(Photo Credit: Tom Gralish, Philadelphia Inquirer)

Mark Dent has a new piece up at Billy Penn looking at the phenomenon of "middle neighborhoods" in Philadelphia--areas marked by neither smoking hot property markets nor deeply entrenched poverty, but who are just trying to hold their ground. 

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. 

(Photo: AL DIA)

The first phase of the Philadelphia Housing Authority's blockbuster urban renewal project in Sharswood is complete, reports Julia Terruso, but officials are worried that a Trump administration's changing priorities could make it unviable to finish the project.

While we haven't always agreed with Council President Darrell Clarke's politics in the past, we strongly agree with his sentiment that Philadelphia city government should look to use our existing resources better if we're expecting a hostile urban policy environment under the Trump administration and a conservative supermajority in the Pennsylvania legislature.

As an addendum to this week's Council Report Card, Bobby Henon also introduced a new bill on behalf of Council President Darrell Clarke that would inject still more chaos and unpredictability into the city land sale process. 

It's now been three business days since Council President Darrell Clarke held a rare show of hands vote on Councilman David Oh's resolution calling for a performance audit of the Philadelphia Parking Authority, and there's still no record of that vote happening.

Council President Darrell Clarke pulled an unusual procedural move yesterday to hide the votes of Councilmembers who opposed a Parking Authority audit, reports Ryan Briggs.

A new bill designating over 500 parcels as Keystone Opportunity Zones (KOZ) is moving quickly through City Council this week.