Greater, Greater Washington’s Cavan Wilk posted a fantastic piece about the possible end of shopping malls that had me wondering what the changing economics of these staples of suburbia could mean for this region.  Wilk’s points to a recent piece in Slate that is among the first from outside of the traditional “urbanist” movement - [...]

Remember Unisys?  They most recently made news when their plans to relocate their corporate headquarters to Two Liberty Place were thwarted by a newly invigorated Zoning Board of Adjustment who denied them the permission to affix a giant lighted sign to side of Philadelphia’s third tallest building.
The company is back in the news today with [...]

Blogging will be light today since I really have to get to some video editing but I’ll open today’s blogging with this fun post from Governing.com’s blog, The 13th Floor:
Here’s the darkest headline I can remember seeing on a press release:
Cities Officials Hold the Worst Outlook in the Nation’s Direction in Nearly 20 Years

And here is [...]

A neighborhood with overgrown and trash-covered vacant lots is a perennial issue often facing poor neighborhoods. So how does a community nip this sort of problem in the bud? In Philadelphia, one of the answers has been the municipally-funded Community LandCare (CLC) program. But it’s now at risk of being wiped out as part of Mayor Michael Nutter’s $108 million budget cut plan.
The Community [...]

Our nation’s economy is in the toilet. Philadelphia’s libraries and swimming pools are closing. We get it. Times are tough. On the personal level, folks are saving and spending less. Goodness knows, the bag lunch from home is gaining popularity. But once in a while, wouldn’t it be nice to treat yourself to a Philly Cutback Sandwich? You might be wondering, what’s that? [...]

Mayor Nutter defends 10-year property tax abatement program:
I’m way behind on my reading of the Sunday Inquirer, but I finally got around to the piece by Patrick Kerkstra that Alan says was so prominently discussed at last night’s town hall meeting.  Clearly there are some vast differences of opinion between the backers and opponents of [...]

Greg, who happens to be a friend of mine and someone I met while I was working in the mayoral race in 2003 and he was lobbying to save Love Park’s iconic status as a skateboarding mecca, has taken the view that the recent denial by a judge of Fox Chase Cancer Center’s proposed expansion [...]

Mayor Michael Nutter’s $108 million budget cut plan includes a reduced economic development contract with the Schuylkill River Development Corporation (SRDC). This public-private partnership is the same one responsible for creating and maintaining the Schuylkill Banks trail from Locust Street up to the Waterworks area around the Philadelphia Museum of Art. The trail, which is home to popular outdoor summer movie nights, remains Center City’s jumping-off point [...]

President-elect Barack Obama is already under the spotlight as he tries to cope with the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression. But walk by any curbside clothing stand in Philadelphia and you are likely to see one positive economic from an Obama presidency that hasn’t even begun yet. The Obama image is [...]

A thin elderly man sits on a stool by the door inside the Charles L. Durham library in Mantua, or as the locals call the area “The Bottom.” He chit-chats with the clerk at the check-out counter, and asks her to put on some Christmas music. The clerk returns with a cd and pops it into a boom box. A [...]