Lately, the business section of the Inky seems to be sending a pretty clear message that Philadelphia’s biggest economic asset is its location. Though location alone may not be enough to attract the best employers here: We also need to create a highly skilled and versatile workforce.

The fact that the Inky keeps producing stories about business people who are creating or taking away jobs in the region based on these simple ideas means there are important lessons to learn. The question is whether or not the Nutter administration is heeding them.

First, let me share a few of the articles I’m talking about.

On Tuesday, December 1st, Governor Rendell made a deal with a Greek start-up to open a solar panel factory at the Navy Yard. They will provide 400 jobs and get $49 million in state and city incentives (including stimulus money). But, according to the article:

Panos Ninios…said the company chose the Navy Yard site after reaching out to eight states and visiting 35 locations. He said that that the quality of Philadelphia’s workforce, the proximity to transportation, and the government incentives sealed the deal for the city.

On January 6th, it was reported that “at least 65% of all Chilean fruit to the United States comes through Philadelphia, Gloucester, and Wilmington. The remaining 35 percent goes through Los Angeles.”

Evidently, there are excellent cold storage facilities in South Jersey and southern Chester County that make it easy to store large amounts of fruit for transport. But the article suggests another reason for Philadelphia’s winter fruit dominance, our geographic location and market density:

”We are centrally located to many major markets, with second-day truck delivery to two-thirds of U.S. consumers,” said Robert C. Blackburn, senior deputy executive director of the Philadelphia regional Port Authority.”

And on January 11th, the Inky reported that “chemical companies have slashed 43 percent of their Pennsylvania workforces in the last 10 years.” This includes all but four of the workers at DuPont’s gigantic Gray’s Ferry Ave. complex.

According to Pam Witmer of the PA Chemical Industry Council, there are a variety of reasons for this decline, including mergers, environmental regulations and a high cost to do business in the state. However, according to the article:

Pennsylvania chemical plants have lost geographic competitive advantages as manufacturing in the Northeast has faded. Chemical plants supply other manufactures. Computer, cell phone and other electronics manufacturing has migrated to Asia. So have the chemical plants that supply them.

And for many years chemical plants have been built near sources of raw materials, mostly oil and natural gas. Chemical companies have set up facilities in Texas and along the Gulf Coast, close to U.S. sources of crude oil.

There’s not much we as a city can do to change the global economic conditions that helped us lose chemical jobs. However, if we want to keep the companies that still have some operations going on here, there are things we can do. According to the Inky:

Andrew Liveris, Dow’s chief executive officer and chairman, says specialty chemicals and innovation will drive the company’s growth. He views the former Rohm and Haas labs in the Philadelphia area [including one in Bridesburg] as important to transforming Dow into a specialty chemical company.

So here’s what I take from all that:

• For one, location matters. Being within a two-day drive of 2/3 of the country’s consumers is a really big asset.

  The quality of our transportation infrastructure, our rail lines, highways and ports, is crucial. Regardless of where the money might come from to fund specific expansions and innovation, it is largely up to us locals to come up with new ideas to improve the infrastructure.

• But even if you build it, and they do come, in the face of the fast-moving global economy, a well-trained, smart and versatile workforce is also necessary to get business to stay here.

• And then you gotta sell it. Our geographical proximity, transport infrastructure and the qualities of our workforce might will probably need to be spelled out, indeed, marketed. for prospective new employers.

• While taxes and incentives do come up in conversations about economic development in the region, they are clearly not the only economic development tools at our ready. There are other important ways—ways equal in importance to cutting taxes or incentivization strategies—to help the city create high-quality, sustainable jobs.

So again, the question is whether or not the Nutter administration is working on them.

In some cases, the answer is a resounding yes...

The number of Philadelphians applying for federal financial aid has increased significantly in the past year. The Free Library has redefined its mission to include targeting entrepreneurs. A green jobs training program funded by stimulus dollars and developed by the city recently started.

And, according to the Inky way back in November, a new city website has opened up (www.phila.gov/business). which has, according to Sara Merriman, director of policy for the Commerce Department, “now captured all of the city business information, the forms, the permits, the direction you need to go and we’ve put it all in one place.” (The site does not yet accept online payment for taxes or collect online applications for certificates.) This is a small, but practical step that will help make it easier for people to do business here.

But when it comes to aggressively marketing the city as the jumping-off point for shipping and commerce along the East coast, it’s not so clear what the Nutter plan is...

