said.

To combat that drain on neighborhood wealth, federal and city officials yesterday launched Bank on Philadelphia, a program modeled on an effort in San Francisco to get low- and moderate-income residents into the mainstream banking system.

Having a bank account not only saves money, but it also acts as a "shield against the financial predators that are out there in the market," said Laurie Magid, acting U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

...

Organizers estimated then that 50,000 households in San Francisco were unbanked, spokeswoman Leigh Phillips said. As of June, 18,558 accounts were open under the program. "We think it's pretty significant," she said.

Valerie Klein, director of program quality at the nonprofit Consumer Credit Counseling Service of the Delaware Valley, said her research found that some people without bank accounts were efficient at working mainstream and alternative financial systems. They cashed their paycheck at the issuing bank and took the money to a check casher to pay bills with money orders.

Others preferred the convenience of check cashers, where they can cash their check, get a money order and buy a stamp. "They could do everything at one place and do it after work when the bank wasn't open," Klein said.

There is no clear link between the lack of bank branches in an area and residents' use of check cashers. Of course, no one is limited to their neighborhood for those services.

Bank and credit-union branches outnumber check cashers in Philadelphia 2-1.

Based on a breakdown by zip code, the city's Kingsessing neighborhood has the largest number of unbanked residents, 13,652, according to the U.S. Treasury. There are no bank branches there, but also only one check casher.

Look through the guide and try to really update it in PennPage. So, copy the things that look like they might still be useful, and then update books that have newer editions, and websites that don't work. Just make sure that you make a note of the things that you should check with Nick. Also, are there things about Philadelphia that should be added? Things you know about? Just amke sure someone can tell the difference between what you added and what you copied.

[Philadelphia, Pa. : University City Historical City]

Included here are research papers by Archives Director Mark Frazier Lloyd, by students in the Department of History's Senior Honors Program in American History, and Summer Research Fellows at the University Archives.

Brief, often one-paragraph entries, some with bibliographic references.

View selected historic maps and aerial photographs, mixed with current data from Google in a Google Maps viewer. The "crown jewel" is a full-city mosaic of the 1942 Philadelphia Land Use Maps.

this blog posting "Philadelphia Bicycle News: Schuylkill River Trail Map"

has a link to a good detailed google map of the trail, side trails, train stations etc

Working Paper

Immigrants and Suburbs: Growth and Distribution in Greater Philadelphia, 1970-2000: A Tract-Level Analysis

The late twentieth century witnessed a dramatic shift in the historic pattern of immigrant settlement within the United States. Since the nineteenth century, most European immigrants - with the important exception of farmers - had settled first in a small number of gateway cities where many rearticleed while a sizeable number fanned out to smaller cities along the coasts or to cities and large towns in the interior. After World War II, with the opening of suburbs huge numbers of these first generation European immigrants and their children, fresh with new prosperity, moved out of central cities. Following the 1965 lifting of nationality-based quotas, immigrants entered the United States in numbers that matched the great immigrant wave of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries... READ COMPLETE PAPER

iSepta was created to make navigating the SEPTA schedules simple on your phone. It was designed by Jason Tremblay and developed by Chris Conley and Randy Schmidt of ümlatte.

Where Industry Once Hummed, Urban Garden Finds Success

By JON HURDLE
Published: May 20, 2008

PHILADELPHIA - Amid the tightly packed row houses of North Philadelphia, a pioneering urban farm is providing fresh local food for a community that often lacks it, and making money in the process.

Greensgrow, a one-acre plot of raised beds and greenhouses on the site of a former steel-galvanizing factory, is turning a profit by selling its own vegetables and herbs as well as a range of produce from local growers, and by running a nursery selling plants and seedlings.

The farm earned about $10,000 on revenue of $450,000 in 2007, and hopes to make a profit of 5 percent on $650,000 in revenue in this, its 10th year, so it can open another operation elsewhere in Philadelphia.

In season, it sells its own hydroponically grown vegetables, as well as peaches from New Jersey, tomatoes from Lancaster County, and breads, meats and cheeses from small local growers within a couple of hours of Philadelphia.

The farm, in the low-income Kensington section, about three miles from the skyscrapers of downtown Philadelphia, also makes its own honey - marketed as "Honey From the Hood" - from a colony of bees that produce about 80 pounds a year. And it makes biodiesel for its vehicles from the waste oil produced by the restaurants that buy its vegetables.

Among urban farms, Greensgrow distinguishes itself by being a bridge between rural producers and urban consumers, and by having revitalized a derelict industrial site, said Ian Marvy, executive director of Added Value, an urban farm in the Red Hook section of Brooklyn.

