Tuesday, February 07, 2006

Philadelphia news round-up

There was one piece from Harrisburg that caught my eye, but it essentially reported that attempts at cutting property taxes continue to be stalled on the disagreement between House and Senate about how to offset those revenues. So a smattering of more localized news stories:
  • The controversy over Dilworth's house in Society Hill (onetime symbol of commitment to urban renewal, now a nondescript house blocking the dreams of highrise developers) continues with a lame jumbled plan to retain the facade of the current house while building a tower behind it. Yuck on all fronts, and nobody is being won over...

  • I've lived in Philadelphia for ten years, but this story is the first I've heard of a plume of oil under South Philly. For the similarly clueless among my readers, it's a 2-million-gallon slick of goo that some worry could threaten the water table, and the federal government is suing refiner Sunoco for funds to help with the clean-up. Meantime, local residents blame a panoply of health and other ills on fumes that might be emanating from this monster far underground.

  • A Daily News article applauds Mayor Street's new safety initiative (see prev. here) and holds out hope that it might actually turn things around.

  • And finally, two interesting essays at Marc Stier's blog, one arguing against the Trump casino proposal near Wissahickon (and for a different way of developing that site to support its community) and the other suggesting an approach to limiting smoking in bars, even if the hoped-for ban can't make it out of City Hall.

2 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Marc's blog is awesome as is he, but his alternatives for developing the Budd site are not that great. What's the difference between a Casino that's designed to part people with their money or a bunch of big box retailers - who are doing the same.

2:39 PM  
Blogger ACM said...

well, at least the "big box stores" are places you might choose to shop for things you actually need (and thus prefer shopping locally to driving all around the region), while the casino provides no service and fills no actual need . . .

but I dunno -- why not post the question over on his blog?

2:52 PM  

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