Green Works in Philadelphia

I missed its much-anticipated rollout yesterday, but wanted to post a link to the City of Philadelphia's "Greenworks Philadelphia" guide. I like the alliteration - Energy, Environment, Equality, Economy, Engagement - and I appreciate the sweat equity that has been put in by so many paid and unpaid laborers towards these and other Green Economy efforts here in Philadelphia.

Hey, everyone's trying to jump on this topic; one of the things that distinguishes our attempts is that they tap into the quintessentially Philadelphian spirit of volunteerism. (Think Ben Franklin's volunteer fire companies and philosophical societies, or the 1997 summit on mentoring.) That, plus a high-density/mixed-use/transit-served built environment and a world-class water department are what we're going to march forward with, not only to help save Planet Earth but distinguish ourselves in the race against other global cities for profits and people. Kudos to the Mayor and his Office of Sustainability for putting forth a framework to guide some of that effort.

Actual Value Actually Good for the Poorest Among Us

I've had to keep this work of my firm's somewhat under wraps for several months, but it's now more or less able to be discussed more publicly: "BRT Delivers 'Actual-Value' Numbers to Mayor and Council". I'm proud that we've gotten a chance to contribute to this, because, contrary to what some might think, Actual-Value assessments will actually help the poorest among us, to the extent that Philadelphia's hottest neighborhoods from a real estate standpoint (like University City, gulp!) have lagged in their assessments and therefore are currently paying too little relative to the City's more stagnant neighborhoods; Actual-Value assessments will catch those hot neighborhoods up and have them pay a fairer bill, and resultingly more stagnant neighborhoods will pay less.[1]

Of course, a number of unresolved issues remain. Prices will need to equilibriate, in that higher tax bills will lower property values, which will lower tax bills, which will raise property values, etc. What about residents in hot neighborhoods who are otherwise income-poor and constrained in their ability to use the financial markets to adjust their balance sheets to compensate for being house-rich but cash-poor? And is there anything we need to do for long-time renters who are not used to moving around but who may now be priced out of the only home they've known?

One step at a time. For now, let's be glad a very big, very complicated step has been taken.



[1] Here's a back of the envelope example of how that would work. Right now, we collect about $1 billion in City and School District property taxes. At a 8.264 percent rate, that assumes a citywide total assessed value of about $12 billion, or a presumed market value of $35 billion (the City says assessed value is supposed to be 32 percent of market value). Let's assume for simplicity's sake that aggregate actual market value in the City is $100 billion. So the new property tax rate would be 1 percent, since 1 percent of $100 billion gets you the original $1 billion in tax revenues that the City has been collecting (assuming that this whole thing is revenue-neutral, at least at first).

Now let's say we have two houses, one in a poor and stagnant neighborhood (House A), and one in a rich and rising neighborhood (House B). House A's currently assessed at $10,000, which presumes a market value of about $30,000. It's probably actually worth closer to $40,000 or $50,000 in the market; if you assume that the assessment reflects what the house was really worth 20 years ago instead of today, the upper bound of that market value represents about a piddling 3 percent annual increase in the house value. At a current assessed value of $10,000, the current tax bill is $10,000 x 8.264 percent, or over $800 a month. With Actual-Value, even presuming the higher market value of $50,000, the new tax bill would be $50,000 x 1 percent, or $500, a savings of about 40 percent.

House B's currently assessed at $25,000, which presumes a market value of about $75,000. It's probably actually worth closer to $300,000 to $350,000; if you assume that the assessment reflects what the house was really worth 20 years ago instead of today, the lower bound of that market value represents a more robust 7 percent annual increase in the house value. At a current assessed value of $25,000, the current tax bill is $25,000 x 8.264 percent, or about $2000 a month. With Actual-Value, even presuming the lower market value of $300,000, the new tax bill would be $300,000 x 1 percent, or $3,000, an increase of about 50 percent.

So roughly speaking, the people living in House A will see their tax bill fall by 40 percent, and the people living in House B will see their tax bill increase by 50 percent. This is fair, but not because House A inherently deserves the break and let's stick it to House B. It's fair because House B has been underpaying, and, resultingly, House A has been overpaying; Actual-Value can't reverse that past inequity, but it can make things fairer moving forward.

Next American City

Next American City recently invited applications to attend their first annual Next American Vanguard conference, next month in DC. I eagerly wrote up my essays and hoped for the chance to be one of the selected attendees. Unfortunately, I was not chosen. My submissions are below, for public consumption. We'll get 'em next year!



Tell us a bit more about the work you do and how you see yourself as an urban leader.

My job involves studying urban issues from an economic and policy standpoint. We analyze key public sector interventions and private sector developments, and shed light on important urban topics. For example, I have testified before City Council on why and how to encourage transit-oriented development in Philadelphia, calculated the extent to which the City utilizes minority- and women-owned firms, and authored reports describing the state of retail in urban Philadelphia. I also serve as an elder at my West Philadelphia church, am on the board of the non-profit where I used to work, and keep a blog called “Musings of an Urban Christian.”

I may not lead people like a general, president, or executive director does. But I have learned that it takes many leaders to make a city: private developers, elected officials, universities, policy advocates, non-profit institutions, neighborhood groups, foundations, corporations, and, yes, economic consultants. All have been my clients, so I am in a position to influence them, by providing information and affirmation, direction and insight.

Being a leader is less about the size of your army and more about the depth of your influence and the quality of your example. So count me among Philadelphia’s leaders.



What difference do you hope to make in your community in the next five years?

I envision a Philadelphia that reverses 50+ years of population decline, as a reformed tax structure, strategic land use decisions, and key infrastructure investments draw in residents and businesses. Our current budget woes provide a moment to right-size services, encourage conservation, and welcome newcomers who can help us grow. We need to make painful adjustments and enact unpopular measures, and my firm can help make the case.

I also envision a world where cities are embraced as key to sustainability. For the sake of our environment, geopolitics, and social psyches, we can no longer subsidize decentralization and squander scarce resources. Urban settings should not be relegated to the wretchedly poor, saintly pioneer, or glammed-up cosmopolitan. My blog advocates for city dwelling as good for your pocketbook, your soul, and your planet.

Finally, I envision a church like the one I attend can become: scruffy and unpolished but warm and devoted. The world finds us irrelevant even though we are now most relevant: venerated institutions fail us, human misery multiplies, and people seek authentic community. As an elder, I want us to be that multi-hued, multi-talented body that, though sinning and sinned against, can yet represent mercy, care, and deliverance.



What do you hope to take away from this conference?

As an economic consultant, church elder, and urban blogger, I’m only as good as who I know and what I know. So I welcome the opportunity to circulate among and learn from others who live in and care for cities like I do. I want to see how urban advocacy looks from different geographies, political persuasions, professions, and disciplines. And I want to add to my rolodex of experts that I can call on when I need information, advice, and connections.