It has also become a model for others by showing that it is possible to become self-supporting in a universe where many rely on outside financial support, Mr. Marvy said.

Boyd Theater makes endangered list

By Inga Saffron Inquirer Architecture Critic

With the celebrated Boyd Theater once again for sale, the National Trust for Historic Preservation has placed the art deco movie palace on its annual list of the 11 most endangered historic sites in America.

archives 2005 » jan. 5th
IMMIGRATION
Borderline Realities

When Mexican men and women living in South Philadelphia become crime victims, they're often too afraid to tell the police.

by Kate Kilpatrick

One day in his first year in the U.S., Rubén, now 26, left his apartment at 15th and Bainbridge, where he lived with seven other men, to go to work. With the other men at work too, the house was empty all day.

When Rubén returned that evening everything was missing--the TV, VCR, PlayStation, telephone, stereo, CDs (most of them Mexican), air conditioner, bed covers and clothes. Their collective hidden savings--totaling $11,000--were gone. None of the men spoke much English, or knew where to turn for help. One of the men told his boss, a restaurant owner, who said that because they were illegal, there was nothing he could do. No one contacted the police.

This story's far from unusual. Those in South Philadelphia's Mexican community say they're the victims of countless crimes--muggings, bike thefts, robberies, armed assaults, rapes--that never get reported.

Rubén's friend Jaime, 26, sums up a common experience: "You can drive, but you can't [legally]," he says. "So most Mexicanos go for a bike. In the restaurant business you get off at 12 or 1. If you're a dishwasher, you probably get off at 2. If you live at Seventh and Tasker, or Fifth or Fourth and Morris or Dickinson, mostly that part is bad. We can't afford to pay expensive rent to live on Fitzwater or Bainbridge. So most of the Mexicanos in South Philly live in dangerous places. I know a lot of my friends were assaulted by guys trying to get their bikes. We can't get a bank account, so we keep the money in our pocket. I don't know how they know that. We keep all our money until we send it home. So a lot of people get robbed."

city beat
Live Stop, Dead Cars

City lots are filling up with seized vehicles.

by Daryl Gale

If you're one of the nearly 31,000 Philadelphians whose car was confiscated under the city's Live Stop program, you're probably already familiar with the contents of this story and have started cursing under your breath while reading it on public transportation. For many others, some questions remain: Whose car gets taken? How do you get it back? And what ever happened to the promise that auto-insurance premiums would drop, since not even a penny has been deducted so far?

Here are the hard numbers. Between last July, when the administration started enforcing Live Stop, and the end of May, 30, 909 cars had been confiscated from drivers without a valid license and/or an up-to-date registration. The program is administered by the Philadelphia Parking Authority, which hauls away the cars and stores them in five lots across the city.

There they wait for owners to reclaim them after paying the necessary fees and acquiring the proper paperwork. That means you have to pay up any tickets and fines, the state's $36 vehicle registration fee, and of course, get some insurance. If no one stakes their claim, the car is auctioned off to the highest bidder. Parking Authority spokesperson Richard Dickson says confiscated cars go to the highest bidder in about a month, which officials consider enough time for owners to get their paperwork in order.

Drexel Bike Share Policy

By WILLIAM K. RASHBAUM
Published: May 11, 2003

The operator of a Chinatown bus company competing with others in a bitter battle for riders was shot and killed on Friday night on a street near his home, and detectives yesterday were investigating whether the slaying was related to the unusual feud, police officials said.

The gunman, whom the police described as an Asian man in his 20's wearing a waist-length black jacket and a white baseball cap, was apparently waiting for the victim, De Jian Chen, 27, outside Mr. Chen's home on Henry Street, the police said. About 9:15 p.m., as Mr. Chen climbed out of a friend's white Lexus at Forsythe and Henry Streets, the gunman opened fire with a .45-caliber pistol, the police said.

But he missed his mark, and Mr. Chen ran down Henry Street and around the corner onto Market Street, the police said. The gunman followed, catching up with Mr. Chen in front of 32 Market Street and firing again, this time hitting him three times in the back and once in the arm. Mr. Chen collapsed and was pronounced dead about 30 minutes later at New York University Downtown Hospital, the police said.

The police and a business associate of the victim, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, provided different accounts of his relationship to the bus company. The police said Mr. Chen worked for the company, Dragon Coach U.S.A., at 87 East Broadway, and had an ownership interest in another bus company. The associate said Mr. Chen was an owner of Dragon Coach U.S.A. and ran buses from New York City to Philadelphia, Washington and Richmond, Va., and played a lesser role in a company that ran buses to Atlanta.

