Neighborhoods: A Citizen Voices Issue Framework

In this view, the underlying problem of Philadelphia’s neighborhoods is that the city’s leaders haven’t tended well to the ties that bind. The people-to people-connections fostered by civic groups and local institutions are what make a neighborhood thrive. But thanks to divisive forces, competing demands, citizen apathy and poor political leadership, Philadelphia’s civic resources aren’t being tapped as they should be to address community problems. Grass-roots leadership is stymied, not nurtured.

In other words, it’s a problem of civic capital.

The broad remedy, in this view, is better cooperation by government and major institutions with grass-roots leaders. Politicians and institutions such as universities, denominations and foundations need to recognize, value and work with the pent-up citizen energy and talent in the neighborhoods. The power to solve neighborhood problems often resides in the neighborhood, in this view; all it needs is timely support from outside.

Too often, in this view, civic resources are instead squandered because leaders see citizens only as a source of problems or a threat to their power. Concerned citizens should be seen as partners not pests. Neighborhoods should be seen as reservoirs of potential to be tapped, of civic capital, not merely as a collection of problems to be dealt with.

• Transform public schools into community centers, open day and night, seven days a week, hosting community meetings, youth programs etc. In return, the schools would benefit from increased volunteer help and strong community support for funding.

• City bureaucracy and politicians should support, not complicate or thwart, the work of community development corporations in housing and economic development.

• Have civic groups form a citizens advisory council with real power to communicate neighborhoods’ needs and plans to City Hall.

• Enhance and expand community policing, where officers assigned for the long term to a community work with its leaders to enhance safety.

• Mobilize powerful institutions such as churches and foundations to collaborate on recognizing and meeting neighborhood needs. Less focus on internal needs, less turf warfare.

• Encourage citizen service to the community by treating it as something of real value e.g. tax breaks for community service; awards or grants to successful civic efforts.

• Create ways for neighborhoods to share information about successful programs and best practices.

• Create forums where people of different neighborhoods, or different ethnic groups within neighborhoods, can come together to share ideas and experiences and build trust.

• Treat the city’s racial and ethnic diversity as an asset, not a problem. Don’t reward politicians who seek advantage by fueling racial divisions.

• Create a city "office of morale," to highlight successes of neighborhoods and promote neighborhood celebrations just as the city has promoted large Center City festivals to raise the mood and image of the city.

• Civic capital, the problem-solving potential of people working together, is a resource of neighborhood life even more important than economic capital or handsome buildings.

• Many Philadelphia neighborhoods have enough civic capital to begin solving their owns problems, but it remains untapped. If this energy were tapped, not thwarted, the city could solve many problems without spending more money.

• City Hall often does not see problems as they appear at ground level in the neighborhoods, so better lines of communication are needed.

• Schools are the natural anchors of neighborhoods, so it’s silly to keep them closed and padlocked two thirds of the time.

• Major institutions such as universities, foundations and denominations have an obligation to do more to help the neighborhoods where they are based.

• Many small church and civic groups have demonstrated their skill at creating solutions on a small scale. They need more support to expand to meet the need.

• Encouraging community activists will create a war of all against all, a high-decibel squabble over how to divide a limited municipal pie among neighborhoods.

• Citizens are too apathetic to be counted on to handle key municipal roles.

• Citizens may be well meaning, but they lack the expertise to be effective.

• Citizens have their hands full making a living and raising families; to ask them to do more to address neighborhood problems is unrealistic. They don’t have the time.

• Civic spirit is nice, but it can’t compensate for the neighborhoods’ central problem, the flight of economic capital.

• You can’t rouse civic spirit when people are beaten down daily by blight, graffiti, vandalism and potholes.

• The city’s racial and ethnic tensions make it improbable that neighborhoods could pull together in the way this choice envisions.