For decades, cities remained rooted in the ways of the past and in the status-quo. New approaches, innovative ideas and bold thinking were uncommon. But after decades of losing residents to the suburbs, cities are once again the go-to place for young people, job seekers and businesses alike.
On the whole, cities and metropolitan areas are growing again. Today, metropolitan areas are home to 80% of the world’s population.
Philadelphia, specifically, is experiencing a renaissance. We are growing again. Our population has grown every year since 2008. We have experienced the largest percentage of millennial population growth of any of the nation’s big cities. Why?
One of the most pressing, serious concerns for the City of Philadelphia is public education. The Greater Philadelphia region is home to 101 colleges and universities but:
Our college attainment rate is just above 25%;
Approximately 60% of jobs in Philadelphia require some level of post-secondary education but only 46% of our residents have a degree or skills training for those jobs; and
If you track an average 9th grade class in Philadelphia, only one student in ten would graduate college.
Our on-time graduation rate is 66% - one of the lowest of the top ten largest cities and well below the national average of 80% -- up from 57% in 2007. Our six-year high school graduation rate is 70% -- up from 60% in 2007.
To drive up educational attainment, we:
Created the Mayor’s Office of Education
Increased education funding by nearly $400 million in annual recurring funding over the last five years
We launched programs:
Supported other initiatives, like:
Other education initiatives to mention:
In 2010, the Brookings Institute referred to Philadelphia in a study as a “skilled anchor” – one of 19 metro areas that have transitioned from a manufacturing & shipping to a service-based economy. This transformation is driven by medical and educational institutions, and specialized manufacturing. We are seeing tremendous growth in a number of sectors: technology, life sciences, healthcare, education, and energy.
However, we face challenges in our workforce readiness. Currently, 550,000 adult Philadelphians function below adult literacy levels. If we continue down the same path of low-literacy, limited digital literacy and poor educational outcomes for our residents, then by 2030, we project that an estimated 600,000 Philadelphians will lack the basic skills needed to compete in the global economy. Individuals with low education levels, low-literacy skills or were formerly incarcerated often face significant barriers to employment.
We support job training and skills development programs and have implemented initiatives that aid in helping individuals with barriers to employment overcome them.
I believe our approach to this issue has been unprecedented in Philadelphia. We knew that simply hiring 500 new police officers with marching orders to stand on every street corner was not enough – ultimately, that’s a short-term solution. We are in this for the long haul because we are looking to create systemic change and address the underlying conditions that contribute to criminal activity: poverty, lack of education, joblessness, etc.
We’ve involved agencies and departments like public sector & non-profits, schools, social service programs, anti-poverty and workforce developments agencies, and even programs that assist returning citizens.
Within the government, we have an initiative called PhillyRising that works with the Police Department and goes out into the neighborhoods to listen to the residents about the issues they experience and what help they need.
When the problems are identified, they bring in different city services like building computer labs, removing dangerous trees and homes, or cleaning blighted land.
And the best part: they provide training courses for citizens so that when the City officials leave, residents can continue to help themselves and their neighbors by understanding how to navigate requesting City services.
But of course, crime-fighting can’t happen without the Police Department. They areengaged in ‘smart policing’ – using data to pinpoint hotspots and utilizing technology to make their policing strategies more effective. The PPD has partnered with the District Attorney on programs like GunStat to target violent offenders, increase bail amounts and implement mandatory sentencing, and we’ve developed a Community policing strategy which includes more foot patrols, a surveillance camera network, and a text-tip line with monetary rewards.
We opened a multi-million dollar, high-technology facility (nationally known as a Fusion Center) which brings together law enforcement officials from all types of agencies under one roof to better coordinate regional responses to hazards and events. And the Juvenile Enforcement Team (JET) unit is comprised of probation and police officers and is housed inside Family Court. They focus on high-risk juvenile offenders, gather information about juvenile gangs.
Other initiative that improve public safety to mention:
There is this idea out there that cities can’t impact poverty, that poverty must be addressed at the national and state level primarily. But in Philadelphia:
More than one in four Philadelphians live below the federal poverty line, including 123,000 children.
About 12.3% of Philadelphians live in “deep poverty”, or half the federal poverty rate, which for a family of four means an income of less than $12,000.
At 26%, Philadelphia has the highest poverty rate of the top ten largest cities in America.
We decided to take action. In January 2013, I was proud to sign an Executive Order that established a new office, the Mayor’s Office of Community Empowerment and Opportunity, or the CEO, and charged itwith centralizing, advancing and managing our anti-poverty efforts and the money that comes in from many sources. CEO’s goal is to harness and advance the City’s anti-poverty work, while integrating our efforts with those of so many others – nonprofit providers, consumers, the business sector, academia and the philanthropic community.
