Excitement, yet anxiety

Jan. 7, 2007
Chris Satullo
Inquirer Editorial Page Editor

Philadelphia, city of neighborhoods: livable, affordable, friendly, funky. Philadelphia, city of neighborhoods: clannish, parochial, scared of change, mired in bad habits. Both statements are true. Both viewpoints can be held inside the brain of the same person living in, and loving, this city.

To be a Philadelphian is to live the ancient Chinese philosophical truth of yin and yang
- of complementary opposites, light and shadow, good and evil, and so on. That's the excitement, and the anxiety, as Philly elects a mayor and Council this year.

Both sentiments were palpable a few weeks ago as The Inquirer hosted more than 180 local leaders for a series of dialogues to kick off Great Expectations: Citizen Voices on Philadelphia's Future. (The project is also sponsored by the University of Pennsylvania and supported by the Lenfest Foundation.) Who took part? Many were folks on the 101 Connectors list, a compendium of the region's most trusted leaders put together by Leadership Philadelphia Inc. We mixed in a few more leaders from the realms of culture, business, education and civic activism.

These leaders took part in dialogue formats that got them talking candidly about what works in this city and region and what doesn't. The level of enthusiasm about Philly's strengths was striking. The grasp of the city's problems was firm. Anxiety flowed from a shared sense that this year's elections arrive at a moment of grand opportunity - which the city's entrenched political culture already seems well on the way to blowing.

Some headlines from these 10 dialogues:

Philadelphia IS better than Philadelphians say it is. People who moved here from elsewhere were more likely to extol the city's virtues more rapturously. The forums generated lists of the city's pros and cons. The consensus "pros" included: affordable quality of life, climate and location, a cultural array that combines
institutions of global renown with deeply rooted neighborhood treasures, great universities and hospitals ("It's a great city to get sick in"); and a rich sense of history.

There's a yin to every yang. Many pros come interwoven with cons. One person would extol the region's mass-transit infrastructure. Another would counter, "Yeah, but the service is terrible; why can't you buy a subway token?" SEPTA and PATCO work great for the commuting lawyer, but far less well for, say, a Logan resident seeking work in the 'burbs, or a young Old City resident heading home after a night spent sampling "urban vibrancy."

Many cited the city's huge and varied nonprofit sector as a strength. True, others replied, but there's such a thing as having too many little groups working the same problems; it's confusing and wasteful. We need the eggs. Remember Woody Allen's
punchline at the end of Annie Hall? Guy complains that his brother thinks he's a chicken, drives everyone crazy clucking. Shrink says, "No problem, I can cure him." Guy replies, "But I need the eggs."

That's Philly and its neighborhoods. They're diverse, "real," and warm once you get to know them. But, oh, what they put the newbies through before they accept them. Almost everyone described the neighborhoods as a core reason they prefer this city over all others. But they
also said that the neighborhoods' habitual insularity and fear of change were key obstacles to political reform and economic vitality.

Speaking of bad habits... Here's one attytood apparently instilled at birth from Torresdale to Eastwick: This city is a zero-sum game. If someone else is gaining, that must mean I'm losing. This isn't surprising in a city battered by a five decades of
unfriendly trends. But a city can't thrive if it has no faith in win/win solutions and wealth creation.

Welcome! What's the secret password? Fascinating debates took place between those who found Philly to be a friendly city of many niches where a newcomer can easily find a place to fit in, and those who found it a closed system with a mysterious code only grudgingly shared.

For whom are we fixing this city? Every place is easier to live in if you have money. But many Philly boosters insisted that it's easier to enjoy good quality of life on a modest income here than in other East Coast cities. But others said Philly also has some of America's worst pockets of poverty, compounded by worse-than-elsewhere services. Don't spend so much energy grooming the city for high-income buyers, they warned, that you forget the folks who've always lived here.

Paul who? The sweeping city school reform effort led by Paul Vallas seemed to have stunningly small impact on forum participants' perceptions of city schools. It might as well still be 2002, given how negative the sense was.

Rage against the machine. These leaders yearn to believe that 2007 will be the year when corrupt Democratic machine politics collapses under the weight of its sins.
You can feel it around town, people said, a thirst for reform, for an end to pay-to-play, to Councilman-As-Corrupt-Feudal-Lord, to Government-by-Whom-You-Know. Yet... folks don't really believe. They see little sign that the Democratic machine cares that some people are sick of its act. They don't see how reformers can grasp levers of power. And they fear that neighborhood civic groups are too trapped in enabling, co-dependent relationships with the usual suspects.

The Great Expectations dialogues now move out to the neighborhoods, for more than 25 forums all over the city in January and February. Hope to see you there.