Participate

Make Your Voice Heard!

There are many ways you can positively affect design and development in Philadelphia:

Why Your Participation Matters

During the middle of December, PennPraxis, of Penn's School of Design, and Harris Sokoloff, an expert in civic engagement with the Penn Graduate School of Education, facilitated a series of public meetings that captured and put to use the voices of close to 900 people from around the city.

The goal? Start to lay the foundation for creating a lasting vision for the waterfront.

At these "value sessions," citizens came together and talked very personally about what's important to them about the waterfront. They shared their ideas about how neighborhoods and the city should value and intersect with the riverfront.

This type of interaction between the citizens of this city, whether they be laborers, politicians, environmentalists or students, and the process of developing a long-term plan for a 7-mile stretch of Delaware River waterfront is the most crucial ingredient for a successful outcome.

We want you to participate in this civic vision experiment that will establish a road map for development that puts Philadelphians first and foremost as it creates an elegant, exciting, vibrant and humane 21st century urban design that makes the world take notice.

But be clear, in order for this process to realize its full potential, we need your help.


During the next 10 months, Praxis will be working with the people of Philadelphia to create this vision. As we did with Penn's Landing, school design and casinos in the past, we will continue hosting a series of public forums on different levels in which the people's voice will be roundly heard.

Join with us as we discuss your values for the riverfront and your neighborhoods and begin to create principles for waterfront planning that will carry us forward as we work with an internationally acclaimed design team to produce a vision that balances the public good with private development.


Your assistance in the coming months will allow us to recommend how to create the public body that will implement the plan, one that will remain accountable to the voice and vision of the people.


There is a wide range of ways that you can participate in the Plan Philly Project, just log onto www.planphilly for information regarding:

Civic Engagement
Advocacy Initiatives
Attend an Event
Contribute your thougts and opinions
Stay informed

Comments

by Sarah McEneaney (not verified) | July 3, 2009 - 9:34am
While I agree it would be great to have I95 underground and covered by a public green space Philadelphia has a similar site where the dig is already done. The Vine Street Expressway is already below ground and partly covered. If we covered the remaining "holes" with public green space we would do a lot the end the physical divide I76 creates. Vine Street would finally become what it now is, a local city street. Even better, a green boulevard.
by Michael Hauptman, AIA (not verified) | December 18, 2008 - 6:20pm
The replacement of all of the traffic lights at intersections all around Center City (especially Society Hill/Queen Village) with the new brown poles seemed innocuous enough until they started installing the person-sized, slab-mounted control boxes. These huge brown objects are being installed at most intersections and are located within inches of historic houses and walls and take up significant space on already narrow sidewalks. Half of them are already covered in graffiti. Did anyone know this was planned? Is anyone concerned?