More time and energy seems to have been spent on commissions and debate about tax reduction strategy than on a strategic plan to leverage our central location for shipping. And the most important factor in terms of workforce development is a stronger School District of Philadelphia. That’s definitely a weak point for the Nutter administration.

As the Mayor begins to shift into campaign mode, I hope he can figure out ways to build some solid accomplishments on these fronts. Even with another messy budget on the horizon, and an uncertain economic recovery, it is imperative that we do a better job on strategic economic development.

Our path to continued economic stability may be difficult, but it is a path that can be easily charted: Turning out more smart and skilled kids from our public schools, sending a lot more of them to college, finding the growth industries for which it would make the most sense to locate here, and making it easier for businesses already here to innovate will create a new economy in Philadelphia.

Hypertension, or high blood pressure, is a very serious yet eminently treatable condition. High blood pressure can be reduced by increasing exercise and improving diet. But if it's not treated, it can cause kidney failure, heart disease and stroke.

41% of all African Americans have hypertension (as opposed to 27% of whites). That means a lot of Philadelphians are at risk for or already have hypertension.

Half of all people with hypertension are salt sensitive which means that the ingestion of sodium can increase bloodpressure rates.

Which takes me to this NY Times article. NY Mayor Bloomberg is looking to get food manufacturers and restaurants to lower the amount of salt contained in their food products by a quarter. Right now this is a policy initiative to encourage voluntary compliance. However, it seems likely that Bloomberg may try to make this law. Much like NYC has already banned trans fats and smoking.

As a pretty major market for all kinds of food distributors, NY could have a big impact on the nation's health if this kind of thing ever became mandatory. If Philadelphia attempted something similar first, the effect would not be quite as large but still sizable.

I am curious what other people think about this kind of lawmaking. It seems similar to the plastic bag banning that Councilman DiCicco has been pushing. On the face of it, this kind of policy making seems good to me. Is there more to the story though?

I use the word "progressive" as shorthand to describe the mix of liberal, radical, revolutionary, and reform ideologies that comprise my own personal political views.

And as a progressive, I never ranked the DA's office high on my priority list of political offices where change could be enacted.

I mean how change-oriented and radical thinking could a prosecutor’s office be?

Well, in 2005, Kia Gregory interviewed Seth Williams for a Philly Weekly cover story. And according to Seth, a District Attorney could actually be pretty awesome. If they were willing to think about sentencing in different terms than enacting the swiftest and harshest “justice” possible.

So I got hooked, as I think did many other voters, on Seth’s vision. Not to mention that he is an incredibly likeable guy.

But here’s the thing: When it comes to supporting candidates, at least in 2005, I had only ever supported losers. So as much as I worked hard for Seth then, it seemed inevitable that he would lose.

And that’s what makes reading the papers in the past few days incredibly surreal.

Because even though he did lose in ’05, Seth won big in ’09. And he is now actually the District Attorney of the city of Philadelphia. And real change is possible.

And the best, and most scary part, is that all of the rhetorical descriptions of Seth are done. Now that he is actually in office, he has to deliver.

Looking back at his first week in office I am happy to report that the change-making seems to be right on track.

Seth named a new head of the charging unit. He got a working group started on community-based prosecution. He picked his top staff (all of whom are experienced and competent). And, my favorite, he went to 55th and Pine to hear preliminary hearings himself.

This is classic Seth. Not only does he send a message to his staff that no one’s title should be taken so seriously as to detract from the mission of the DA’s office, but knowing Seth, he also probably soaked in enough details from that morning of hearings to ground himself in the reality of the community he is serving. I wouldn’t be surprised if we see more of this.

The biggest challenge for Seth and for his progressive supporters in the next four years will be handling the reactionary moments.

Making our city’s chief prosecutor a political animal has always seemed like a dubious choice to me charter-wise. When a horrible murder (especially against a police office) or assault (especially against a child) or some other moment comes up, rest assured the pitch forks and torches will come out. And the DA’s office may be called to lead the charge. After all, when people are angry and upset and scared, revenge and bloodlust sometime trump logic and reason.

However, Seth proved over and over again in the campaign that a vision for making sweeping and important change is what motivates him. As long as he sticks to his vision, and continues to display the openness to new ideas and the empathy to many different kinds of people he has in the past four years, I think we can trust him to deliver on all of his promises and more.

I opened up the Metro this morning and was pretty surprised to read that the city is awarding ten grants, in amounts up to $100,000, to cultural orgs who have 'shovel ready' capital projects using CDBG money. (No link to Metro article online, but here is a WHYY link).