Over the last year, several Chinatown bus lines that offer low fares to Philadelphia, Washington, Boston and other destinations have competed so fiercely for riders that fistfights have broken out between rival employees, and neighbors have complained of ganglike violence.

Last year, the police and prosecutors investigated certain companies and people associated with them, according to a law enforcement official, but no charges were filed. Last May, Mr. Chen was arrested and charged with first-degree assault; he was accused by the police of deliberately driving his bus into a man affiliated with a rival company. That case is pending.

The planned improvements come as SEPTA is enjoying its first dedicated funding stream in a decade and ridership is increasing across the transit system, the country's sixth-largest.

SEPTA officials announced the plans for increasing service at a press conference yesterday, where they unveiled the agency's proposed operational budget for fiscal year 2009. The budget still needs to go through public hearings over the next couple weeks.

"All of these service initiatives are part of SEPTA's commitment to improve service and convenience for our customers around the five counties of Southeastern Pennsylvania," SEPTA's chief service planner Charles Webb said.

The proposed budget of $1.08 billion represents a spending increase of about 5.6 percent over the previous year. But SEPTA remains cautious about increasing spending, and is spending significantly less than it could. Even though a landmark transportation funding law enacted last summer is proving the transit agency significantly more in state subsidy than it has budgeted for, SEPTA is not using that money to improve service.

By Liz Marklewicz

Red lights mean green for GOP

By BOB WARNER
Philadelphia Daily News

warnerb@phillynews.com 215-854-5885

Backers of the red-light program say the main beneficiary has been public safety.

"Incidents of death, injury and property damage are dramatically down at the intersections where cameras are installed," the Parking Authority's board chairman, Joseph T. Ashdale, said in a news release last month.

Other beneficiaries include Republican Party officials and their kin.

Like the explosive growth in the Parking Authority's staff and salaries, reported last year by the Daily News, the red-light-camera program has created more jobs for Republican ward leaders, committeemen and their families.

It has also led to thousands of dollars in campaign contributions for GOP organizations and candidates.

More than anyone else, the contributions have flowed to state Rep. John Perzel, the Northeast Philadelphia Republican who engineered a GOP takeover of the Parking Authority in mid-2001.

New York(156 E Broadway) <--> Philladelphia
One way $12.00, Round Trip $24.00
Duration:about 2 hours
New York:156 East Broadway
Philadephia:Frankford Transportation Ctr. or 2801 Cottman Ave.

Well equipped glass blowing studio. Opened in the East Falls section of Philadelphia in Jan. 2006. Holds an Open House on the 2nd Saturday of some months.  Check the website for details.

Offers classes and studio rental along with a small gallery of works by local artists.

 Check out Jon Goldberg (the shop's owner) work.

Documents the street name changes within Philadelphia Streets.  Try multiple variations of the street name to find it.

Local organizations and information. Don't let the clunkiness of the site deter you. There is a lot of great information about philadlephia here.

The Philadelphia Area Consortium of Special Collections Libraries (PACSCL) encourages diverse audiences to explore and engage with member libraries' uniquely rich holdings and, through collaboration, strengthens these collections and the institutions that preserve them.

Vision

PACSCL is the most extensive and diverse collaboration among a region's libraries and archives in the United States. Its collections, in their depth and variety, comprise an internationally important body of unique and rare materials for students, scholars, and life-long learners of every background."

Schedule Information:
Scheduled Time: Thu, Oct 11 - 10:00am - 11:45am Building/Room: Philadelphia Marriott / Room 404
Title Displayed in Event Calendar: Seeing in color: visual culture and racial politics in Philadelphia

Session Participants:

Session Organizer: Tanya Sheehan (Rutgers University, New Brunswick/Piscataway (NJ))

Chair: Tanya Sheehan (Rutgers University, New Brunswick/Piscataway (NJ))

"If this war is to be forgotten, ...what shall men remember?": The African American presence at the 1876 Centennial Exhibition
*Susanna W. Gold (Temple University (PA))

Imprinting race: The Philadelphia Fine Print Workshop and the visual politics of race in the 1930s
*Erin Park Cohn (University of Pennsylvania (PA))

From Africa and the streets of Philadelphia: Georges Adéagbo's America in "Abraham - the Friend of God"
*Emily Hage (Philadelphia Museum of Art (PA))

Commentator: Gwendolyn DuBois Shaw (University of Pennsylvania (PA))

Leaders of Philadelphia's striking taxi drivers ended their 48-hour strike a day early yesterday but promised to continue fighting problematic new high-tech dispatch and credit card systems mandated by the Philadelphia Parking Authority.