But I also want to give. I want people to remember who I am, what I do, and where I’m coming from, so that I can be a resource, encouragement, and door-opener in the future. After all, if there’s anything we city-lovers know, it’s the power of agglomerations. So just as I want to tap into the exponential benefit of adding to my network, I want to be part of that exponential benefit for someone else’s network.



You will be given three minutes to make a short presentation. What would you use this time for?

Transit-oriented development is often perceived as a strategy for newer-infrastructure cities: think Denver, Phoenix, and Portland, aggressively spending billions of public funds on transit infrastructure, coordinating zoning and land use efforts, and courting private developers to site mixed-use complexes near stations.

But before there was New Urbanism, there was, well, Urbanism. TOD is as old as Philadelphia’s most historic neighborhoods. And after 50+ years of disinvestment, decay, and decentralization, Philadelphia is ready to embrace TOD again, to build on its existing infrastructure and accrue important benefits to its neighborhoods.

I’d like to tell the story of the rise and fall of TOD in Philadelphia, identify the key ingredients of successful TODs, and comment on the extent to which they exist in Philadelphia. I’d also like to profile some of what’s going on at the state, local, and neighborhood level to move TOD forward. Finally, I’d like to close by discussing the benefits of TOD, from more money in working families’ pockets and more livability for urban neighborhoods to more local control of locally generated tax revenues to more sustainable land use patterns and infrastructure investments for metropolitan regions.

A Few Shameless Plugs for My Firm

Though my work persona is one and the same with my blogger persona, I rarely speak as a company man from this venue. Today's different. Here's a few shameless plugs for my firm:

* Newly designed website. Easier to navigate plus more rapidly refreshed sets of links to recent reports hopefully means more visitors and more use.

* Last quarter's house price index. One of the more popular regular products we put out is our Philadelphia house price index. With Hallwatch going dark, you can now find it here.

* Public hearing on immigrants and workforce development. On May 1, I'll be testifying at Independence Visitor Center at a joint hearing of the Labor Relations and Urban Affairs committees of the House of Representatives of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania .

* Green Policy Planning Charrette. On May 5, my colleague Ben Cromie will be speaking at a charrette here in Philadelphia organized by University Place Associates, developers of a mixed-use LEED Platinum development in University City.

* Housing Matters Day. On May 5, I'll be speaking at a press conference in Harrisburg to announce our recent report on the economic impact of fixing up and building homes for people with low incomes.

A New York Minute

As soon as the 2009 baseball season announced its schedule, I started circling dates the A's would be playing nearby. My friend and I scored two for the new Yankee Stadium and met up there for what ended up being a drizzly 9-7 win by the home team in 14 innings. (We stayed until the end of 9.)

This trip was also my virgin experience with MegaBus, yet another company that shuttles people to and from various northeastern cities. At less than twenty bucks and convenient pick-up points, I couldn't refuse. (Plus the pick-up scene for any Chinatown bus was getting to be too much drama for even me, and I'm used to painful traveling.)

The ride itself was pleasant, although the bus got pulled over on the way up (no buses in the far left lane on the Jersey Turnpike) and bashed into a parked SEPTA bus on the way down (I and all the other passengers fled the scene, and I hopped on the subway from City Hall, where the incident took place). Other forgettable and somewhat quintessentially New York incidents included getting hazed for wearing my Oakland Raiders cap and getting an entire cup of beer doused down my back by a clumsy woman sitting in the seats right behind us.

Before the Wednesday afternoon game, I was able to squeeze in a visit to the New York Transit Museum in Brooklyn, an absolutely excellent use of one hour and five dollars, given the many old pictures, maps, and vignettes I was able to take in. Afterward, I stopped by my cousin Juli's place in Midtown Manhattan to finally meet her two-year-old daughter Lila.

Time didn't permit other New York haunts, but, despite the crimp it put in my work week, I was glad for the personal day to enjoy myself. Thankfully, despite the meltdown on Wall Street, Gotham City appeared to be holding up pretty well. You stay classy, New York, and I'll hope to see you again soon.

Green, Green Everywhere

Thursday here in Philadelphia was the scene of not one but two green-related conferences, one by the Drexel Engineering Cities Initiative and one by the American Cities Foundation. Mark Alan Hughes, Mayor Nutter's sustainability czar, spoke at both, and invited everyone to next week's rollout of his office's sustainability framework, which will hopefully make a big ripple both locally and nationally.

Needless to say, the green economy is on everyone's mind. Yet a number of unresolved questions remain. And at the risk of being branded a non-believer, let me ask them. What, exactly, is the green economy? What is a green job? Is public intervention in the name of carbon emission reduction for the purpose of reversing climate change a massively misguided and wasteful effort? If it makes sense to do some of these things, why is it taking huge government intervention to get them off the ground? And if encouraging high-density development in well-transited cities like Philadelphia is the greenest thing we can do, why aren't we focusing on things that promote urban growth rather than futzing around on sexier but relatively marginal things like bamboo paint and solar panels?

And, most importantly, isn't getting the price of natural resources like oil and water the more efficient and effective way to move us towards a more sustainable way of life and commerce? If we want people to not over-consume oil and squander water, shouldn't we just reverse our current subsidy (i.e. under-pricing) of these things, rather than contriving complicated government programs (which will only lead to unintended consequences and added bureaucracy) and hoping for people to do sub-optimal things in the name of saving Mother Nature (instead of just giving people real financial reasons to turn from their current throwaway ways).

This is why I attend these conferences, to wait for these kinds of questions to be asked and these kinds of policies to be proposed. And, if I don't hear them, to ask and propose them myself. After all, the popularity of the green economy as a concept makes it all the more important for somebody to ask the hard questions and advance the hard choices, lest we all think we can go along for the easy ride and end up realizing we didn't get anywhere.

Confused about the Local Food Movement

With all due respect to my many friends who are into the local foods movement, I have to express my puzzlement. I am not nearly as informed as I should be, given the circles I run in, but as I understand it, the push to produce and consume food locally boils down to the following:

1. Transporting food far distances is bad for the environment.

2. Locally produced food tastes better because it gets eaten faster and doesn't have to pumped up as much with preservatives.

3. Producing food locally creates jobs locally.

4. If we don't preserve our local farms, the big guys win.

5. In an increasingly shaky geopolitical world, you don't want to depend on others for food.

I don't think these are completely invalid concerns. And I certainly give anyone the right to believe and do whatever they want. But I'm not sure if top-down mandates concerning the production and purchase of locally grown foods is the way to go:

#1 is solved by pricing gas more accurately, and then the environmental impact is either minimized (by less travel) or mitigated (by more tax revenues to do things that reverse the effect of travel).

#2 is a matter of personal choice.

#3 is a pure Ricardian "comparative advantage" story - market forces efficiently determine whether it's in our best interest to be a net importer (we can buy and use our extra time for more productive use) or a net exporter (we can sell and use our extra money for more productive use) of food.