CDGB stands for the "community development block grant." It had always been my understanding that CDBG money was sort of a Republican concession prize to cities. Under Nixon and Ford, lots of federal sources of support to cities were cut off (and really, urban aid had been on the decline since the 1940s when the suburbs were created), but CBDGs were awarded to cities to sort of make up for it.

Mind you, every Republican congress since has tried to reduce the size of the allocation. And George W. Bush sure took a huge chunk out too. Not to mention the fact block grants are never as useful as entitlements when it comes to reducing poverty (which was part of Nixon's intention in creating them).

Nonetheless, today CBDG money has become the last line of defense against budget starvation for many cities when it comes to affordable housing and other frontline anti-poverty programs.

My experience with this source of federal money is from my time working in Pittsburgh for a welfare rights/anti-hunger organization called Just Harvest (www.justharvest.org). Each year we organized people to go to Pittsburgh City Council meetings to lobby for the use of some of that large block grant for anti-hunger programs.

I haven't done policy work around CBDG since, but it seems odd to me to give away what is essentially anti-poverty program money to fund Philadelphia's creative economy.

The total amount of the city's $14 million CDBG award to be used for creative pursuits ( which specifically include, according to the Mayor's press release, "grants...to nonprofit and for profit creative businesses for facility projects linked to job creation such as renovated office space, mixed-use facilities, artist workspace and creative industry incubators.") is about $500,000. And this award is part of a stimulus package boost to our annual federal allocation.

As many past posts of mine imply, I am not against innovative economic development. If we want to move at least some of the 1/3 of the city's population living in poverty into the middle class, we have to change what we're doing.

But...this seems to me like robbing Peter to pay Paul.

Stimulus money or not, using CDBG money for non-front-line anti-poverty measure sets a dangerous precedent.

CBDG money in Philadelphia has traditionally been used for affordable housing.

You can read an exchange here between Reinvestment Fund's Jeremy Nowak, former OHCD head John Kromer and others here about the possibility of changing that traditional use in favor of out-of-the-box community development here. The one quotation from that piece that riles is this, from Gary Steuer of the City Office of Arts, Culture and the Creative Economy:

CDBG funds here are just one test case of whether the stimulus program will challenge outmoded thinking, or simply reinforce it.

Funding affordable housing in a city where we still need to create close to 30,000 units of affordable housing is outmoded? When our own Mayor and City Council dip into the Affordable Housing trust fund to deal with other budget priorities and when Inclusionary Zoning is still not a done deal, I'd say we're far from being able to talk about affordable housing as an outmoded use of public dollars.

I would really love to hear from folks in the affordable housing world (ACORN, WCRP, Project HOME, CLS, PUP, etc.) to see if I am missing something.

Like maybe there was a deal made with other state or federal pots of money that don't make this a net loss for housing? Certainly the creation of jobs is a good thing. And I know $500,000 is not that much money.

But still...if job creation in the creative sector does not correspond exactly to the low incomes that create a need for affordable housing or other anti-poverty services for those traditionally served by CBDG then we have a real problem here with priorities.

I will leave it to Dan to pound the nails into the coffin, but the front page of today's papers and this quote are pretty amazing:

Perzel, the former House speaker, was charged yesterday with 82 counts of theft, conspiracy, obstruction of justice, and conflict of interest. The grand jury said he and others had misused public money for campaign purposes and then tried to cover it up.

Man, I knew him when:

This was Seth Williams at Drinking Liberally at Ten Stone, if I remember correctly. It was 2005, there hadn't been an Obama campaign yet, YPP was still in its infancy, Seth had some more hair, and a lot of us (i.e. me and Dan) were really excited about this former ADA running for DA with a totally different vision for the office.

Fast forward to yesterday. A long struggle, primary challengers, a lot of money raised, lots of volunteers mobilized, many events attended, and Seth wins.

First African-American DA in the city. A new day, a new DA. Long time coming.

Congratulations Seth!

In other election news, we did very badly in statewide judicial races though some great people got onto the bench locally. And what the hell is up with New Jersey?

In addition to Dan's post, check out the endorsed Liberty City candidates and see a brief description of the offices they seek here:

http://www.libertycity.org

Judges really, really matter by the way. Find your polling place here.

SEPTA is on strike.

