Mayor Cherelle Parker: Year One

Environmental issues are rarely at the top of the political agenda. If they were, we might not need this special issue looking at Mayor Cherelle Parker’s first year.

Given the long list of environmental problems facing Philadelphia and the long list of solutions beginning to be worked out, it wasn’t entirely clear where to start. But since Parker entered office promising a suite of quality of life initiatives, many of which have environmental dimensions, in this issue Grid examines the City’s marquee Clean and Green Initiatives.

Parker also inherited a host of programs aimed at advancing environmental goals: reducing the city’s greenhouse gas emissions, cleaning up its waterways, improving air quality, increasing the tree canopy and advancing sustainable transportation, among others. We take a look at these as well. Directing the administration of a large city is more like hopping onto a barge mid-river than launching a speedboat from a dock. The City’s problems are decades (and centuries) in the making and will take many years of sustained attention to solve. Though mayors are often loath to cede credit to — or even share it with — predecessors, much of their success depends on maintaining the focus (and budgeting the resources) to continue critical initiatives that predate their time at the helm.

There was no way we could fit everything relevant into this issue — or extract from reticent sources all the information readers deserve — but rest assured that Grid won’t stop. We will keep covering local environmental issues as doggedly as we always have, shining a light on what works, what doesn’t work and what could work better in Philadelphia government.