#4 is similarly Ricardian - if the big guys can offer us all more quality and/or more choices and/or lower prices, that represents huge gains for all of us.

#5 is a little too alarmist for me, given how fertile a breadbasket the middle of our country is. (Although we Philadelphians had better remember to be nice to any tourists from Iowa and Nebraska, lest we end up having a civil war with the heartland.)

Again, nothing against someone who, on principle alone, wants to make a certain set of choices concerning his or her own consumption and life patterns. But if you want to accrue those principles to a broader sphere of influence, I just don't see how top-down regulations to that effect are the way to go. But believe me, I am open to hearing otherwise.

Take Your Daughter to Work in the City

On Thursday, I was at a conference downtown with a friend of mine, who also has small children, lamenting that I was not going to be able to participate in Take Your Daughters and Sons to Work Day this year on account of the conference. The conference took place at the Academy of Natural Sciences, and, as the host cheerfully informed us that the museum was kind enough to allow us to tour the exhibits while we were in attendance, it dawned on me that perhaps the conference wouldn't prevent me from taking part in Take Your Daughters and Sons to Work Day after all. Or, at least Take Your Daughter to Work Day: two would be too hard to shuttle around, but one would be doable, especially one who so enjoys downtown adventures with her Dada.

Sure enough, during the lunch break, I took the subway back into University City and headed to our day care. It was the middle of their nap time, but no matter: I poked Jada awake, and, though she had been dead asleep just seconds ago, popped to attention when I asked her, "Do you want to go downtown with Dada to see a special museum?" Within minutes, we were back downtown and en route to the Academy of Natural Sciences.

It didn't take long for Jada to rub away her sleepy eyes and replace them with the wide eyes of someone who is getting to do something special instead being "stuck in school." We went first to the auditorium so I could show her where I was that day and so she could see what a conference looked like. But quickly, we made our way from the adult stuff to the kid stuff; and, with dinosaur exhibits, animal exhibits, and butterfly exhibits, there was more than enough to pass almost an hour even at a pretty rapid clip.

I figured at that point I should get her back to school and me back to my conference. But when we exited the building and she saw the Comcast Center, Philadelphia's tallest building, nearby, and asked about it, I offered to take her inside. So sure enough, we headed that way, went inside, and from there took the underground concourse to the subway station to take us back to University City.

While on the subway, another thought came to mind. I had stopped in on a friend's conference at the Cira Centre earlier that morning, and thought it might be fun for Jada to get a peek at that gathering as well. So we got off two stops before her school, walked through 30th Street Station to the Cira Centre, and made our way to the meeting room. Two City Council members (pictured above: Blondell Reynolds Brown and Curtis Jones) who I have worked with in the past were right outside the meeting room, getting ready to present on the next panel, but took the time to meet Jada, which I greatly appreciated.

At this point, it really was time for Jada and I to stop playing hooky and get back to where we should be. So it was a quick ride on the subway to get her back to school, and another quick ride for me to get back to my conference.

Not all my work days are as fun or as packed as that day's. But some are; so it wasn't a bad representation for her to take part in, to see what mothers' and fathers' work days are like.

Urban Archives

I snuck over to Temple University last week to catch a screening of "Films from the Urban Archives: Secrets from Philadelphia's Past." It was fun to see footage of Temple students horsing around in the 1940's, and watch a documentary from the 1960's of the exciting "new" plans associated with the development of such local stand-bys as Independence Mall, Penn's Landing, and the Gallery Mall.

Philadelphia is such a historic city that it's hard to not bump into it wherever you go, or to wonder what current events we'll be talking about when my kids have kids. Kudos to Temple University Libraries for safeguarding some of the more interesting footage from previous generations.

Geriatrics, Not Pediatrics

A civil engineering colleague of mine, David Lowdermilk, was recently named Engineer of the Year by the Delaware Valley Engineers Week Council, and was interviewed in yesterday's Philadelphia Inquirer for his take on bridges, stimulus, and engineering education. I loved his analogy at the end of the interview: colleges teach the equivalent of "pediatrics" - designing and building new bridges - but a lot of what engineers do is "geriatrics" - helping 75+ year old bridges to last longer.

Especially in old-infrastructure parts of the US like Philadelphia, this is an apt analogy. However, as Lowdermilk points out, "geriatrics" isn't as sexy as "pediatrics": engineers, like politicians, want to be associated with creating something new, not preventing something old from falling apart. Let's hope we don't need more bridge collapses like what happened in Minneapolis in 2007 to spur more of us towards the "unsexy" but important work of infrastructure "geriatrics."

Italian Market

Kudos to our friends over at Passyunk Square Civic Association, who recently received the American Planning Association's National Planning Award in the "Grassroots Initiative" category. We were lucky to be one of the consultants they used in the formation of their Lower Italian Market Revitalization Project plan, and enjoyed working with this group immensely.

If you think of the Italian Market as one big outdoor grocery store, PSCA's efforts to pretty it up, spruce up the signage, and liven up the dead areas are right on in terms of attracting more shoppers and getting them to circulate longer. In a world of chains and of bland options, unique venues like the Italian Market, with the help of innovative groups like PSCA, just might have a place in our shopping portfolios.

High Impact Philanthropy

Here's a nice piece by Penn's Center for High Impact Philanthropy on eradicating malaria. Echoing some sentiments I had expressed in a previous post, it encourages givers to think about where they might best add value with their contributions of time and money, among three tiers of entry points: immediate need (example: nets), systems-building (example: health care delivery structures), and "game changing" innovations (example: vaccines).

I like how sophisticated philanthropy has gotten lately. (It's not your father's philanthropy advocacy organization that uses the phrase "efficient frontier" in its tagline!) Would that people of all value systems, and especially those Bible-believing saints who appreciate the importance of alleviating present human suffering as well as rectifying structural inequities, become more high-impact in their giving.

Past History, Present Fun

It's not hard to get a history lesson and have fun at the same time when you live, work, and play in Philadelphia. Here's a smattering of significant sights from just one 8-hour stretch on a Saturday:

* 9a - We ride the Market-Frankford El downtown. The line opened in 1907 and cost a nickel at the time.

* 9:30a - We had gotten off @ 2nd Street because it had an elevator, so headed straight north and decided to walk down Elfreth's Alley, the oldest continuously inhabited street in America. One of the houses had a placard that said it was built in 1703. (Oh, by the way, on the way we passed by Christ Church, which was only founded in 1695 and was attended by George Washington and John Adams when they were President.)

* 10a - We bide our time at the playground in Franklin Square until the carousel opens and the kids and I go for a spin. Franklin Square is one of the original five parks planned by William Penn in the late 17th century. Philadelphia was also once the carousel making capital of the world.

* 10:30a - We hoof it to lunch at Reading Terminal Market, which opened in 1892 and is housed in Reading Railroad's old train shed. The fact that there are 80+ merchants offering food from all corners of the world is why it's Philadelphia's third most popular Philadelphia tourist destination, after the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall.

