Visiting Philadelphia: A different voice, A different choice

I visited Philadelphia on the weekend (July 16-18) to attend the American Association of Medial Physicists annual general meeting. An old friend, Dave Rogers was receiving their highest distinction, the Coolidge Medal. Dave is a physicist here in Ottawa where he holds the Canada Research Chair in Medical Physics at Carleton University. Dave has been one of the scientists who has worked to perfect radiation treatments for cancer and is recognized around the world for his work. 

I took some time to visit the city itself. Philadelphia is the birthplace of the United States where the Declaration of Independence was penned and the Constitution written. It's an interesting place in all kinds of ways. Not the least of which is the city's present predicament. The population is shrinking dramatically from the loss of manufacturing and shipyard jobs. The city is fighting back by gentrifying, planting street trees, to make for pleasant walking, giving tax breaks to restore the historic district.

The fundamental problem Philadelphia faces is a very difficult one - much the same as in Detroit.  Its operating costs for just the basics, police, fire, road repair, transit, sewer and water, exceed its capacity to raise taxes, so everything is either in free fall or just hanging on. It's the kind of problem I was describing in Urban Meltdown: Cities, Climate Change and Politics as Usual. Cities have been run on the premise that they will always grow, always get bigger, the population will increase, but what happens when the population growth stops or as in Philadelphia's case, shrinks. All of sudden, the city council can't borrow against future growth. Try running a city without borrowing money. Everything 'new' stops because it's all built with borrowed money. Without borrowing the money for the Lansdowne stadium, for example, you're looking at 15 per cent increase in your taxes! Pay as you go is a whole lot tougher than pay tomorrow which is what happens when cities stop growing.