How many empty plastic water bottles did you see on the ground today? How about chip bags or blunt wrappers? Plastic litter is so abundant and widespread that it fades into the background, but a new initiative of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University is employing artwork in an effort to highlight the
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The full opening of the Martin Luther King Jr. Drive bridge over the Schuylkill River has again been pushed later, this time to 2025. The bridge, which connects MLK Drive through Fairmount Park West to the Eakins Oval, has been closed since 2020 as part of a project to make repairs to the bridge’s structure,
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Much of the opposition to the FDR Park Master Plan centers on the replacement of the open greenspace of the Meadows with the artificial green of 12 synthetic turf athletic fields. Master Plan boosters cite the “playability” of synthetic turf fields, which can host more hours of play per week than natural grass fields. Recent
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Like many American cities, Philadelphia is built on land that wants to be wet. Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) Park sits in a particularly soggy corner, right at the junction where the Schuylkill River rushes into the Delaware. The park is perforated by several lakes and water channels, and flooding regularly renders pedestrian walkways impassible. Over
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Air is something we share. But clean air, it turns out, is not equally available to all. Using technology with an almost cartoonish name, the PurpleAir monitor, Christina Rosan thinks making disparities in air quality “in your face” will lead to more equitable, citizen-informed public policies. Advocating for clean air everywhere, she believes, could promote
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Hoping to encourage the thoughtful development and deployment of new technologies across the city, the Kenney Administration formed the SmartCityPHL initiative within Philadelphia’s Office of Innovation and Technology (OIT) in 2019. The SmartCityPHL steering committee formed that year as well, tasked with creating a roadmap for using technology to support the City’s economic, social and
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Since Philadelphia’s 30th Street Amtrak Station announced in late March that it would switch from steam power to gas boilers, activists have been pushing back on the station’s claims that the move aligns with a sustainable future for the city. “That is simply a false narrative,” Clean Air Council Executive Director Joseph Minott says. “Everyone
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It’s hard to find someone with anything bad to say about the High Line, the abandoned elevated train track that reopened in 2009 as a park after years of organizing by advocates in Manhattan’s SoHo neighborhood. In 2019, before the pandemic, the High Line drew 8 million visitors a year. It has been a critical
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I’d been hearing about the South Philly Meadows for some time, so I finally paid a visit. I biked from Center City — a very manageable 29-minute ride — and started to wander. The sound of traffic on Pattison Avenue began to fade with every step into the open, unplanned expanse, and the birdsongs grew
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Growing up in the ’90s, Lakisha Bullock was bullied for her appearance at her West Philly middle school. “I had big thick hair. My mom didn’t know what to do with it,” she says. At the time there weren’t a lot of Black hair products that weren’t relaxers and straighteners, she says. So, in high
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