* 2:30p - Sufficiently recharged after naps back at home, we head out again to the Please Touch Museum for the rest of the afternoon. Its new home in Memorial Hall was the location of the nation's Centennial Exposition, which was attended by 10 million people (the US population at the time was 40 million!), and which was our introduction to such commonplace items as the telephone, popcorn, bananas, and root beer.

That's a lot of old places for a 4-year-old and a 2-year-old to see in one day of fun! Hopefully, our kids will grow up with a healthy appreciation for history, and for Philadelphia's role in it.

Rochester Subway

This post by Strange Maps is just so fascinating on so many levels that I simply have to link to it: "Pipe Dreams, or the Rochester Ghost Subway."

Go Green, Go Urban

A lot of people are talking up green initiatives, but one of the most effective ways to go green is also one of the simplest to understand: encourage more activity to take place in dense, walkable cities.

* If you move from the suburbs to the city, your family's carbon footprint and energy consumption go way down, as you do more of your trips by foot and transit rather than auto. (Plus your apartment or row house is likely to be more energy efficient on account of having less exposed surfaces than the typical stand-alone house in the burbs.)

* Concentrating 2000 office jobs in a tower in the middle of downtown rather than having it be spread out over multiple locations across a metropolitan region drastically reduces auto commutes and utilities bills.

* Duke (16,000 students and faculty) has 26,000 parking spaces on campus; Penn (24,000 students and faculty) has 5,000. (This fun fact is courtesy of Penn's sustainability chief, Dan Garofalo.) You do the math in terms of the effect of that difference in car trips and impervious surfaces.

I'm not nay-saying different incentive programs by federal, state, and local governments to go green. While some will lead to colossal inefficiencies in resource allocation and grossly unintended consequences, some will be powerfully effective in stimulating the right kind of behavior, both from an economic and environmental standpoint.

But let's also remember that individual, corporate, and government decisions that lead to more people living, working, playing, and congregating in dense, walkable cities may have the greenest impacts of them all. Hey, it may be more sexy and politically correct to offer rebates for solar panels than to push for more skyscrapers downtown or make the numbers work for developers to build new housing units within city limits; but that doesn't mean it's more green.

We the People

I popped into a symposium on national security risks on the Penn campus yesterday, and was glad for the primer on this important yet lately not as discussed topic. Gathered together were government officials, businesspeople, and consultants who spend their professional lives (and probably not a little of their personal lives) worrying about the really big and bad problems that could happen in this world. Many of their insights reflected the unique characteristics of this issue:

1. President Obama has necessarily had to put homeland security on the relative back burner, on account of having so many other pressing issues to deal with; and yet, if we were to have another 9/11 incident on his watch, we would all wonder aloud why he wasn’t on top of this. Alas, this is a significant asymmetry: catastrophic impact times tiny probability equals no one wants to worry about it until it’s too late.

2. Business has squeezed so much efficiency out of its supply chain that it is essentially betting on completely unfettered access to that supply chain; and yet, every once in a while, you have a catastrophe that knocks out all your options. Again, no one sees the need for redundancy in the system until after it’s too late to do anything about it.

3. Coordination is everything, but a lot of the key pieces in the puzzle are either proprietary or classified. On a related note, all the interesting and important issues are cross-disciplinary, cross-jurisdictional, and cross-industry, and yet universities, governments, and businesses all operate in different siloes, and sub-divide themselves further into their own siloes.

I couldn’t stay very long, but the most lasting comment I heard was one of the first I heard. The moderator noted that our most important weapon against national security threats is not government or technology but “we the people.” After all, it was a courageous yet otherwise ordinary band of citizens who, at the risk of their own lives, made sure United Flight 93 did not make it to its intended target, the seat of government which contained the very same elected officials whose solemn responsibilities include the security of citizens like the ones on Flight 93.

Let us remember, as we deal with enemies known and unknown, that our greatest comfort is not the sophistication of our weaponry or our system of government, but rather the spirit and pride of our people. The Department of Homeland Security is, in some aspects, the world's most complicated bureaucracy; the US Defense Department, the most advanced fighting machine mankind has ever known. And we need strategic investments and sound tactics and shrewd leaders there. But give me "we the people" any day.

College Green

A seminar I attended yesterday by Penn’s sustainability chief, Dan Garofalo, reminds me that there are a number of reasons to pursue green initiatives, even if you’re completely agnostic about climate change (“it’s a bunch of hooey”), or think there’s nothing anyone can do to stop global warming (“it’s too late”), or think there’s nothing your tiny local entity can do to stop global warming (“it requires a global solution”):

1. To conserve energy and save costs. By far the most important element of sustainability. Here, the greenies and the capitalists see eye to eye. So households install timed thermostats and low-energy light bulbs, businesses jigger their machinery to reduce energy consumption, and developers capture more runoff to lower their water bills.

2. To anticipate higher energy costs in the future and accordingly prepare yourself to run in ways that are less energy-intensive. If you think we’re heading towards a price on carbon, or that natural resources are becoming scarcer, then you do structural things today so you’re not stuck with a high bill tomorrow. So individuals make home and job decisions to minimize their auto dependence and companies switch to renewable energy sources.

3. To distinguish yourself from the pack. Penn is the number one purchaser of wind energy credits, which don’t save them a dime on their utility bill but garner them valuable recognition in the form of national awards and favorable press. This translates into an enhanced ability to attract students, faculty, and administrators. Much more bang for your buck than other public relations and advertising expenditures.

Sadly, other universities have been forced by fiscal pressures to cut their sustainability offices, and fold the most necessary initiatives into other siloes. I think that’s too bad, because I see a role for such offices in coordinating institution-wide initiatives, whether it’s about minimizing resource waste or clarifying brand identity. Kudos to my alma mater for getting, and staying, on the bleeding edge.

Aces in the City

Big ups to my Fels classmate Frank Igwe for positive coverage on the non-profit he just started: "City A.C.E.S. (Athletes Changing Expectations) Launches National Program to Promote the 'Coolness' of Education by Partnering with Top Athletes." Frank is a dear brother who is becoming an increasingly forceful and positive counter-message for our youth who are far too often receiving nothing but negativity and lies. Please consider supporting CityACES with me.

Service Winner

When I used to run a youth entrepreneurship program, I would frequently venture onto the nearby Penn campus to recruit student volunteers. Far from appealing to their bleeding hearts, I unashamedly spoke to their resume-building brains (and those of you sports fans out there will forgive me as I channel Hubie Brown):

"OK, you're an incoming Wharton freshman from Great Neck. You want to get a good education, make friends, have a good time. But you also want to get involved in other, extra-curricular activities. Maybe it's to pad your resume, maybe it's out of the goodness of your heart. Whatever the reason, you're thinking, 'Maybe I want to serve. Maybe I want to connect with West Philadelphia while I'm here for four years. Maybe I want to work with kids. Maybe I want to apply my classroom skills in a real-world setting. Maybe I want to immerse myself in an entrepreneurial setting. Maybe I want to learn what it's like to work in an office.' Hey, that's six 'maybe's!' Instead of doing six different things, why don't you consider giving The Enterprise Center some of your time every month."

