July 15-21, 2004

loose canon

City Greening's Fragile Victory

by Bruce Schimmel

It's a big win in the fight against urban blight and an investment that must be protected. A year ago, as part of Mayor Street's Neighborhood Transformation Initiative, the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society received $4 million to clean 1 million square feet of filthy, abandoned lots. Last week, the city got back far more than it bargained for.

The Flower Show people supersized their contract by turning 1.37 million square feet of trashy parcels into 1,300 pristine pocket parks. Weeds, pests, refrigerators and abandoned cars have been replaced by small village greens filled with trees. PHS, together with city agencies and community groups, have transformed abandoned lots into safe spaces that help neighborhoods become communities. There, residents can play, garden, picnic and talk.

This is a turning moment in the greening of Philadelphia.

PHS now manages a total of 2.25 million square feet in nearly 2,000 places, many located in the city's toughest neighborhoods. It's indeed a triumph to create fields of green out of lots of grime, but the hardest challenge is yet to come. In these tight times, it will take courage to keep the greening going. It'll be a challenge to argue the case in favor of investing in green space, especially with so many other city services under fiscal fire.

How do you quantify some of the benefits that a village common can offer an emerging community? How do you put hard numbers on having everyone on a block — from schoolkids and seniors to loners and leaders — come to feel that their neighborhood is worth protecting? How can you show that caring becomes contagious? Though "green infrastructure" has long been touted as a tool for community revitalization, it's tough to count some of its blessings. Until now.

Fortunately, urban planners are beginning to show how investing in greening yields all kind of dividends — by increasing property values, reducing crime, creating jobs and nudging tottering neighborhoods toward self-sufficiency. Philadelphia has a great tradition of nurturing public space that dates back to William Penn's "greene countrie towne." And having come this far to restore this unique Philadelphia vision, our investment in greening must not be squandered.

The city must not let those 2,000 green havens to slide back into filth.