Monday round-up

A bit of a quiet news day, so some esoteric bits.

• Part of Center City's recent boom is made up of young families moving here, which will keep up the pressure for the city to improve schools and services. YPP starts a discussion of how to move any success outward to the rest of the city's neighborhoods.
  
  
• Stu Bykofsky is unimpressed by Michael Nutter's calls for a police state of emergency in crime-ridden areas, opining that a white candidate could never suggest such a dire stop-and-frisk intervention into largely black neighborhoods.
  
  
• Local streets projects:
  
  
  
  • North Broad has been getting some attention, to forward its inclusion in the Avenue of the Arts promotional sunlight, and a flurry of new condo projects and other developments are already underway in the area.
    
    
  • While it won't get rebuilt for another 8-12 months, the South Street bridge is getting a weight limit that will mean, among other things, the redirecting of the 40 and other bus routes that currently cross it (effective today -- SEPTA update here).
  
  
• Of politicians and their proposals
  
  
  
  • Dan at YPP reminds us that Pennsylvanians rated health insurance a huge issue, and indicated willingness to pay higher taxes to get more complete coverage. How that helps us evaluate Rendell's proposal and others is yet to be seen.
    
    
  • Michael Nutter is making the movie "Shame of the City" part of many campaign events, which sparks Ray Murphy to critique the presentation of facts therein. Much debate ensues...
  
  
• Latest installment of casino-related troublemaking is a move to get a May charter-change measure to prohibit casinos within some distance of residential properties. Petitions are already circulating, and a heap of Councilfolk will need to be won over (the piece points out that a council no-vote would empower many primary challengers!), but it could put a halt to the recently approved riverfront developments, and at least buy time for the city to plan its own future a bit more carefully. I missed this piece last week, so thanks to YPP for putting an article to the rumors I started hearing this weekend...
  
  
• Marc Stier has a new piece laying out his political philosophy and how we can use politics to connect us to each other and our deeper values.
  
  
• Finally, I'll end on a goofy note: somebody sabotaged Mayor Street's Wikipedia entry, adding an apocraphyl stint as Bozo the Clown. [Space left here for a wisecrack from Albert about Street's hairstyle...]