In other words, I've always thought you'd get more, better, and more committed volunteering if you helped people understand how helping others could also help themselves. I think it's in this spirit that organizations like the Taproot Foundation are trying to give people outside of the legal profession a category for pro bono work. After all, non-profits need more than legal services; they may need your IT, graphic design, budgeting skills. And in an economy when really skilled people have a lot of time on their hands and are trying to stay sharp and build networks, volunteerism is way up.

I'm glad to see that, as the dollars are getting scarcer and the future getting murkier, there are channels out there to help people get beyond themselves and lend a hand to people and organizations that can use their skills. This has happily been an American phenomenon through the years, and one I'm happy to see it continue circa 2009.

Pray for the City of Oakland

I'm on record as saying that if I ever move from Philly, I'd like to retire to Oakland, California. With its remarkable diversity and gritty urbanness, it is the most Philadelphian of all West Coast cities. I don't plan to move or retire soon, so I have time to house-shop.

In the meantime, Oakland circa 2009 is a city in turmoil. A high-profile murder of a supine black man by a white cop at a BART station in January was followed by riotous protests and then the murder last month of four cops in one tragic incident.

Black-on-white incidents aside, the overwhelming majority of violent crime in Oakland is black-on-black. And this in a city that is often upheld as a model in urbanism, which has a flourishing black middle class and a pulsating cultural and progressive vibe to it.

A recent Economist article quotes a criminologist who says much of the killings are based on respect: someone disrespecting you warrants shooting at them, or you shoot at someone to earn "street cred" among your peer group or to establish your "turf." Meanwhile, families live, work, and play in this city of my favorite baseball and football teams from my childhood and potentially my retirement address. Pray for the city of Oakland.

The World is Better with More Jadas

CNN notes that China adoptions to the US are way down from when we did ours in 2005: "Finding a Home: Fewer Children Up for Adoption in China." Here's the money quote, right in the middle of the article: "The Asian giant's growing economy has given more people the means to raise a child, so Chinese parents are less likely to give up their children. It has also become more socially acceptable to have daughters. In the past, Chinese rural families have sometimes been known to put daughters up for adoption so they can try for a son in a country where most people are allowed to only have one child."

This is unequivocally good news, that there are less economic and cultural barriers to childless Chinese families adopting babies and to pregnant Chinese families keeping their daughters. It's less that I'm saying that international adoption is less than ideal; moreso I'm glad to hear that baby girls are being more valued and cared for, rather than discarded, neglected, or aborted. Jada means the world to me, and I'm glad to hear the world will see more Jadas.

He Died For This One, Too, and Also This One, and Also This One

I had the honor of serving communion at our morning service yesterday. We do it by intinction, which means we all come to the front, take our bread, and dip it in the cup. I held the cup. It was overwhelming to think that Jesus died for every person I served: people of all ages and walks of life, the rich and the poor, children of all races and ethnicities.

With every "this is the blood of Christ, shed for you" that I uttered, the magnitude of the Easter message seemed to grow. It was if, in the midst of the din of music playing and people shuffling forward and then back to their seats, the angels of God were whispering to me, "Yes, He died for this one, too . . . and, yes, this one, also . . . and yes, this one, as well." And when it was my turn: "And yes, for you, too."

Maybe it is possible to think that one is OK, that even if one isn't, life is somehow graded on a curve, or, that failing, that no matter how steep a hole one has dug, one can get his own way out. I certainly act sometimes like some of these statements are true. But when you come to the realization that there is no saving yourself, oh what a relief it is when a saving way comes your way.

What a relief that the tomb was empty that morning, and with it a conclusive and decisive wiping clean of my slate. What a relief that He is risen, and with Him me too someday. And with me so many people of so many types, yesterday's diverse procession being just a glimpse of a far vaster and far more multi-layered procession.

Guns and Power

It has not been lost on me that Asians have featured prominently in the recent roster of shooters, or that there is a certain fit in the public mindset between vengeful killings and the typical Asian stereotypes - sinister villain, nerdy weakling, accented outsider. This article argues that the more appropriate cultural force being tapped into is not the alleged shame-based Asian value structure but rather the allure of guns as the great equalizer and bestower of power: "Debunking the 'Ethnic Angle' to Mass Murders like Binghampton and Virginia Tech." [Link courtesy of Poplicks.]

In that sense, Jiverly Voong and Cho Sung-hui share less in common with failed Japanese or Korean businessmen who jump off tall buildings and more in common with disenfranchised inner city youth of all races and ethnicities: socially marginalized, economically distressed, and otherwise emasculated, but for the fearsome and equalizing power of the gun to gain respect and fear and control. Let us not excuse this extreme form of social deviance, but let us also understand the vacuum of self-worth and societal respect from which it is birthed, that we might determine ways, structurally and individually, to reach out and to save.

Thanks, Batting Stance Guy

Apropos to absolutely nothing except my own childhood and that of millions of others, I join the legions of groupies of Batting Stance Guy, who has imitated the batting stances of thousands of big leaguers on his now legendary YouTube page. His own website's tagline is "the least marketable skill in America," and yet at the very least this uncanny talent has landed him Internet fame, on-field access at major league ballparks, and the adoration of baseball fans like me who grew up mimicking our favorite players. (As a lifelong A's fan, I particularly appreciated his Rickey Henderson.) Nice to see him get some recent press in none other than the New York Times as well.

I especially like how he invariably gets a chuckle from the ballplayers themselves: Ryan Howard thought he nailed "Derek Jeter taking an outside pitch," while a few of the Padres taking BP yelled out, "Do Youkilis!" and then cracked up when he channeled Youkilis. Most are good enough sports to be able to laugh at themselves and definitely at their teammates when BSG "does" them. Our national pastime may be tainted, and far too many players jaded from the crush of media, million-dollar contracts, and the constant pressure to excel even if by cheating; but, at its heart, baseball still has some innocence to it. Thanks, Batting Stance Guy, for making us laugh, and, more poignantly, making us smile.

An Offensive Message

The circles that I tend to run in are diverse and tolerant, and the usual interpersonal interactions I have brief and casual, so "have a happy Easter" is a not uncommon thing for me to say or hear. Even those who, knowing I am religious, are intentional when they say "Easter," meaning they know the holiday has significance for me beyond family gatherings and Easter egg hunts, are simply being cordial, not imparting some sober blessing upon me. And I'm fine with that, and usually reciprocate: "you have a happy Easter, too," or "enjoy Passover," or "have a good weekend," as the case may be.