Leaders of the drivers and Parking Authority officials disagreed about how many cabbies stayed off the streets and about the strike's effectiveness. But officials of the authority, which since 2005 has regulated city cabs, said there was no shortage of taxis yesterday at Philadelphia International Airport and only brief rush-hour delays at Amtrak's 30th Street Station.

All 1,200 members of the Taxi Workers Alliance will be back at 6 a.m. today, alliance president Ronald Blount announced yesterday during an afternoon rally in front of Parking Authority headquarters at 3101 Market St.

"We've made our point. We've proved that we can launch a two-day strike," Blount told reporters in front of about 25 supporters. "This system is not working. It's been almost a year now. How long are we supposed to be patient?"

Public Authorities continue to be one of the best means for taking control out of the hands of voters and putting it in the hands of bureaucrats two or three or four steps removed from anyone elected. I've written about the Taxi Drivers in this space several times now, but now Philly Independent Media Center has a great new video coming out a week or so in advance of a two day taxi strike.

Check the video out here.

I'm really glad IMC is paying attention to this issue. It's a fascinating case. It's one that I'd think the Nutter Butters would be going NUTS over. Closed door decisionmaking. Gouging a group of workers and the public. Capricious rulemaking. Lack of access to decisionmakers and no voter oversite. Everything that should be making them crazy mad. I hope they do pick up on it and take action. It really sucks that nobody is in control of the Parking Authority any more and that it has control of Taxis (isn't that ironic? Taxis hardly ever park, you know?).

As an Organizer, I find it exciting because this is a very diverse group of people who are hardscrabble and refuse to be victimized. If they have even close to the participation in their strike that they anticipate in the video, it's a real coup. A beautiful show of worker solidarity. It's so great to see these guys excited to take action, and any time I've sat down with them they really have been.

Now if the taxi cab drivers could just drive a little nicer...

One gauge of a city's health is its mobility.

A city that thrives is one where congestion doesn't become gridlock, where commuters, shoppers and beer trucks can coexist. Bustle is good, immobility is bad.

For Philadelphia's next mayor, the big transportation challenges will be to improve mass transit and deal with chronic traffic and parking problems. And the mayor will have to persuade skeptical suburbanites to help because the city's transportation network is the hub of a vast regional web.

"Where does transportation land on your priority list? It has to rate very highly," said Steven Wray, executive director of the Economy League of Greater Philadelphia, citing transportation's importance to the region's economy.

Center City "can't continue to boom without a transportation policy," said Vukan Vuchic, a professor of city and regional planning at the University of Pennsylvania.

The long-slumbering ghost station under Franklin Square, sealed in the era of Frank Rizzo and Rocky II, may be shaken awake, dusted off, and put back to work.

Silent dark hallways now blocked with plywood may echo with commuters' footsteps once again. Stairways that end in concrete slabs may be reopened to daylight. And the gaudy orange foyer that only a '70s decorator could love may get a 21st-century face-lift.

A proposed expansion of PATCO rail service could press the 71-year-old subterranean station back into service. And even if PATCO doesn't extend its lines, the changing face of Philadelphia above the ground could mean new life beneath the city, too.

The subway station, built in 1936, opened intermittently and last used in 1979, lies beneath newly refurbished Franklin Square at Sixth and Race Streets. There, a fountain, carousel and miniature golf course have brought new life to the once-seedy park that was one of William Penn's original five squares.

The station's platforms, with their green and white tile walls, can still be glimpsed dimly from passing trains, a tantalizing view in a time tunnel. But the interior that resembles its Broad Street Subway cousins, and the orange foyer with its old fare lists (35 cents to Philadelphia stations, 75 cents to Lindenwold), and the multilingual instructions on "How To Go PATCO" are hidden from view.

By Paul Nussbaum
Inquirer Staff Writer

SEPTA bus, subway and rail fares will increase by an average of 11 percent on July 9, following a 13-2 vote yesterday on the agency's new operating budget.

The SEPTA board also approved a "doomsday" plan to take effect Sept. 2, with 24 percent fare hikes and 20 percent service cuts, if the state legislature does not increase annual state funding by nearly $100 million.

For subway, bus and trolley riders, cash fares will remain at $2 and tokens at $1.30 under the new fare plan. But transfers will be eliminated on Aug. 1, meaning transit riders wanting to transfer will have to buy an additional token or use a daily, weekly or monthly pass.

Weekly passes for transit riders will increase from $18.75 to $20.75, and monthly passes from $70 to $78. Regional Rail riders will see costs rise as well; the price of a Zone 3 monthly pass will increase from $126.50 to $142.50.

