Invest Here

Plenty of people would buy a share in local solar power.

by Bruce Schimmel

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Published: Oct 22, 2008

I ambushed the mayor in City Hall recently to ask an impossible question: How has the financial meltdown changed his worldview?

Right after the market meltdown, Nutter had painted a pretty bleak financial outlook. This city borrows money by selling municipal bonds on a worldwide market. So in riskier times, we'll pay more to borrow, leaving us less to spend on roads, schools and the police.

Nutter had just announced that everything could come under the budget knife. And since then, lips in City Hall have been sealed, as civil servants have sliced in silence. Pretty grim, I thought, as I lay in wait for Hizzoner.

Nutter had just finished finessing some housing advocates in the Mayor's Reception Hall, and was escaping when I asked how the crash had changed his vision of Philadelphia's future.

"We'll have to manage it," replied Nutter with studied composure. "The city is open for business today, it'll be open next week. We're going to pick up trash, water is going to flow through pipes. You call 911, someone's going to show up." (You can listen to our encounter at schimmel.com/nutter_081009.mp3.)

Sure, we'll survive. But given the collapse of worldwide markets, did he still think of Philly as an international city?

"Absolutely," the Mayor shot back.

However, Nutter curbed his international enthusiasm with a warning: "All the cities in America and across the world are experiencing the same challenges. We're all in the same boat, together." Should the global tide sink low enough, every city will flounder.

All true, but to this I'd like to add an optimistic note: We may all be in the same boat, but no city has to stay there. And (if I may push the metaphor further), Philly's own ship may be old and leaky, but it was built exceedingly well.

Sustainable cities are built on the independence of their infrastructure. On being able to provide their citizenry with transportation, food and energy. Before globalization and oil, as a manufacturing and cultural powerhouse, Philadelphia was plenty sustainable, and it could be more so today.

Philadelphia has plenty of energy, embedded in roads and rails, in brick homes and in the rich soil of William Penn's "Greene Countrie Towne." Today, some of our financial and intellectual capital is returning, as suburban empty nesters come home.

Beyond that, our greatest asset is a deep tradition rooted in Philly's cultural DNA: As a city we believe in pooling our personal wealth and investing in ourselves.

When 18th-century Philadelphia needed a hospital and a library, Ben Franklin and other city leaders tapped locals to provide capital. Even today, The Reinvestment Fund (TRF, trfund.com) — a nonprofit investment group — raises capital locally to rebuild schools and neighborhoods, and even to finance clean energy.

My wife and I have placed $50,000 of our money in TRF, which provides us a good return. But that's not for everyone. There should be other opportunities for any Philadelphian to invest in their hometown.

Even now, with your 401(k) looking more like a 201(k), if you had a chance to buy into a local power utility, would you? It could happen. I recently moderated a panel on sustainable infrastructure, where it was suggested that the solar array now slated for the Navy Yard could be expanded, and take on investors.

Plenty of people would pony up for local power. Citizens already can in Sacramento, Calif., which offers affordable shares in a municipal solar project.

Just as everyone bought War Bonds during the Second World War, Philadelphia today should offer Peace Bonds so that anyone can invest.

If more of our own helped pay our own way, the mayor might not have to go to outside markets, and get stung with usurious rates. Philly could leave that big boat, and navigate its own way: Become an independent city with an international reputation, the stuff of Franklin's dreams.

(bruce@schimmel.com)

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