I spent a lot of my walk to work today thinking about the strike. And although there is a lot more that could be said, more than anything I was happy that in this country--which has been ravaged by corporate interests and a rapid right-wing--that every day people still have some power to organize for change.

Don't get me wrong, the strike sucks. And more than anything this strike is going to hurt low-income and working folks a lot. At a time when things are already pretty bad. And I recognize my privilege to be able to deal relatively easily with a strike as an able-bodied person with no kids who lives four miles from work.

But the onus of the burden to end this strike is not on the workers of Local 234 but on SEPTA management. They are to blame for the inconvenience.

Yes it does annoy me that the strike happened just before rush hour. And the fact is we have all had many experiences with rude SEPTA drivers doesn't help. But the timing of the strike was likely strategic, and there are just as many nice drivers as there are rude ones. And rejecting an offer of a pretty pitiful pay increase for not-that-well-paid workers who do really important work makes sense to me (remember, according to the Inky, the highest paid, longest serving bus driver makes only about $50,000).

But that stuff is all beside the point anyhow.

More than anything you have to support this strike because you have to support unions.

As union density has declined, we have all suffered. We should ALL be in unions. We all need the help of our co-workers sometimes to bargain with bosses who are unfair. Can you imagine how much better "customer service" would be at just about any store if workers were paid and treated better?

And seriously, how often do you see a group of individuals organizing for collective action and making real change? How often? Not much in my opinion. Especially compared to the victories that very rich and very greedy corporations achieve.

SEPTA management may not be a corporation, but it's been run like one when it comes to top-heavy management. And it's an agency that has not often served the city of Philadelphia nearly as well as it should considering how many riders live here. Instead, it's been a suburban and republican patronage mill. Um, and visionary transit and economic development-oriented planning at SEPTA...how's that going?

The tendency of some people who are NOT right-wing folks at all to blame workers astounds me.

Like many Philadelphians, my own middle-class existence can be traced back to the economic stability that my father's union and his father's union before him provided to our family.

The right to organize, collectively bargain and strike if necessary is incredibly important. Lots of us have been able to build paths out of poverty and into the middle-class because of unions. And that path should not be cut off for anyone today.

We can have a conversation later about how much more organized labor needs to do to actually engage and organize the thousands of working class and low-income Philadelphians who have no hope right now of ever joining a union and who will suffer badly because of this strike. That's an important convo to have too.

But today, I support Local 234.

I felt guilty reading this:

Cher Bryant, a former clerk later promoted to general manager and then accounting, spent the last few days fighting back tears as she helped her colleagues prepare for the fire sale.

Her favorite film, she said, is the Cannes Film Festival selection, "Santa Sangre." Even though Roger Ebert named it one of the top films of 1990, "you can't get that on a download or a DVD," said Bryant. "It's just a shame that local businesses aren't supported."

The store's closing is a personal as well as professional loss, she said.

"This was my store. Now I suppose I'll have to go to the one on Locust. I'm certainly not going to use Netflix."

I mean the TLA is an institution. And I know some of this is just "progress"(the TLA itself is still in business, and at this point I would guess the majority of their business comes from what had been robust web sales) but...this isn't the only locally-owned store to have closed its doors as of late.

Economic crisis is surely not news in some of our neighborhoods. But the state of Center City these days is nonetheless worrying.

Tonight Bread & Roses Community Fund honors Harvey Finkle at our annual Tribute to Change.

Harvey is a social justice photographer who helped invent Philadelphia's late-century social justice scene. For more about him, check out this awesome profile from today's South Philadelphia Review or this column in the Public School Notebook or this profile from the Inky.

Or, just come see for yourself what the fuss is about. There'll be an exhibit of his work and nine emerging social justice photographers. And 650 of progressives will be on hand to watch Harvey get his Tribby.

And the best part is that all of the proceeds from tonight's event go to Bread & Roses.

We'll use the money to fund grants for grassroots organizing on racial and economic justice. There are also grants for criminal justice work, media justice, new orgs and new issues. And we provide technical assistance to our grantees and network.

Giving away resources to folks who do real organizing. It's where the rubber meets the road when it comes to being progressive. And we could use your support.

Hope to see you there tonight.

Ticket sales end at 2:30 PM today. Buy yours now.

As we approach another major statewide election (governor) without a single woman in the race, today's Daily News coverage of perhaps the most important woman in Pennsylvania politics today is worth a read.

Check out the profile on Donna Cooper here.