Cash-strapped SEPTA's board of directors is expected to approve two drastically different survival plans tomorrow: one a modest 11 percent fare increase for existing service, the other a "doomsday" plan - raising fares 24 percent while cutting service 20 percent, which could devastate low-income workers, fixed-income seniors, the physically disabled and students.

If the state Legislature comes up with $100 million this summer to fill the chronically underfunded transit agency's budget hole, then the "doomsday" plan will be ditched, and only the 11 percent fare hike will go through.

But if the Legislature fails, riders will be forced to foot the bill by enduring longer waits for fewer buses and trains, and by paying much more for service:

SEPTA's base cash fare would rise from $2 to $2.50, tokens from $1.30 to $1.80, a TransPass from $18.75 to $25 weekly and from $70 to $95 monthly, and one-way Regional Rail fares would rise by as much as $1 during peak times and $2.50 off-peak.

But whose fault is that?

In Pennsylvania, the state prevents regional transit agencies and local governments from raising money in many of the ways used by their counterparts elsewhere.

Colorado and Georgia provide none of the money to operate Denver's and Atlanta's mass transit. Instead, they authorize local sales taxes, approved by local voters. New York, Michigan, Illinois and Ohio are among the states where local property taxes are earmarked for mass transit. Los Angeles County uses a 1 percent sales tax, approved by county voters.

Thirty-three states have authorized local or regional sales taxes specifically for transportation.

Not Pennsylvania.

Amtrak is planning to roll out new service on its much-maligned and often-delayed Acela route this July, providing nonstop service between New York and Philadelphia for the first time. The new route would also provide nonstop service to Washington from Philadelphia.

Cutting three New Jersey stops from the trip and shaving down commute times between New York and Philadelphia to about an hour could help solidify the "sixth borough" status of the City of Brotherly Love, real estate brokers and developers said.

About 1.5 million passengers a year use Amtrak to commute between New York and Philadelphia on a regular basis, and the number is growing, particularly among people in their 20s and 30s seeking more affordable housing, real estate brokers said. Amtrak expects the new line to boost its business clientele, a spokesman said.

This museum is actually focused on celebrating and encouraging America's history of freedom and tolerence.

They are included as part of this tagging project because they hold a collection of over 100 pieces of art glass (intended to signify the fragility of liberty). The collection includes Dale Chihuly's 20 foot tall 'Flame of Liberty' and a 6 foot cast sculpture by Libensky and Brychtova.

One of the Liberty Museum's main supporters is the Coalition of Glass Collectors and Artists. The Coalition holds an annual weekend event, called Glass Now that includes an impressive auction of work by contemporary glass artists.

Once more, SEPTA is on the ropes. It faces a $130 million budget deficit in the coming fiscal year, and unless the state finds a way to plug the hole, services will be cut and fares increased.

In other words, business as usual. Mass transit gets short shrift most places in this country, but nowhere is the political deck stacked against it more deliberately than in Philadelphia. This despite the fact that the city is blessed with a transit infrastructure that would be prohibitively expensive to build today, is being used by about a third of the city's commuters (a percentage that is inching up), and is . . . you guessed it, gradually rotting away.

Study suggests shift of gears for Phila. commuters
Indications of a surprising gain for mass transit.
By Paul Nussbaum
Inquirer Staff Writer

For the first time in nearly half a century, Center City vehicle traffic dropped while mass-transit ridership was up, according to new data from the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission.

After decades of increasing dependence on the automobile, the question is whether this a blip or the beginning of a transforming trend.

The numbers were gathered in 2005, when gas prices rose sharply after Hurricane Katrina. Experts say that may have been a big factor.

The number of vehicles crossing Center City's boundaries was about 1.015 million on a typical weekday in 2005, down slightly from 1.020 million in 2000, according to the commission's preliminary, unpublished data. In 1995, the number of vehicles was 990,000. Meanwhile, the number of mass transit riders entering or leaving Center City was 486,326 a weekday in 2005, up from 442,023 in 2000 and 484,151 in 1995.

The slight shift interrupted a 45-year trend. In 1960, when the commission began keeping track, 53 percent of all Center City trips were by mass transit; by 2000 the percentage was down to 26.5 percent. In 2005, the percentage rose to about 28.5 percent.

The Market Street subway-elevated line turns 100 years old on Sunday, and riders get the birthday gift: free trips for the afternoon.

The birth of the Market Street Line, which allowed passengers to travel easily from 69th Street to the Delaware River, linked Center City to burgeoning new development in West Philadelphia. And it helped spawn more growth west of the Schuylkill, as 69th Street Terminal sprouted in the midst of cow pastures.

