Philadelphia’s 5th District City Council Race: A Call For A Town Hall on Social Impact Investing
The image above was taken at a fall 2017 protest at the ribbon cutting for the Vaux Big Picture School in the Sharswood neighborhood of North Philadelphia, a HUD “Choice Neighborhood.” The middle school was closed for several years and reopened under the management of a private operator (though titularly still a “public” school). Big Picture is an international franchise and partner in the first education social impact bond in the UK. Additional information on the Doncaster / Big Picture SIB available at the Innovation Unit, UK website here. What is taking place in the 5th City Council District of Philadelphia is part of a much larger move towards the global financialization of public services, including education. It is imperative that we talk about this.
The 5th Council District of Philadelphia embodies economic inequality. Extending from North Philadelphia, a bastion of Black culture battling an onslaught of post-redlining gentrification, to Rittenhouse Square, a district of penthouse views and high-end retail; it contains neighborhoods where parents can raise $100,000 to pay for extras that have been cut from school budgets AND Black and Brown communities where most of the neighborhood schools have been closed or taken over by charters.
It runs east from the Rocky statue, through Spring Garden, Yorktown, and Northern Liberties, ending in the hipster enclave of Fishtown. “Investing in Opportunity Zone” census tracts spread across Brewerytown, along East Fairmount Park, and up North Broad Street (interactive map here, zoom in). Real estate development and new businesses launched within these zones and held for ten years pay NO capital gains tax upon sale. Temple University exerts a powerful influence over the northern part of the district, its overreach resisted for decades by vigilant community activists, the most recent wave led by Stadium Stompers and the No Stadium, No Deal Coalition.
It is a district of gourmet food halls and food deserts; unsheltered people dying in underground corridors of transit stations a stone’s throw from CONTINUE READING: Philadelphia’s 5th District City Council Race: A Call For A Town Hall on Social Impact Investing – Wrench in the Gears
