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The dispute over Edgely Field highlights systemic failures in park maintenance

The Parkside Saints finally found a home. An October 4, 2019 announcement from Philadelphia’s Rebuild initiative announced the completion of a practice field for the youth football club at the Parkside Evans Playground in West Philadelphia. The Saints, founded in 2010 by Coach Cliff Smith, had practiced in whatever open space they could find in

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14 mins read
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Pasa executive director reflects on the life cycle of land and how sustainable farming can keep it healthy

Does healthier soil create food that has more nutrients? At Pasa Sustainable Agriculture, we have several community-science research projects based on farms working to find the answer to that intriguing question, because the wellness of our bodies is very likely linked to the overall health and wellness of the land and water that grow these

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2 mins read
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Editor’s Notes: Battling for Transparency

When it comes to how the City manages public land, the deck is stacked. When the City leased the Cobbs Creek Golf Course to the Cobbs Creek Foundation, a West Conshohocken-based nonprofit, for $1 for 30 years, there were no competing bids. There was no discussion about how people in the community might like to

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2 mins read
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The Neighborhood Gardens Trust hits a major milestone, but the work continues

You’d think that after protecting 50 gardens, the process would get easier. But for the Neighborhood Gardens Trust (NGT), a nonprofit tasked with preserving gardens, securing each parcel of land is a unique challenge. This spring NGT and members of Brewerytown Garden at 27th and Master streets celebrated the protection of some of the garden’s

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5 mins read
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Politicians, nonprofits and tribal leaders are working to recognize the injustices and crimes colonists committed against the Lenape

In 1737, William Penn’s son Thomas and Penn’s secretary, James Logan — Logan Circle’s namesake — did one of the dirtiest deals in the country’s history. The Walking Purchase, specified that the Lenape Indians, whose homeland of Lenapehoking, stretched from the Chesapeake to New York, would sell Thomas Penn as much land as a man

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6 mins read
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After almost a decade, the Philadelphia Land Bank still struggles to balance development and protecting green space

I’m bidding for a piece of my childhood. That feeling is something that … can be traumatizing. People are losing a part of themselves.” — Michael Gonzalo Moran, Iglesias Gardens board member When a notice went up in 2015 announcing that a lot his mother had tended as a vegetable garden since the 1990s would

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9 mins read