The result was Shared Prosperity Philadelphia, our comprehensive plan to combat poverty. It is a strategic approach that aligns available resources and assets to areas of need, focusing on education, jobs and job training, access to benefits, housing security and economic security. Shared Prosperity has been our blueprint over the last two years, a collective guide for us and all of our partners. And, like last year, I am thrilled to report we are making positive strides. Since 2013:
Things to mention:
In the absence or insufficiency of national and international action on sustainability, cities have jumped to the forefront on green initiatives.
In Philadelphia, we are using data and analytics across City government, from tracking shooting data to assessing health disparities across different communities. We are gathering this information, interpreting it and using it to better serve our constituents. It is shaping policy and helping us to determine new approaches to solve our most pressing challenges.
The Philadelphia Department of Public Health uses data throughout the public health process, from defining the problem to developing a response and assessing the results of that response.
Overall, STD infection rates have declined nearly 30% over the last two years.
Mayors can implement community outreach strategies to improve public health outcomes. For Example, the Childhood Immunization Registry: Since the 1990s, Philadelphia’s Department of Public Health has collected data from doctors’ offices, hospitals, pharmacies and schools on immunization records. Our registry contains data on more than 95% of Philadelphia children. We use that data to send out community health workers into neighborhoods with low vaccination rates. The community health workers educate parent about the benefits of immunization and connect those parents to health care providers.
Other data-based examples:
GunStat: the Philadelphia Police Department and the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office cross reference their reports, which includes data about pending cases like location, nature of incidents and offender names, to increase arrests and convictions.
We know that we have a problem with collecting delinquent taxes owed to the city. So, we are using data analytics in our Department of Revenue to determine which delinquent tax payers to target and how to target them.
Pay for Success
In the government, we have spent many millions of dollars to modernize our technology infrastructure. But we’ve also changed how we do business and how we relate to the public. In recent years, we were chosen twice to receive Code for America fellowships, and we may be the only city with that distinction. Subsequently, we hired two of these Fellows and we’ve hired from the local Code for Philly crew.
In 2012, I committed this City to open government and transparency by signing an Executive Order creating the City’s first Open Data policy. City departments were given marching orders to publish data on the web. Three years later, you can go online and download 240 datasets from 33 departments without having to know somebody, or even having to know what data exists. The data sets run the gamut: Crime, budget, parking tickets, property assessments, election results.
Our goal is straightforward: we want to use open data to better inform our citizens. At the same time, we’re improving our service delivery. Data is available at the community-run data portal, OpenDataPhilly.org along with datasets from other organizations in the Philadelphia region. But we didn’t stop there. We have encouraged Philadelphians to innovate with our data: build an app that connects citizens to government, make smarter real estate investments, start your own data-driven business (and by all means stay here and grow here).
Back in October, Code for Philly held an Apps for Philly Sustainability event and ahead of that we released 10 new data sets. We’re also using WordPress in part because it’s everywhere. It’s free and anybody can build on it without having to get permission from some bureaucrat. In fact, we are building the new phila.gov on the WordPress platform, which folks can see live at alpha.phila.gov. We’re building out in the open and publishing our code as open source for all to see and to contribute.
And we’re the largest government organization on GitHub at github.com/cityofphiladelphia where everyone goes for their open source software needs and where we’re building our new phila.gov. By the way, we’re hiring a WordPress developer! So check out phila.gov/itjobs.
Finally, let me mention a couple of quick stories about government embracing Open Source software: The Philadelphia Police Department is on the cutting edge in terms of use of social media, the internet and videos, all part of strengthening the department’s ties to the community. In December 2012, the Department released crime data as “open data.” Then, a software developer from our local tech community built an open source application, phlcrimemapper.com, that lets you zoom into your neighborhood and see where recent crimes have occurred. It was so good that rather than trying to build something ourselves, the Police Department used that developer’s code and now it’s the official crime map on phillypolice.com. And when we contract with vendors, we ask them to publish their work product as open source. We’ve got more than a dozen examples.
I’ll just mention one: we wanted to create a mobile App that would complement our efforts in the PhillyRising program, which is a collaborative that brings together a variety of city agencies with the police and with communities to solve local problems and reduce crime. The myPhillyRising mobile App enables residents to find out about upcoming events,discover valuable community resources and facilities, read success stories, and meet their community, as well as share information back with the app. The App was built and then we published what we bought as an open source so that other cities can use it and improve upon it.