By Bernard Brown This story was updated after publication with a quote from the Mayor’s Office. It looks like the already sweet deal that the Cobbs Creek Foundation made with the city could be getting even sweeter. On March 30 Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney released his capital budget proposal for fiscal year 2023, which, on page
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Before #vanlife became a hashtag, or “Nomadland” won the Academy Award for Best Picture, Kirsty Halliday faced niggling doubts about her path forward. Sitting in her windowless office at the (since shuttered) construction firm Greensaw Design & Build, she wondered, “What am I doing?” At night, in her LEED Platinum apartment in Fishtown, the Scottish
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There are times that I struggle being a feminist in the work that I do. It doesn’t always feel like I am making a difference and men don’t actually want to learn how to clean, cook and give women domestic equality. Many times I feel like a misandrist toward men who aren’t fourth-wave feminists, a
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The Schuylkill river, swollen with runoff from Hurricane Ida, was rising fast. Karen Young, the executive director of the Fairmount Water Works, knew it was only a matter of time until the river’s chocolate-brown water flooded the Interpretive Center, the water-focused museum next to the Fairmount Dam. “I was in the center the day the
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In 2020, Pennsylvania became the first state in the nation to include a farm bill in its state budget. The bill invested in, among other priorities, urban agriculture, farmland conservation, workforce development and new market opportunities, including an unanticipated investment in organic agriculture. Given Pennsylvania vies regularly with Washington state for second in organic farming
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We at Soil Generation have been organizing for land justice for growers of color in Philadelphia since 2014. Community control of land is the foundation of our collective struggle toward liberation. Whether the issue is food, education or housing, community control of resources requires community control of the land. As rapid development displaces community gardens
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The heartache was still fresh when Fred H. Cartwright emailed us. “Our little slice of heaven is going away, tree by tree.” If you wanted to teach a class about environmental racism, and learn about the importance of trees simultaneously, the deforestation of 100-plus acres of city-owned land for a golf course in Cobbs Creek
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Successful businesses always start by filling a need or relieving a “pain point” for a target market. In Grid’s launch year 2008, when sustainability and “going green” were working their way into the common lexicon and Michael Nutter was elected Philadelphia’s mayor on a sustainability platform, the pain point was really located in the consumer’s
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“When you have children, it’s important that they listen to you, but it’s equally important that you listen to them.” These words of wisdom from former-Councilmember Blondell Reynolds Brown are what inspired her to listen a bit more closely one afternoon in 2008, when her middle school-aged daughter came home and told her what she
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The History 2008 was an exciting time to launch a sustainability magazine. From out of nowhere (or so it seemed), a community of bold thinkers and innovators coalesced around issues like local food, stormwater management, renewable energy, green building and recycling. Christine Knapp, who was working for the environmental advocacy group PennFuture, was central to
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