But I'm conflicted, because Easter is anything but casual and breezy. And I'm not just talking about the usual tone of contemplation and seriousness associated with considering the last words of Jesus or his anguished suffering on the cross. I mean, think of the ramifications of even the happier, good newsy parts of the Easter story: humanity is so depraved and dead that God sends His Son to die a condemned criminal's death and then resurrects Him from the usual finality of death into a place of glory.

Truly, this is not meant to serve as an inspirational story that even a non-believer can derive positive feeling from, as if it can be taken to mean that we can be optimistic in even the most dire of situations, and that in such moments that can feel like death we can hold out hope for figurative resurrections. No, the resurrection story that is central to Easter is based on the premise that man and God are not otherwise OK, that sin is serious, and that, save the most drastic and momentous of acts, our being riddled with sin is worthy of eternal separation/condemnation/damnation.

In other words, this is either really good news if you believe it and take it to heart, or it is incredibly offensive, off-putting, backwards, and arrogant. You either say, "Yes, I agree; I and humanity are sinful, and that's a problem, and not only a problem, but a significant and unsolvable problem . . . except that He is risen!" Or you say, "How dare you judge me!?! How dare you say we are not all right with God!?! How dare you co-opt all faith traditions and claim that deciding about Jesus is the real fork in the road for all humanity!?!" Hence the dissonance of happily and breezily saying or hearing: "Have a nice Easter."

Now I'm not saying I should blindly and rudely ram the Easter message down the throat of everyone I see; there is a place for privacy and tolerance and respect. But, far from the casual holiday that it represents in most peoples' minds, the true Easter has unmistakably embedded in it a proposition that is either a profound salve or an irksome offense. What does it mean for you?

Suffering Good

In the spirit of Holy Week, I am linking here to an old post of mine on the topic of suffering. Lest we either gloss over Jesus' suffering (resurrection is so much more pleasant to meditate on than crucifixion), deify the suffering itself (i.e. the vivid images from Mel Gibson's Passion of the Christ), or paint it in purely transactional terms (he necessarily suffered as payment for our sins), I want to call your attention to the good in the suffering itself. Not as an unavoidable consequence of reconciling a sinful mankind to a holy God ("however unpleasant, this was what had to be done"), but as itself a glorious expression of divinity and redemption ("The Lord was pleased to crush him, putting him to grief" - Isaiah 53:10).

Let us not trivialize the very real pain Jesus endured during Holy Week. Even as he knew this was his reason to live - to die - he asked for relief amidst unimaginable physical pain, spiritual attack, and emotional abuse. And yet God chose this path for His Son to glorify Him, because of and through and not in spite of this terrible anguish (Philippians 2:8-11). And God chooses difficult paths for us as well - Jesus' suffering dignifies rather than excuses us from our own suffering (1 Peter 4:1). We too, because of one whose suffering was good and accomplished good, can know that whatever suffering we endure for His sake can be good and can accomplish good.

"Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal among you, which comes upon you for your testing, as though some strange thing were happening to you; but to the degree that you share the sufferings of Christ, keep on rejoicing, so that also at the revelation of His glory you may rejoice with exultation. If you are reviled for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you. Make sure that none of you suffers as a murderer, or thief, or evildoer, or a troublesome meddler; but if anyone suffers as a Christian, he is not to be ashamed, but is to glorify God in this name. For it is time for judgment to begin with the household of God; and if it begins with us first, what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel of God? And if it is with difficulty that the righteous is saved, what will become of the godless man and the sinner? Therefore, those also who suffer according to the will of God shall entrust their souls to a faithful Creator in doing what is right." - 1 Peter 4:12-19

In Honor of My Friend

My friend Glenn would have turned 34 today. He passed away over four years ago, and there's not a day that goes by that I don't think about him. I miss being able to talk politics (he was far more conservative than I), transportation (he knew everything about everything), and ministry (he had the biggest heart of anyone I ever knew). I miss our weekly prayer times, when I could fess up about ways I'd messed up or needed help, and he could do the same. I miss growing older, becoming a dad, advancing in my career, and not being able to do it all that with him.

I feel fortunate to have a lot of good guy friends in my life. I don't take any of them for granted, nor do I take for granted my need for their presence in my life. And, on one level, I feel fuller for having known Glenn, even if for too short. But I do miss the guy, as I know others do whose lives he touched. He lives on in the lives of those of us who gained from having known him; but he himself is not here. And I feel that all the more on days like today.

Walking with the Wounded

Last weekend, I got a chance to catch up by phone with a dear friend of mine from college. To honor him and help redeem his story, I asked him if I could share about him on my blog, as long as I blurred some of the details.

My friend (let's call him Roy) was severely physically and sexually abused by people and in places he should have been able to trust: home, church, school. Even worse (as if it's possible for there to be an "even worse" in this story), in each case, his abusers absolved themselves and scarred Roy by telling him he deserved the abuse.

Not surprisingly, these scars carry to the present. They cause him at times to rage against his own body, they greatly hinder intimacy and trust in his marriage, and they strain certain interactions with his young school-age kids because of the ways those interactions take him back to when he was their age.

Over the years, I have come to know that when Roy is doing well in his therapy and recovery, those are also times when he struggles mightily. Paradoxically, this makes perfect sense, for it is exactly when he pushes through to new places of acceptance that he is most emotionally vulnerable on account of the waves of vivid feelings he is now able to feel more acutely. Progress in naming and owning past brutalities also means extra panic as old voices reverberate in his head about the physical and eternal consequences of ever telling anyone.

I share Roy's story because one of the most challenging aspects of his life is the isolation he feels, as if he is living in a parallel world from the one the rest of us live in. The few times he has tried to let someone new into his world, he has been met with confusion and surprise and even denial. Roy's psychic distance from so-called normalcy is reinforced by many in that sphere who affirm that Roy's experience is literally unbelievable.

And yet there are sadly so many Roys among us. We humans - even and especially parents and pastors and teachers and counselors - are capable of inflicting terrible evil on the youngest and most vulnerable among us, as well as of compounding our physical and sexual violations by feeding those yet-to-be-fully-formed worldviews with the notion that they are the ones who are dirty and deserving and damned.

In other words, simmering just underneath the veneers of normalcy that govern our interactions in the home, at church, in the workplace and community, are thousands of wounds and thousands of dysfunctions. The grim reality for the Roys of the world is that their world is in fact a parallel existence, which makes it so relieving and refreshing when they are allowed to park that parallel existence into the rest of the universe, whether within a therapy session or through a hobby or in a conversation with a trusted confidante.

I do not at all consider myself an approachable person: as much as I try, and I have improved, I am still not naturally a good listener, an empathetic heart, or an observant friend. I don't think I have earned Roy's trust because of any particular positive trait of mine; rather, I think Roy has let me in because I call him regularly enough for him to know that I care.

