Philadelphia 2035 (Sandy, Penn: mechanics, sale, crime)

[Pine to Vine]

Originally Posted by timeEd32

What happened to this thread? Some great news:

https://whyy.org/articles/finally-th...penns-landing/

https://whyy.org/articles/wanted-dev...t-real-estate/

Not sure what happened either. Maybe the posters interested in development in the city dropped off. Thanks for posting. Perhaps other current posters no longer care.

[skintreesnail]

fair point, but a lot of folks are on skyscraperpage for development news.

[KoNgFooCj]

Originally Posted by skintreesnail

fair point, but a lot of folks are on skyscraperpage for development news.

I love that site but I got a post deleted for mentioning it. Just a heads up.

[KoNgFooCj]

Philly needs to permanently separate Roosevelt Boulevard from local traffic. The city should also have a new subway line.

[MarketStEl]

Originally Posted by KoNgFooCj

Philly needs to permanently separate Roosevelt Boulevard from local traffic. The city should also have a new subway line.

What do you mean by "separate Roosevelt Boulevard from local traffic"?

Do you mean "separate long-distance from local traffic"?

Back in 2012, I argued that we should do that in this essay in Hidden City Philadelphia.

And I argued that the sunken inner lanes should have a subway line in their median a la Chicago.

None of this is going to happen in the city's current plans to reconfigure the Boulevard. But we probably will get bus rapid transit of a more robust form than the current "Boulevard Direct" service.

[gwillyfromphilly]

"PATCO gets $12.6M federal grant to reopen abandoned Franklin Square Station"

https://whyy.org/articles/patco-gets...quare-station/

[cpomp]

Figured I would post in here instead of the crime thread.

I read a man was stabbed at 10:20 last night at 18th and Walnut, and another flash mob was reported mid afternoon at 15th and Chestnut.

What is going on?? An uptick in incidents, or 2 bad events unfortunately close in time.

[KansastoSouthphilly]

Originally Posted by cpomp

Figured I would post in here instead of the crime thread.

I read a man was stabbed at 10:20 last night at 18th and Walnut, and another flash mob was reported mid afternoon at 15th and Chestnut.

What is going on?? An uptick in incidents, or 2 bad events unfortunately close in time.

There has definitely been an uptick in violent crime lately. Traditionally this is the time of year when crime slows down and it doesn't feel like that has happened. This isn't just happening in center city. We have seen an uptick in violence out in NW philly as well. Someone was murdered a few days ago in a very nice section of East Mt. Airy right. The response of the police has been that crime is down generally but murder is up but murder is targeted and is mostly drug dealers killing drug dealers. To me that seems to be an incomplete explanation IMO.

Similarly I think quality of life issues have continued to get worse in center city especially issues with the massive number of mentally ill people roaming the streets. I personally have been assault twice since August on the streets. Both times there was no police in sight. I had to work late earlier this week and went to catch a train in suburban station around 8pm and it looked like a dystopian hellscape. Homeless literally everywhere. Something seriously has to be done about this. We really need to talk about reopening the Asylums because just letting these people take over our streets and our train stations is not working.

Unfortunately I think the far left push in local government means that we have elected a bunch of people that do not have the political will to even acknowledge that any of this is a problem let alone actually advance policies to deal with it.

15th and chestnut continues to be awful between 3pm and 4:30pm. They do bring cops to stand around that intersection but they seem to be completely neutered. The kids are often taunting the cops and my co-worker saw one of the kids slap a cop (I assume he was arrested). Again there is a lack of will to acknowledge the youth violence problem in this city. I believe it was last night when four teen boys beat the McDonald's employees for not giving them free food. But then people wonder why businesses don't want teens in their stores?

I wish there could be an actual citywide dialogue about how to address these problems but everyone will just retreat into their ideological camps. Conservative NE Philly will blame everything on Krasner. Some will blame it on gentrification somehow and others will blame poverty. None of which will be helpful.

[MarketStEl]

Originally Posted by KansastoSouthphilly

There has definitely been an uptick in violent crime lately. Traditionally this is the time of year when crime slows down and it doesn't feel like that has happened. This isn't just happening in center city. We have seen an uptick in violence out in NW philly as well. Someone was murdered a few days ago in a very nice section of East Mt. Airy right. The response of the police has been that crime is down generally but murder is up but murder is targeted and is mostly drug dealers killing drug dealers. To me that seems to be an incomplete explanation IMO.

Similarly I think quality of life issues have continued to get worse in center city especially issues with the massive number of mentally ill people roaming the streets. I personally have been assault twice since August on the streets. Both times there was no police in sight. I had to work late earlier this week and went to catch a train in suburban station around 8pm and it looked like a dystopian hellscape. Homeless literally everywhere. Something seriously has to be done about this. We really need to talk about reopening the Asylums because just letting these people take over our streets and our train stations is not working.

Unfortunately I think the far left push in local government means that we have elected a bunch of people that do not have the political will to even acknowledge that any of this is a problem let alone actually advance policies to deal with it.

15th and chestnut continues to be awful between 3pm and 4:30pm. They do bring cops to stand around that intersection but they seem to be completely neutered. The kids are often taunting the cops and my co-worker saw one of the kids slap a cop (I assume he was arrested). Again there is a lack of will to acknowledge the youth violence problem in this city. I believe it was last night when four teen boys beat the McDonald's employees for not giving them free food. But then people wonder why businesses don't want teens in their stores?

