My aim is to help rebuild American cities so they're as beautiful as the children within them.
I've been a community organizer for 40 years paulglover.org. Am founder of Ithaca HOURS local currency, Citizen Planners of Los Angeles, Ithaca Health Alliance, Philadelphia Orchard Project, and other organizations. I teach at Temple University and am author of several books (Health Democracy, Hometown Money, Green Jobs Philly, A Crime Not a Crisis, Los Angeles: A History of the Future).
The Dark Season closes around Philadelphia. Wolves howl, "Tough times coming!" Young professionals with good jobs study budget cuts, watch stocks flail. Career bureaucrats are laid off; college students wonder who's hiring. Old-timers remember when Philadelphia staggered through the terrible Depression years without jobs or dollars, while crime and hunger rose. Some districts here never escaped that Depression — they're still choosing between heating and eating.
As usual, the future will be different. Philadelphia's responses to global warming and market cooling, high fuel and food prices, health unsurance, mortgages, student debt and war will decide whether our future here becomes vastly better or vastly worse. Whether we're the Next Great City or Next Great Medieval Village. Imagine Philadelphia with one-tenth the oil and natural gas.
But to hell with tragedy. Let's quit dreading news. Take the Rocky road. There are Philadelphia solutions for every ...read full post
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July 24, 2009 
Clean Energy climate change coal cop15 Copenhagen dirty coal energy global warming New York City oceans poetry What's Happening
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