It is a fine line to neither trivialize a friend's wounds nor discount the power of a Great Physician to heal them. I know that, however much pent-up guilty feeling and not-so-good coping mechanisms have piled up in Roy's life, he is kept by Jesus; and so even if there is no relief on this side of glory, some day he will be dancing and twirling freely in the presence of his Creator and Guide.

Would that we walk with the Roys in our lives until then, and maybe just maybe have the good fortune of every once in awhile seeing some of that dancing and twirling even on this side of glory. It is for that reason that I stay in touch with the Roys in my life, and encourage you to do the same.

Safety Nets

I was able to catch up with a former student of mine earlier this month. He considers me a sort of mentor, since I'm older and have tried to help him out at various times in his life, but I must also say that he is an inspiration to me, in what he has been able to achieve and how grounded and generous he is amidst all of those achievements.

As we got caught up, I could not help but marvel at how many more safety nets I have been blessed with than he has. Sure, I have worked hard at every step; but my parents provided me with so much along the way, whether letting me live under their roof from age zero to 18, paying for my undergraduate years (at an expensive Ivy League school, no less), and well into my prime earning years continue to provide financial help at various times to me and my kids.

Contrast this with my friend, who has been the man of his household of origin for a very long time now. This role carries with it financial responsibilities to his mother and siblings, responsibilities which may increase in the years to come as his mother ages and has more medical needs and less earning capability. Far from having safety nets, he is a safety net to others, which is surely a stressful burden. And yet, despite these responsibilities, my friend is far more generous with his time and money than I am, in terms of the proportions of both he devotes to charitable causes.

I am not ashamed of my own generosity, for I do take giving seriously; nor am I embarrassed to have enjoyed the privilege I have enjoyed throughout my life, for those are good things that should not be hidden away but rather humbly acknowledged. But conversations with my friend provide me with the proper perspective so that I am mindful of what fortune I have been able to enjoy out of no deservedness of my own, and that I should accordingly be grateful and generous.

Capitalism for the Masses

I had to do a double-take when I read this in an insert in our church's Sunday morning worship bulletin: "The grain bank helped the community resist the market forces that diminish the value of their crop when they sell it and increase it when they buy it back." What this "food security" blurb was referring to was the fact that poorer, agriculturally based communities were beholden to the dynamic of having to sell their excess crop at its lowest, during boom harvests, and then having to buy food at its highest during poor harvests.

But at a time when capitalism-bashing is running high, I couldn't mistake the swipe being taken. Never mind that our poorest countries suffer not because of too much free trade but rather not enough: eliminating subsidies in rich parts of the world like America and Europe would lead to massive gains for the entire world, mostly enjoyed by poorer, agriculturally-dependent regions. And never mind that capitalism is the very mechanism that efficiently provides the capital and motivation for communities to diversify away from economies that are beholden to the hit and miss of different seasons of harvests and toward economies that are more consistently able to provide its citizens with the jobs and products they need to live.

Which is why I am alternately amused, saddened, and enraged by anti-capitalist protests at gatherings such as the G20. If you really want to help "the bottom billion," you should be vigorously championing for more free trade and more free markets and more financial wizardry, not less. Capitalism has brought billions out of desperate poverty so far, and I'm hoping it can do the same for billions more. Let's quit demonizing it and the people and institutions that make it work, and instead harness it all for the benefit of those billions to come.

Heating Up

Nice piece by New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman comparing our financial meltdown with our environmental one: "The Price is Not Right." Whether or not you believe in global warming, under-pricing carbon leads to excess consumption, with potentially catastrophic consequences in terms of scarce resources, shaky geopolitics, and all manner of other negative externalities.

And Friedman is right that the same principles are at play in both cases: everything has consequences, and the minute we forget that and start leveraging ourselves up accordingly, watch out for an impending day of reckoning when it all unravels:

This system was a powerful engine of wealth creation and lifted millions out of poverty, but it relied upon the risks to the Market and to Mother Nature being underpriced and to profits being privatized in good times and losses socialized in bad times. This capitalist engine doesn’t need to be discarded; it needs some fixes. For starters, we need to get back to basics — accountable lending, prudent saving, reasonable leverage and, most important, more engineering of goods than just financial products.

Some of our biggest financial firms got away from their original purpose — to fund innovation and to finance the process of “creative destruction,” whereby new technologies that improve people’s lives replace old ones, said the Columbia University economist Jagdish Bhagwati, in an interview in The American Interest. Instead, he added, too many banks got involved in exotic and incomprehensible financial innovations — to simply make money out of money — which ended up as “destructive creation.”

“Destructive creation” has wounded both the Market and Mother Nature. Smart regulation and carbon taxation can heal both.

Easier said than done, but still spot on. Here's hoping we can find some reasoned answers amidst all the bickering, for the sake of our current economic livelihoods and our future environmental survival.

Cool It

I've always been a bit of an agnostic when it came to global warming, choosing to go along with the cause if not the reasons, because of important parallel considerations such as finite resources, nervous geopolitics, and other negative externalities. This book only strengthens my contrarian position: "Cool It: The Skeptical Environmentalist's Guide to Global Warming." While agreeing that global warming is in part man-made, the author makes the following compelling arguments:

* Much of the publicity has been sensational, alarmist, and in some cases false: good policy is hard to come by when a dire tone can said to trump all other concerns, and heart-tugging images like stranded polar bears misrepresents the fact that the polar bear populations that are struggling are those in places that are getting colder and in fact the majority are blossoming because they live in places that are getting warmer.

* Any negative effects associated with warmer high temps will be more than offset by positive effects associated with warmer low temps: any increase in deaths due to higher highs will be more than made up for large decreases in deaths due to higher lows.

* Only the most herculean efforts to reverse climate change will have even minor effects: billions upon billions of dollars can be spent on the kinds of things required in Kyoto I and Kyoto II, but they may only lower temps by fractions of one degree and/or forestall warming by a year or two over the next century.

* Those efforts are vastly costlier when compared to other things we can be spending our time and money on to improve the quality of life for billions of humans today: for vastly less, we can improve the plight of billions in the present, and in doing so elevate personal and national incomes today so that we can better adapt to a warmer world tomorrow.

Do we need to take global warming seriously? Absolutely; if anything, the author's complaint with today's debate is that it deflects us from properly prioritizing our scarce resources towards the best uses. Let's be mindful of the environment, yes; but let's be mindful of it in ways that do the greatest good for the greatest number, both today and tomorrow.

Double Reminder

It had been a long day at the end of a long week. The weather bordered on absurd: bright as day, ominously dark clouds in the distance, wind gusting here and there, and a steadily increasing downpour. As I fought the elements, a stroller that wouldn't seem to roll straight, and an umbrella that kept flipping inside out, I couldn't help but sigh aloud at the spectacle of it all.

My kids, purer in thought than I, had other things in mind. "Rainbow!" squealed Jada, and requested that I turn the stroller around so she can get a better look without having to crane her neck underneath the see-through tarp that was draped over her and Aaron. Aaron mimicked his sister's cry, and pointed, and rose in his enthusiasm as he saw Jada get more excited.

