My daughter and I wended our way through the streets of our West Philly neighborhood, shunted block after block by fire department barricades. We were heading from a playground, where we had started the morning, to the supermarket, but there was a burning vacant apartment building in the way. As we followed the downwind side
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Every year the Trust for Public Land releases its ParkScore ratings, and every year Philadelphians have something to be disappointed about: how little the City spends on its parks. ParkScore ranks the 100 most populous cities in the country using a list of measures gauging the size of the park system (acreage), what the parks
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Back in February, The Philadelphia Inquirer published an op-ed by former Mayor Michael Nutter that left me feeling confused. The piece argues for the role of fossil gas in the home energy mix for Philadelphians, because, Nutter claims, renewables are simply too expensive for low-income households. Yes, this is the same Michael Nutter who, in
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A few years ago a friend moved to the suburbs after decades in Philadelphia. Last week she came over for dinner, and she joked about a chicken bone she stepped over on the sidewalk on her way to our West Philly door. There’s nothing like chicken bones to let you know you’re back in the
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I had never heard of the Philadelphia Art Commission back in 2022 when I tuned in to a Zoom meeting about plans to build a driving range at the Cobbs Creek Golf Course. When reporting on a public meeting of a City commission, it’s not uncommon to find yourself waiting impatiently through all the other
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Like a lot of Grid readers, I’m still adjusting to the reality of the 2024 presidential election. There is my conscious perception of reality, based on the facts of the world, and there is my gut-level sense of reality, colored by how I think the world should be. The two are out of whack. Case
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What’s more important, jobs or health? The question nominally sits at the heart of the struggle to ban smoking in casinos in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, covered by Rebecca McCarthy in this issue. The people who work at casinos say they should not have to breathe tobacco smoke at work, since that can lead to
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For a few years now, I have been avoiding writing an article about freshwater mussels like the one Kyle Bagenstose wrote for this issue. His article airs doubts about the claim that restoring native freshwater mussels can help clean polluted waters — just as efforts are ramping up to breed and reintroduce mussels to our
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I made the mistake of watching the presidential debate between Vice President Harris and former President Trump on September 10. I had earlier decided that watching it was pointless; there is no question who I am voting for. And I am an early-to-bed kind of guy, so the next day I paid a price for
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A while back, I learned that Grid contributor Carolyn Kousky is a national expert on flood insurance, a topic I knew little about. I asked her to write a primer for our readers who, if they’re anything like me, could stand to learn something. When I read through her first draft, I learned that FEMA
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