(Photo: Adam E. Moreira via Wikimedia Commons, used under CC-BY-SA-3.0) Back in 2014, Pennsylvania lawmakers took a tough vote to uncap the state gas tax and fund the Act 89 transportation funding bill. Continue reading

Once upon a time in West Philly, there was a street vendor who would set up shop every day on the same street corner. Continue reading

In which Jannie Blackwell proposes District Councilmembers approve all your plants and benches; Darrell Clarke and Bill Greenlee propose a new way to bring tax delinquents to the table; and David Oh panders to the electric vehicle charging station NIMBYs. Continue reading

If you're thinking about running for a ward seat for the first time in 2018, one question you may be asking is "how much influence do wards really have over who wins elections?" Continue reading

City Council has been on winter break for seven weeks, but they're back and ready for action. Or at least for filing some bills. Our Council Report Card is back too, with a weekly look at the top bills introduced in City Council. You can track the status of prior bills we've written about here. One quick note: this week's Report Card contains bills introduced last Thursday, so they're about a week old. We'll have the latest bills up early next week. Continue reading

Over the past two weeks, Philadelphia 3.0 hosted two sold-out 'Get Mad, Then Get Elected' workshops that helped prepare nearly 200 Philadelphians from over half the citys wards to run for their first political office next year in the 2018 ward elections.  Continue reading

Back in the 30's, when the end of Prohibition was within sight, Pennsylvania's Prohibitionist Governor Gifford Pinchot saw the writing on the wall and created a Prohibition-lite framework for regulating alcohol in Pennsylvania. His stated goal was to "discourage the purchase of alcoholic beverages by making it as inconvenient and expensive as possible." Continue reading

Back in 2014, the City of Philadelphia created a Land Bank to manage the disposition of the City's huge stockpiles of vacant property. Philadelphia owns a lot more land than most other big city governments do, and people on all sides of this issue generally agree it would be a good thing if we owned less.  Continue reading

(We used to do this | Photo: Philly History) Mayor Jim Kenney announced the creation of a Zero Waste and Litter Cabinet this week, which will spend the next six months figuring out how to turn Philadelphia into a "zero waste" city by 2035. Continue reading