Philadelphia's oldest high-speed line - which has since grown into the Market-Frankford Subway-Elevated - emerged at the dawn of intraurban rail travel, coming just a decade after the last horse-drawn car finally left the streets, following the rise of cable cars and electric trolleys. New York, Chicago and Boston already had built elevated rail lines to whisk riders above congested streets, and Philadelphia had been contemplating one since the 1890s.

Built in optimistic boom times of a city whose population was growing by 2,000 people a month, the new train line was an instant success. Within three years of its opening on March 4, 1907, the Market Street line was carrying 29 million riders a year, at a nickel a ride.

Mayoral candidate Chaka Fattah wants to lease out Philadelphia International Airport and use the proceeds to fund an ambitious initiative to slash the city's child poverty rate.

Fattah, a U.S. congressman, is to unveil the idea, part of a plan he calls his "opportunity agenda," this morning. He said in an interview yesterday that the agenda would also include proposals to reduce business and wage taxes, as well as details about how to pay for the many new programs he has promised on the campaign trail.

Under Fattah's proposal, the airport would be leased to a for-profit firm, an arrangement Fattah estimated would generate $3 billion. After retiring the debt on the airport, he estimated, the city would have nearly $2 billion left to finance the new social programs.

University of Pennsylvania

The public spaces of the city are more racially, ethnically, and socially diverse than ever. Social distance and tension as expressed by wariness of strangers appear to be the order of the day. But the "cosmopolitan canopy" offers a respite and an opportunity for diverse peoples to come together to do their business and also to engage in "folk ethnography" that serves as a cognitive and cultural base on which people construct behavior in public.

Key Words: urban ethnography • cities • public space • race relations

Fletcher Street

Photographs by Martha Camarillo

Deep in the heart of Philadelphia, past row houses and vacant lots, run-down playgrounds and dilapidated schools, is a little place called Fletcher Street. It has everything one would expect to find down an alley in the ghetto, with one addition: horses. The men and boys of Fletcher Street have used their passion for riding and bonds with their rides to build their and their community's sense of worth. They describe their passion for horses as having kept them from the temptations of street life. Fletcher Street by Martha Camarillo documents the lives of these men and the boys they mentor, who board their horses in abandoned houses or makeshift stables, and ride them through the streets of Philly.

Camarillo's work is valuable not only because it illuminates a fascinating new aspect of culture, but also because it challenges those who see it. Her photographs force viewers to confront their own preconceptions of sport as representative of social status, and race as a demarcation of class. The power of Camarillo's exploration of this underrepresented community is based on the strength of the men themselves: urban horsemen who have ridden away from the 'hood and toward a better future.

Martha Camarillo is a self-taught photographer from Texas. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Telegraph, Numéro, Journal, i-D, and many others. Her first book, Remote Photos (Janvier/Léo Scheer, 2005), a collaboration with artist Avena Gallagher, was an in-depth look at the identity of teenage male and female models, made by giving the models themselves disposable cameras to be used by whomever they saw fit. Work from the project was exhibited at Léo Scheer Gallery, Paris, in 2005. Camarillo was the winner of the Hyères Festival 2001, and the 2002 Art Director's Award.

Horses/Photography/Urban Cowboys

Hardcover, 10 x 11.7 inches, 128 pages, 65 four-color photographs

ISBN 1-57687-328-5
$39.95 / Cnd $53.50

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The Philadelphia Inquirer published a Philadelphia Regional Almanac from 1994-1995.

This article examines the Neighborhood Transformation Initiative (NTI), Mayor John F. Street’s plan to revitalize Philadelphia’s distressed neighborhoods by issuing $295 million in bonds to finance the acquisition of property, the demolition of derelict buildings, and the assembling of large tracts of land for housing redevelopment. Despite its resemblance to the discredited urban renewal programs of the past, this plan offered real potential for reducing blight by leveraging substantial private investment at a time when public subsidies
for affordable housing and community development have been steadily diminishing.

However, NTI did not promote equitable development that might have fostered broader support for an inherently controversial plan. Moreover, Street’s initial leadership in proposing this bold initiative was followed by a reluctance to promote NTI aggressively after it was adopted in 2002. The  result was a watered-down effort that achieved some goals but has fallen short of what might have been accomplished.

Philadelphia's Eisenhower-era development blueprint came in for a beating at City Hall yesterday as developers, urban planners and civic activists described it as an obsolete, quirky and cumbersome system that stifles growth and allows for little to no big-picture planning.