Not only is Ms. Cooper a woman in politics, a topic which should be of interest to readers of this blog, she is also someone Philadelphia's progressive community can claim as one of its own. She put education funding equity on the campaign map back in 2002. And though we're not where we want to be when it comes to fully funding public schools, she has certainly done a lot to get us as far as we are.

There have always been wistful rumors about Cooper's local electoral plans. But even without being elected, Cooper wields a lot of power. And it'll be interesting to see what she does post-Harrisburg.

Bryan Mercer and Milena Velis from Media Mobilizing Project have a post up worth reading. An excerpt:

The lesson we can learn from a year of repeated deficit announcements, “civic engagement” budget workshops, and political negotiations, is that the poor and working people of the city are paying for this crisis. In a city rife with both wealth and poverty, its clear that our government's primary agenda is to attract and protect business, and not to make sure that the wealth generated here meets the basic needs of Philadelphia's residents. If the city government continues down the path it has chosen, it can only lead us to a broken state that exists to serve business need before public need, abandoning the interests of the majority of Philadelphians. The only solution to the crisis we are currently facing is an independent politics that addresses the real roots of our situation.

Full post is here.

I know some will debate the political analysis here but hopefully no one will debate the facts reported in this piece (like hospitals closing, schools being privatized, casinos screwing over cities). However, the most important idea here is that organizing at the grassroots is powerful.

Seriously. Organizing works. And it's the only way we'll get to a Philadelphia where opportunity exists for all.

My only quibble with this post, however, is that it spends about 2,000 words laying out background and analysis, but only 75 words describing the plan to organize:

All this suggests that the solution to this predicament is not just more favorable short-term policies, but the creation of an independent politics, a real movement acting in the interests of the majority of the people in this region, both those who were already hurting prior to this crisis and those who are hurting now. Only such a movement will ensure that the resolution to the current crisis gets at the roots of the problem.

Specifically, what issues are being organized on now effectively and where do holes exist? What constitutes effective organizing? How do we establish a community of progressive organizers who hold one another accountable to achieve? Is it possible to put together a cross-issue strategic plan to reshape the balance of power in terms of financial and political control?

Anyway read the whole post here:

http://mediamobilizing.org/budget-we-got-selling

Really, go read it. The whole thing.

When you come back:

It's an interesting time to discuss these issues.

In just this past week, three distinct organizing moments pop out in my mind as almost object lessons to help answer the questions above and to help build out the concept of an independent politics that Bryan and Milena prescribe:

• Casino Free folks get arrested and get great headlines. They have used the momentum to reinvigorate their organizing campaign. They are keeping the casino issue in the forefront and continue to thwart casino supporter efforts to make it seem like casinos are a foregone conclusion.
• Last week, Health Care for America held a press conference outside of Cigna CEO's house and got almost no press. Today, they engage in a little civic disobedience at Cigna HQ and get in the news/galvanize an organizing core. Taking real risk for a cause—let's call it radical direct action—seems to be a trend.
• Meanwhile arts and culture non-profits organize a rally at City Hall against a state arts event tax. No one gets arrested or even comes close. And though turnout was good, it was far from astronomical. Yet today the tax is off the table. A different model of making change.

First Hannah, now Marc:

Along with four others, Marc Stier was arrested today for blocking the entrance to Cigna insurance company headquarters. Good job Marc! Only coverage I could find so far--other than on Facebook--was from KYW here.

From today's Inky, there is a guy from Southwest Philly who planned to run against Bob Brady (Sidebar: these 40th ward residents in Brady and Verna and Farnese's districts are always so odd to me since they geographically fit better with Fattah or even Sestak's) in the 2010 primary. Then:

On Tuesday, Eastwick resident Bismark Agbemble, 29, told his girlfriend, his father and a friend that he had been threatened on the street - he didn't say where - by two men, police sources said.

Agbemble, a motivational speaker who refers to himself as "Mr. CEO," was apparently so unnerved by the threats that he stayed at a relative's house in Yeadon that night.

Then he disappears, SW detectives are called in, the FBI, etc. A few days later he is found in Maryland:

Glen Burnie police found Agbemble in a blue Jaguar outside a hotel he apparently had checked into. He appeared to be unharmed.

So apparently this guy had some issues. Which happens.

But it is pretty funny to think that anyone would take seriously the idea that Brady would like threaten or "take care" of a challenger. Not only because I think some of the tough guy stuff that gets put on Brady is bull, but also because you don't rough someone up who is not a threat. But what a great way for a challenger to get some press.