I took the opportunity to tell them that rainbows are God's reminder to us that He will always love us (Genesis 9:8-17). I turned around to look myself, and noticed that it wasn't just any rainbow, but a double rainbow. One for the kids, I suppose, and one for me, an apt reminder that even at the end of a tiring week and in the midst of strange and battering weather, He loves me too.

Facebook Will Rule the World By Not Listening to its Existing Customers . . . and I'm OK With That

Yet again in defense of Facebook, I have to agree with tech blogger Scobleizer on this: "Why Facebook Has Never Listened and Why It Definitely Won’t Start Now." Don't forget that FB is, last I checked, voluntary and free. Voluntary as in "if you don't like it, don't use it." Free as in "since there's no such thing as a free lunch, you are paying something, just not money; and you have to decide that what you're giving up is worth what you're getting; and if it's not worth it, then see above."

The glorious thing about free market capitalism is that a business' path to profitability can be (and in fact, by definition almost always is) the same path as what provides us end users with the best product or service possible. The more useful/easy/frictionless/obvious FB becomes, the more money Zuckerberg and company stand to make. Hence Scobleizer's sushi example, or my prediction in 2007 that people would be able to drag and drop items from our virtual bookshelves and kitchens into a shopping cart.

Do we need to mind the shop when it comes to issues of privacy and sensitive information? Yes, but (Beacon fiasco notwithstanding) that's an individual's decision, not Facebook's: no one is forcing me to list my phone number or post that picture from last Friday night (or, for that matter, get myself drunk in the first place so that someone else could take my picture and post it on FB).

So maybe I'm being naive or misguided or heartless, but I am eager to head into this brave new world in which information is available when and how I want it: spatially sensitive, targeted to my situation, and with the wisdom of the crowds (or at least my "friends") to guide me along the way. If it's not Zuckerberg and company, it'll be someone else; so, hit or miss, kudos to him for taking a big swing.

Looking for This Kind of Leadership

I fancy myself a management guru, even though I’m not; but hey, it’s my blog so I can dream. If I could afford it, I would devour issues of Harvard Business Review. Alas, I have to content myself with what they post for free on their site. This article by AG Lafley – “What Only the CEO Can Do” – resonates with me. [See a similar post of mine from a few years back – “The Three Things I Focused On.”]

Note the similarities. Translate and make sense of all of the disparate points in the universe that may or may not relate to your business. Figure out who you are and who you aren’t. Balance execution today with investment tomorrow. And live out the standard of values you want your entity to follow by. Those are good words for CEOs, executive directors, pastors, superintendents, and even heads of families. Would that we see more of this kind of leadership in a world that, however cynical, still hopes for it.

Give Me Liberty

I was asked by a client of ours to provide testimony in support of Philadelphia's ten-year property tax abatement on new construction and major renovations at a City Council hearing. Here are my written comments. [Note: the picture is of the Pradera Homes complex in North Philadelphia - yes, North Philadelphia - built as a result of the abatement program.]

***

Green considerations are public considerations. So it makes sense to incentivize environmentally positive development. My perspective is that the City’s current property tax abatement is good policy on its own, and therefore a green abatement should augment and not replace the existing 10-year abatement. Of course, one need only read today’s paper to know that not everyone agrees with me about the existing abatement, Two Liberty Place being a particularly controversial example.

As my colleague Kevin Gillen has shown, thousands of homeowners outside of Center City have benefited from the City’s 10-year property tax abatement on new construction and major renovations, and two-thirds of units would not have otherwise been built but for the abatement. For now, let’s just consider Two Liberty Place, and see if the abatement was or was not a net positive for the City. Yes, the City does forgo ten year’s worth of tax revenue when a high-end unit is built and bought. But between real estate transfer taxes, wage taxes, and sales taxes – all of which kick in immediately – as well as property taxes that are collected after the abatement expires, the City more than makes up for those upfront foregone tax revenues, both immediately and over the long term.

Let’s use some actual numbers to illustrate this. Consider the gentleman in Unit 4309 who bought his unit in June 2008 for $1.1 million. (There are about as many in the building who paid more than this as there are those who paid less.) Let’s call him Mr. Liberty. Mr. Liberty’s property tax bill will eventually be about $18,000; but for the first ten years, he’ll only owe $3,000, which represents the land portion of the tax bill –the $15,000 difference represents the enhancement in the property that actually qualifies for the abatement. So Mr. Liberty would pay the City about $3,000 a year in property tax revenues, and the City would forego about $15,000 a year in property tax revenues during those first ten years. Mr. Liberty would also pay about $15,000 a year, as a low estimate, in wage taxes and sales taxes. Finally, he paid about $33,000 once, upfront, in real estate transfer taxes. So during the ten-year abatement period, the City would forego a total of $150,000 in tax revenues but receive a total of $210,000 in tax revenues from Mr. Liberty; so the City will be plus $60,000 during those first ten years as a result of Mr. Liberty. And then, every year after that, Mr. Liberty will pay about $36,000 in taxes to the City; so over 30 years, the City will be plus almost $800,000 or more as a result of Mr. Liberty. And, notice in these charts that Mr. Liberty’s contribution to the City’s coffers is always greater than what the City foregoes in property tax revenues, starting from Day 1. Multiplied by thousands of Mr. Liberty’s, you can see how this would be very good for the City.

But let’s look at this another way. Recall our estimate that the property tax abatement induced two-thirds of new and renovated units. So out of every three units, two would not have been built but for the abatement. So we can imagine two scenarios: one in which the abatement exists and three Mr. Liberty’s move in – they get their property taxes abated in the first ten years but pay other taxes – and one in which the abatement doesn’t exist and only Mr. Liberty moves in – but he has to pay full freight on his property taxes right away, as well as on all of his other taxes. Using conservative assumptions, we estimated that the abatement scenario brings in a total of $270,000 more in tax revenues in the first ten years, and a total of $1.7 million more in tax revenues over thirty years. Again, notice in these charts that the abatement’s contribution to the City’s coffers is always net positive, starting from Day 1. And again, multiplied over thousands of units, this is very good for the City.

In conclusion, in an environment in which every dollar counts, the property tax abatement program brings net new cash into the City’s coffers from Day One, and continues to be a positive contributor over the long haul.

Fooled on April 1

Of all the April Fools' Day jokes that I did or did not fall for, these two were the best: "U.S. Plans Key Role In Naming GM Board" and "'Special Report' Panel on Government Intervening in GM."

I mean, really, you expect me to believe that the president of the most powerful and capitalistic nation in the universe, the leader of the free world, is picking board members and guaranteeing warranties? C'mon; I'd have to be really gullible to believe that.

(Gets a covert poke in the back, followed by a whisper into the ear, followed by my facing turning red.)

Um . . . well at least I didn't fall for Google Romance!