Fixing the development code would likely take years, but a City Council committee took a first step yesterday, giving initial approval to a bundle of legislation that could eventually lead to an entirely new zoning map.

No city of comparable size has held onto its zoning code for as long as Philadelphia. Drafted in 1960, the map is so ill-suited to today's developments that as many as 70 percent of all building projects require special waivers, witnesses said at a City Council hearing yesterday.

Posted on Thu, Oct. 12, 2006
Architect named as new Phila. planning chief

... 

"As we move forward with plans to redevelop and revitalize our riverfronts along the Schuylkill and Delaware Rivers, we need the expertise and guidance of the Planning Commission," Street said in lauding Woodcock and her decades of experience in Seattle, Boston and Portland.

Posted on Wed, Sep. 20, 2006
Expansion for Dunkin' Donuts - and Philly
By Harold Brubaker
Inquirer Staff Writer

Philadelphia dieters, beware!
Dunkin' Donuts plans to add 250 locations in the Philadelphia region by 2010.

Philanthropist's legacy: Green space, questions
By Jeff Shields

Fitz Eugene Dixon Jr. was the philanthropic heir to a vast fortune, but more important to the residents of Whitemarsh Township and its environs, he was the squire of Erdenheim Farm, a 450-acre panorama of green space unrivaled in Philadelphia's inner suburbs.
Following Dixon's death on Aug. 2, the question is: What happens to it all?

The Next American City 

PHILADELPHIA: Gambling on Philadelphia's Future: Can Casinos Fit into a Big City Downtown?
by Joanne Aitken, Harris Steinberg, and Elise Vider

Geno's hit with bias complaints
The Commission on Human Relations said it would insist on removal of a "Speak English" sign at the cheesesteak shop.
By Mitch Lipka
Inquirer Staff Writer
One of South Philadelphia's biggest names in cheesesteaks is in a bit of a legal pickle for a lunch-line political statement against immigrants who don't speak English. The city's Commission on Human Relations yesterday filed a discrimination complaint against Geno's Steaks over signs that read: "This is AMERICA ... WHEN ORDERING SPEAK ENGLISH." Owner Joey Vento has become a mini-celebrity over the issue and has steadfastly refused to pull down the signs despite the growing legal brouhaha. His son, Geno, said his father would not comment on the matter to The Inquirer. ....

Speedier cheap rail to N.Y.?
NJ Transit wants to extend its line north from Phila.

By Jennifer Moroz
Inquirer Trenton Bureau
Mon, Jun. 05, 2006

NJ Transit chief George Warrington is pitching a new rail service between Philadelphia and Newark, with the goal of giving central New Jerseyans a quick, cheap ride into Center City.

But the trains, which could be running within a couple of years, also would give another travel option to Philadelphians always on the lookout for a good deal into New York...

May 12th- June 5th, 2006

ICEBOX Project Space
Crane Arts Building
1400 North American Street
Philadelphia, PA 19112
215-898-8374

Opening Reception Friday, May 12th, 6-9 pm

Why public housing, once the scourge of the city, now is a vital part of its life and its future.

The TCDI program is intended to assist in reversing the trends of disinvestment and decline in many of the region's core cities and first generation suburbs by:

1. Supporting local planning projects that will lead to more residential, employment or retail opportunities;
2. Improving the overall character and quality of life within these communities to retain and attract business and residents, which will help to reduce the pressure for further sprawl and expansion into the growing suburbs;
3. Enhancing and utilizing the existing transportation infrastructure capacity in these areas to reduce the demands on the region's transportation network; and
4. Reducing congestion and improving the transportation system's efficiency.

The TCDI program is intended to assist in reversing the trends of disinvestment and decline in many of the region's core cities and first generation suburbs by:

1. Supporting local planning projects that will lead to more residential, employment or retail opportunities;
2. Improving the overall character and quality of life within these communities to retain and attract business and residents, which will help to reduce the pressure for further sprawl and expansion into the growing suburbs;
3. Enhancing and utilizing the existing transportation infrastructure capacity in these areas to reduce the demands on the region's transportation network; and
4. Reducing congestion and improving the transportation system's efficiency.

