No More Consenting to Corruption in Philadelphia

This week in North Philly Notes, Brett Mandel, author of Philadelphia, Corrupt and Consenting, offers ideas about how to overcome the perils of public corruption.

Philadelphia is weeks away from an election that will help set a new direction for local government. Change is badly needed, given the unsatisfying state of the city. Candidates for mayor and for other offices are talking a lot about poverty, gun violence, and lack of economic opportunity. They should also be talking about public corruption, which underlies so many of Philadelphia’s problems. Today, corruption is consented to—through action and inaction by so many in our hyper-connected town—and it costs so much to run a city so poorly. To move Philadelphia into a better future, we must change a culture of corruption and implement key anticorruption reforms so we can best address the city’s challenges.

What is public corruption? It is when officials put their own private gain before the public good, abuse their public authority to advance private agendas, and pervert the work of public entities by excluding the public from official decision-making processes in order to favor private interests. Corruption increases the price of government services and reduces resources that could be used to address our many challenges. Corruption also imposes further costs in denying opportunity for those who deserve It, trampling on the values of fairness and equity, and threatening the health and safety of residents. 

Philadelphia, Corrupt and Consenting details the city’s history of corruption and show how it threatens our future. The book recounts the story of the city’s most important corruption investigation so far this century. It discusses the roots, effects, and reasons for corruption’s persistence, places our current issues into perspective, and offers recommendations to make positive change. Every candidate for office should read the book, review its recommendations, and tell voters what they will do to stop consenting to the corruption that holds Philadelphia back.

To make change for the better, we must understand certain things.

• We need to learn to recognize corruption when we see it. We are on the lookout for overt shakedowns or passing envelopes of cash to bribe seekers, but Philadelphia corruption generally consists of officials doing favors for friends and subverting the work of government to benefit special interests
• Arguing about whether corruption in Philadelphia is worse or better than it previously was is counterproductive; asserting that today’s corruption is different from that of the past does not reduce its cost or blunt its other damaging effects today
• Norms, laws, and accepted standards change; what was once an everyday practice can become stigmatized, even demonized, so we cannot count on the legal system to solve these problems
• We cannot leave the fight against corruption up to a few reform actors or a single reform moment; each of us needs to want our city to function systematically and properly for everyone more than we want to know someone who can get something done for us — and we cannot stop the fight after any small victory is won

We need a mayor and other elected officials who will confront our culture of corruption and embrace an anticorruption honor code for themselves and those they hire—to not only not engage in corruption acts, but to report instances of corruption they see. Ultimately, it is not enough to change rules or laws and we must all stop enabling corruptors with our silent consent. The defining characteristic of Philadelphia corruption is its collegiality. We are all so closely connected to each other, which makes us reluctant to call out bad behavior by anyone who is “one of us.” 

If we cannot stand against those who engage in corrupt activities because too many ties bind us together, then we need to organize a different “us” to oppose corruption. An anticorruption movement or slate of candidates, or even a formal local anticorruption political party could build a movement so we can split from those who do wrong by the city—and those who try to play both sides. If we refuse to consent to more corruption, we can create the thriving city that Philadelphians deserve.

Brett Mandel is a writer, consultant, and former city official active in reform politics in Philadelphia.

The Making of SALUT!

This week in North Philly Notes, Lynn Miller and Therese Dolan discuss their collaboration on Salut! France Meets Philadelphia.

We have both had a life-long love affair with France. We first became acquainted years ago as colleagues on the Temple faculty. Once we discovered our shared Gallic infatuation, we began to chat about those things in the Philadelphia area that had a French flavor. Some wonderful restaurants were part of it, naturellement, but we soon began to discover an amazing variety of French flavors, figuratively speaking, throughout our region’s history. And as we tasted, the hungrier we grew for more.

Early on, there was Philadelphia’s most famous citizen, Benjamin Franklin, who spent the Revolutionary War years in Paris persuading the government of Louis XVI to support the American cause. That support almost certainly was decisive in securing the nation’s independence. French philosophes, meanwhile, were the chief inspiration for the nation’s two great founding documents, the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution—both of which were signed in Independence Hall. That building’s name, by the way, was bestowed on the Pennsylvania Statehouse by our first great foreign hero, the Marquis de Lafayette, when he returned to Philadelphia in 1824 as part of his triumphal tour of the nation he’d helped create.

The American Revolution provided copious dramatic events and distinguished heroes along with prime opportunities for artists to create a distinctive American imagery and style in art. When the nation emerged as an independent entity it needed visual symbols to define its purpose and forge its new identity at home and abroad. In 1779, the Supreme Executive Council of Pennsylvania deemed that those who rendered distinguished services to their country should have their resemblances in statues and paintings. This was what “the wisest, freest and bravest nations” do “in their most virtuous times.” The development of an image of the American national character between the Colonial, Revolutionary, and Federal periods largely depended on portraiture. Charles Willson Peale and his son Rembrandt, along with Gilbert Stuart, were inundated with requests for replicas of their portraits of Washington. Thomas Jefferson brought sculpted busts from France to install in his gallery of worthies at Monticello and purchased sixty-three paintings during his stay in Paris in the hopes of stimulating his American citizens to appreciate the visual and intellectual effectiveness of the fine arts as an intellectual tool for the betterment of the nation.

