That's a Wrap! Takeaways from Philly's 2021 Primary
District Attorney Larry Krasner won a decisive victory over challenger Carlos Vega in Tuesday’s Democratic primary, winning 66% of the vote to Vega’s 34%, as of this writing.
The result isn’t entirely surprising given how often incumbents generally win reelection, but the background conditions of heightened gun violence and murders over the last year had many political observers wondering whether we’d see a thermostatic reaction to Krasner’s politics. In the end, most voters didn’t buy Vega and the FOP’s efforts to lay the blame for increased crime on Krasner, and the incumbent actually did better in the wards that had seen the highest numbers of shootings last year.
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What Does Jim Kenney Want to Accomplish with Tax Reform?
(Mayor Jim Kenney)
There are a couple of tax reform proposals in the mix in this year’s city budget debate, with a short window of opportunity presented by relatively flush city coffers for elected officials to make a smart investment in the city’s economic competitiveness.
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Philly's Housing Shortage and the Problem of Low Vacancy Rates
(New homes under construction in East Kensington | Photo: Jon Geeting)
The Philadelphia region is facing an historic housing shortage, with some of the lowest home inventory available in decades in both the city and the suburbs. There are many different reasons why this is the case, not least because the backdrop is a nationwide housing shortage of more than 2.5 million homes, but a big part of it is straightforward: we simply haven’t built enough homes.
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This Election Day, Let’s ‘Vote & Vax’ at Polling Places
(Photo: Timothy Rezendes via Creative Commons)
It’s only been a few weeks since vaccine eligibility opened up for everybody 16 and older, but already health officials are sounding the alarm that demand for vaccination is plateauing, and there’s more work to be done to get traction among more reluctant residents.
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City Council: Go All the Way with Sheriff Reform this Fall
(Image: Philadelphia Sheriff's Office)
City Council, led by 9th District Councilmember Cherelle Parker, successfully brought political pressure to bear on the Sheriff’s office after a surprise announcement that Sheriff sales of tax-foreclosed properties would move entirely online. After a lengthy hearing and public denouncement by Parker and other Council members, the episode culminated in a court order postponing all Sheriff sales until this September.
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Pennsylvania Almost Lost Two Congressional Seats. Do Our Leaders Care?
The Census Bureau released its Congressional apportionment data this week, confirming the expected bad news that Pennsylvania will once again be losing Congressional representation following the latest Census.
The Commonwealth will lose one seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, an outcome that had long been anticipated due to long-running geographic population shifts in the United States, but what’s gotten less attention since the announcement is the fact that we actually nearly lost two seats.
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'Home Rule' Episode 6: Food Fight! The Politics of Philly's Restaurant Recovery
The hospitality industry, and particularly bars, restaurants, and live performances, have born the brunt of the job losses over the last year, and this is an important driver of the elevated unemployment rate, as the Pew ‘State of the City’ report shows.
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The Urban Exodus That Wasn't
Philadelphia’s upcoming budget debate involves more of a guessing game than usual, with several significant unknowns about the pace of public health recovery, the pace of economic recovery, the extent of the structural changes favoring remote work, residential population changes, and more.
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Get Ready for Another Aimless Litter Task Force
Residents got some good news about street sweeping funding in Mayor Kenney’s budget proposal last week, but as has been the case with prior announcements about this topic, the classic next step is always for the Mayor to come out with some novel way of stalling or making concessions in the direction of parochialism.
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Mayor Kenney's Optimistic New Budget Plan
Mayor Kenney released his annual budget proposal Thursday, with a much more optimistic outlook for city services this year thanks to a major infusion of $1.4 billion in funding from the American Rescue Plan.
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