Session 282
Monday, January 23, 2006, 10:15 AM - 12:00 PM, Hilton
Transportation and Economic Development
Michael Bell, MEB Associates Inc, presiding

Sponsored by:
Transportation and Economic Development Committee (ADD10)

Sharing the Wealth: Targeting Transportation Funding to Economic Development in Low-Income Communities (06-1677)
Shirley M. Loveless, Coleshill Associates

Highway-Induced Development: Evidence from Sri Lankan Household Sector (06-0202)
Kumudu Gunasekera, Parsons Brinckerhoff
William Anderson, Boston University
T. R. Lakshmanan, Boston University

Stochastic Data Envelopment Analysis Based on Choice Theoretic Approach to Analyze Interaction Between Transportation and Economic Development (06-1208)
Jobair B. Alam, Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology
Konstadinos G. Goulias, University of California, Santa Barbara

Assessing Economic Impacts of Large-Scale Transport Infrastructure Projects: Case of Lyon-Turin Corridor (06-1256)
Wolfgang K. E. Schade, Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research, Germany

Subject Areas:
Transportation Policy

Sharing the Wealth: Targeting Transportation Funding to Economic Development in Low-Income Communities (06-1677)
Shirley M. Loveless, Coleshill Associates

ABSTRACT Economic development benefits are often cited as justification for transportation investments. For a variety of reasons, Federal transportation funds go mainly to large, regional-scale projects with identified regional economic benefits. Local benefits to low-income communities—where they exist—are usually incidental. The transportation and economic development needs of such communities generally get overlooked in transportation project planning. This has led to distributive inequity. A review of state and regional level transportation programs found few that target transportation investments to economic development in disadvantaged communities, either in effect or in stated purpose. The Transportation and Community Development Initiative (TCDI) program administered by the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission (DVRPC) is one of a very small number of such programs. This program is in its fourth year of competitive grants to local municipalities. While the DVRPC’s municipal eligibility criteria for the TCDI now go beyond strictly disadvantaged communities, in order to serve other goals such as regional growth management, the economic development benefits are still aimed primarily at disadvantaged communities. The program can point to some impressive results in local economic revitalization of disadvantaged neighborhoods that probably would not have occurred without the impetus the TCDI provided. On balance, the TCDI program is a good model for integrating transportation and economic development planning for the purpose of reviving disadvantaged communities. However, even TCDI’s emphasis on revitalization of such communities is no guarantee that their inhabitants will benefit from economic development that might be generated by the program’s projects.

Free Registration Required.

Information is at the sub-county level, but only one level beneath county, generally, so Philadelphia is broken only into Planning districts.

Funded by a 3-year grant from the William Penn Foundation, the Metropolitan Philadelphia Indicators Project combines two types of information to illuminate conditions and trends in our 9-county region (defined as the central cities of Philadelphia and Camden along with the Pennsylvania counties of Bucks, Chester, Delaware and Montgomery, and the New Jersey counties of Burlington, Camden, Gloucester and Salem). The first is a set of social, environmental and economic indicators that portray the quality of life in the region’s communities. The second type of information comes from an annual household survey conducted by Temple’s Institute for Survey Research, asking respondents across the region how they assess the quality of life in their communities. Tracking over time the changes in the indicators and in the survey responses, we can better understand how citizens’ perceptions relate to the changing conditions on the ground.

A large directory of health service providers and information in Philadelphia. Includes links by age, condition, and service.

Hard to tag because the URL wasn't imported when I tagged it.   I had to copy it in. 

Thisis a quick exert about the Boyd theater in PHiladelphia

GIS technology is proving itself to be a valuable tool for organizing data for both the public and private sectors -- for municipal infrastructure maintenance and record-keeping, regional planning, real estate, land use, and tourism. At the same time, scholars are using the technology in disciplines that embrace the humanities, the social sciences, the physical sciences, and medicine.

Now, PACSCL invites current and potential GIS users to gather to think about new uses for a geographic based resource, new users from a range of disciplines, and new ranges of contributors and contributions. The purpose of this symposium is to focus less on the "how" of building a GIS and more on the "why." We will concentrate on finding ways that data from all of these sectors -- when organized with a sense of place and time -- can offer new insights into connections across these disciplines.

Panel discussions in the mornings will be followed by facilitated small group discussions and information sharing in the afternoons. Participants will be grouped according to potential GIS uses (history, social sciences, city/regional planning, human services, public health, etc.) and users (professional affinity groups) for the small group discussions. PACSCL's objectives in hosting this event are to foster increased cooperation among a widened range of current and potential GIS users and to give participants the opportunity to consider issues of how best to work together in the presence of a lively and informed group of colleagues. The results of this symposium will be used to further shape the Greater Philadelphia GeoHistory Network.

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The literary map of Pennsylvania is a graphic display of the literary history of our Commonwealth. On the map you'll find writers of novels, plays, short stories, technical manuals, legislation, children's literature…just about anything you could imagine connected to writing.

Click on a county to see authors from that county with biographies and lists of works.