Quote:
Originally Posted by theWatusi
I think I didn't state my position clearly enough.
1. I'm for Philly Live! and the money it will capture from people attending sporting events.
2. I'm against the zoning board spending a lot of time reworking the "stadium district" to allow for residential/TOD when there are other parts of the city more in need or revitalization.
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Well, I get what you're saying: North Philadelphia needs help with planning- but I'd argue more so with economic development. It's a sentiment that can be argued for a lot of Philadelphia neighborhoods (hello southwest Philly). That aside, the planning commission
is charged with reworking zoning, which includes TOD designation, for the entire city. Philly Live! (< spare me with the exclamation point) is getting a lot of publicity because of where it is, and the type of investment from hotels and shopping it will garner; a fact that is not lost on the city. Ensuring that the influx of this new development is attractive and congruent with the city's long-term strategy for making Philadelphia a green city (i.e., walkable & ecologically sustainable), is indeed a pressing issue.
North Philadelphia doesn't necessarily have that kind of urgency. The need for preventing mass teardowns (to build strip malls) and the desecration of urban neighborhoods with suburban-styled houses faced with vinyl siding, is real, but North Philadelphia does not require the re-mapping of an entire area and rethinking of massive parking mandates.