It’s thrilling to see the Philadelphia Water Department taking aggressive, progressive action to solve the city’s stormwater woes. Faced with a system in crisis, they came up with “Green City, Clean Waters,” a solution that favors rain barrels, grassy sidewalks and tree pits over the construction of yet another massive tunnel. “The hardest thing to
MoreJanuary is the month for fresh starts. Some people decide to lose weight, others to quit smoking or recycle more. In my house, we’ve decided to be diligent about eating our greens. Thankfully, this doesn’t have to be a chore.
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In Philadelphia, there is nothing as cleansing as a good rain. In the moments after a storm, the city feels renewed: trees drip, skies clear and birds reemerge. Dirt, soot and trash have been swiftly swept away. The concrete and pavement feel, if not exactly new, at least a little fresher.
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“My passion is water,” says builder and master plumber Pat McDonald. “I can live without the lights being on.” McDonald is co-founder (with his brother Tim) of Onion Flats, a sustainable development company based in Kensington that is revolutionizing the relationship between structures and stormwater in Philadelphia.
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I once enjoyed the deer of Woodlands Cemetery. I would jog around a mausoleum and they’d go bounding away. Often they wouldn’t flee, eerily tolerant of the human stumbling (you never feel clumsier than when you’re comparing yourself to deer) only a few yards away. They were a delight to watch, but it couldn’t last.
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"Race that train!” yelled Alex Doty. A familiar site was before us: a CSX train slowly lurching towards the Locust Street crossing to Schuylkill Banks Park. Charles Carmalt, Pedestrian and Bicycle Coordinator for the Mayor’s Office of Transportation and Utilities (MOTU), was already halfway across the tracks.
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Have you ever locked your bike to a tree? Did you know that every time you do this, you damage that tree? The tree’s bark serves as a layer of protection, just as your skin protects you. When you scrape off bark with a chain or lock, the tree becomes more susceptible to disease. It
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This interview was conceived as a back-and-forth, but give an Italian intellectual open-ended questions and you’ll get expansive—and fascinating—open-ended answers. A retrospective of Michelangelo Pistoletto’s thoughtful, dynamic work (From One to Many: 1956-1974) opened in November at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
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How can two people and two cats make so much garbage? My husband used to ask this question almost every time he took out the trash. I had pondered it myself ever since we started living together. There was only so much we could blame on the cats. Among the many things Glenn and I
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Marilyn Anthony, Southeast Regional Director for the Pennsylvania Association for Sustainable Agriculture (PASA), describes the agricultural organization’s new land sharing program “Farming Futures” as “a blend of eBay and eHarmony.”
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