I wish there could be an actual citywide dialogue about how to address these problems but everyone will just retreat into their ideological camps. Conservative NE Philly will blame everything on Krasner. Some will blame it on gentrification somehow and others will blame poverty. None of which will be helpful.

To back this up to a degree, I note that the subway concourses have become homeless shelters again.

I also note that Liberty Place has a sign stating that anyone under 18 entering after 1 p.m. must be accompanied by an adult. That speaks to what you experience in the afternoon as well.

[jessemh431]

Originally Posted by KansastoSouthphilly

There has definitely been an uptick in violent crime lately. Traditionally this is the time of year when crime slows down and it doesn't feel like that has happened. This isn't just happening in center city. We have seen an uptick in violence out in NW philly as well. Someone was murdered a few days ago in a very nice section of East Mt. Airy right. The response of the police has been that crime is down generally but murder is up but murder is targeted and is mostly drug dealers killing drug dealers. To me that seems to be an incomplete explanation IMO.

Similarly I think quality of life issues have continued to get worse in center city especially issues with the massive number of mentally ill people roaming the streets. I personally have been assault twice since August on the streets. Both times there was no police in sight. I had to work late earlier this week and went to catch a train in suburban station around 8pm and it looked like a dystopian hellscape. Homeless literally everywhere. Something seriously has to be done about this. We really need to talk about reopening the Asylums because just letting these people take over our streets and our train stations is not working.

Unfortunately I think the far left push in local government means that we have elected a bunch of people that do not have the political will to even acknowledge that any of this is a problem let alone actually advance policies to deal with it.

15th and chestnut continues to be awful between 3pm and 4:30pm. They do bring cops to stand around that intersection but they seem to be completely neutered. The kids are often taunting the cops and my co-worker saw one of the kids slap a cop (I assume he was arrested). Again there is a lack of will to acknowledge the youth violence problem in this city. I believe it was last night when four teen boys beat the McDonald's employees for not giving them free food. But then people wonder why businesses don't want teens in their stores?

I wish there could be an actual citywide dialogue about how to address these problems but everyone will just retreat into their ideological camps. Conservative NE Philly will blame everything on Krasner. Some will blame it on gentrification somehow and others will blame poverty. None of which will be helpful.

This. This right here. This is the catalyst for so many problems. I'm a far left progressive and self-proclaimed socialist. I'm not here to argue socialism v. capitalism. I'm just stating my political beliefs and how I may or may not fall into one ideological camp or another on this issue. But it is not humane or compassionate to "allow" these people to live on the streets. The answer is never passing laws that criminalize sleeping on the streets or in cars. If someone is sleeping on the MFL or BSL at night or on a bus or in a train station, if they are removed from that location, they still have no home to go to. So they sleep on the street. Then we treat them as criminals for living on the street and at least in stations/on trains it's warm and safer for them.

The only place for some of these people is an asylum. They literally cannot function in our system. It's inhumane that we force them to make it work in regular society when no matter what they will never be able to. Their brains don't work like ours. They can't hold down a job or live a "normal" life. Until we reopen asylums, this nationwide homeless crisis will only worsen. Jails are not mental institutions, but they are de facto ones at this point. Yet they do not treat mental illness. Then, these mentally ill people have criminal records because they just don't know how to function in society, so even if they wanted a job, now they'd never get one. It could be from something as little as receiving a citation for sleeping on the street because they have nowhere to go. They don't pay the ticket, and likely they get an arrest warrant issued for unpaid tickets/fees. Not sure if Philly does it that way, but I know LA does.

This is not a Philly issue. It's not a NYC issue. It's not a CA issue. It's a nationwide issue that neither party wants to address because they know the only solution is asylums. Conservatives don't want to do it because it'll cost money. Progressives don't want to do it because it could come off as inhumane to force someone into an asylum. But I know of no other way to solve this issue.

As for the other issues, there is a correct answers. The conservative answer is wrong here. The solution to urban minority poverty and crime is decriminalization of drugs because minority communities are arrested at far higher rates than whites. Entire neighborhoods grow up without parental figures because of the disproportionate arrest/conviction rates of minorities. We also must simultaneously fund our schools better, and not just in the form of dumping money into a school. Spend the money properly. Urban and minority districts often have different issues that suburbanites do not understand. A child whose family can't afford 3 meals per day is not going to have the same mental functions as that of a well-off child who eats 3 meals a day. A parent who works a 9ish - 5ish job spends more time with their children and can be a better parent. Shift employees working at or near minimum wage are not around as much to care for their children. The former receives better education support at home than the latter, and also can be diagnosed much earlier with a learning disability. The latter will need more intervention later in life, but large urban districts very rarely properly fund these types of services. And if they do, it's often too little too late. Universal preschool would do wonders for the country as a whole. Life training skills would benefit all students as well, yet no schools that I know of offer anything like that. In the suburban districts where parents have time to assist their children with basic life tasks like budgeting, cooking, paying bills, job hunting, job training skills, etc., the students are better prepared for the real world and handling real world crises. Heavily minority urban districts are not offering these services, but also the parents are often unavailable to assist.

Throwing money at schools is not the solution. Spending the money on universal preschool, learning disability diagnostics, basic socialization skills, etc. at a young age combined with spending money on drug counselors, life skills coaches, job training for trades, etc. in high schools will go much further.

But again, conservatives refuse to do anything on this plan because it WILL cost money.