Philadelphia is obviously not a “French” city like New Orleans or Montreal. Larger numbers of German, Irish, and Italian immigrants settled here than did those of French origin. But the French connections in some respects stand out because they were often made by specific individuals who left important legacies here. That of Stephen Girard, the richest man in the United States early in the 19^th century, includes a school for orphans and many blocks of real estate in Center City. Napoleon LeBrun designed both the Academy of Music and the Basilica Cathedral of SS Peter and Paul. Two Frenchmen, Paul Philippe Cret and Jacques Gréber, created our very own Champs-Elysées, the Benjamin Franklin Parkway. Georges Perrier emigrated here from France as a young man to establish Le Bec-Fin, which would soon be regarded as one of the finest restaurants in America.

Not only have the French immigrated to Philadelphia, France became the training ground for a number of our region’s—and America’s—greatest artists. They include Rembrandt Peale, Thomas Eakins, Mary Cassatt and Henry Ossawa Tanner. Paris remained primarily a city visited as a stopover in the education of an American artist on the Grand Tour of European cities in the first decades of the nineteenth century. However, what had been a trickle of artists seeking artistic education in the early years became a veritable torrent of aspiring practitioners by the end of the century. Paris eventually replaced London and Rome as a destination to study art, to the point where the twentieth-century philosopher and cultural critic, Walter Benjamin, dubbed it the capital of the nineteenth century.

Early in the 20^th century, the New Hope school of Pennsylvania Impressionists all took their inspiration from their older French counterparts. Art institutions in Philadelphia, including the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the Barnes Foundation, are home to some of the most important collections of French art in the world. The city’s Rodin Museum holds the largest collection of that French master’s sculptures outside France.

Just as we learned from the research we did in the course of writing Salut!, we also learned from each other. And we thoroughly enjoyed exploring this subject together. That’s what good collaboration should always be about. We hope readers enjoy Salut! as well.

Celebrating Temple University Press Books at the Urban Affairs Association conference

This week in North Philly Notes, we spotlight our new Urban Studies titles, which will be on display at the Urban Affairs Association conference, April 24-27 in Los Angeles, CA.

On April 25, at 3:30 pm, Latino Mayors, edited by Marion Orr and Domingo Morel, will be the subject of a panel discussion.

On April 26, at 2:05 pm, Alan Curtis, co-editor of Healing Our Divided Society, will participate in a presentation entitled, The Kerner Commission 50 Years Later. 

Temple University Press titles in Urban Studies for 2018-2019

Architectures of Revolt: The Cinematic City circa 1968, edited by Mark Shiel
Coinciding with the fiftieth anniversary of the worldwide mass protest movements of 1968—against war, imperialism, racism, poverty, misogyny, and homophobia—the exciting anthology Architectures of Revolt explores the degree to which the real events of political revolt in the urban landscape in 1968 drove change in the attitudes and practices of filmmakers and architects alike.

Constructing the Patriarchal City: Gender and the Built Environments of London, Dublin, Toronto, and Chicago, 1870s into the 1940s, by Maureen A. Flanagan
Constructing the Patriarchal City compares the ideas and activities of men and women in four English-speaking cities that shared similar ideological, professional, and political contexts. Historian Maureen Flanagan investigates how ideas about gender shaped
the patriarchal city as men used their expertise in architecture, engineering, and planning to fashion a built environment for male economic enterprise and to confine women in the private home. Women consistently challenged men to produce a more
equitable social infrastructure that included housing that would keep people inside the city, public toilets for women as well as men, housing for single, working women, and public spaces that were open and safe for all residents.

Contested Image: Defining Philadelphia for the Twenty-First Century, by Laura M. Holzman
Laura Holzman investigates the negotiations and spirited debates that affected the city of Philadelphia’s identity and its public image. She considers how the region’s cultural resources reshaped the city’s reputation as well as delves into discussions about official efforts to boost local spirit. In tracking these “contested images,” Holzman illuminates the messy process of public envisioning of place and the ways in which public dialogue informs public meaning of both cities themselves and the objects of urban identity.

Courting the Community: Legitimacy and Punishment in a Community Court, by
Christine Zozula
Courting the Community is a fascinating ethnography that goes behind the scenes to explore how quality-of-life discourses are translated into court practices that marry therapeutic and rehabilitative ideas. Christine Zozula shows how residents and businesses participate in meting out justice—such as through community service, treatment, or other sanctions—making it more emotional, less detached, and more legitimate in the eyes of stakeholders. She also examines both “impact panels,” in which offenders, residents, and business owners meet to discuss how quality-of-life crimes negatively impact the neighborhood, as well as strategic neighborhood outreach efforts to update residents on cases and gauge their concerns.

Daily Labors: Marketing Identity and Bodies on a New York City Street Corner, by Carolyn Pinedo-Turnovsky
Daily Labors reveals how ideologies about race, gender, nation, and legal status operate on the corner and the vulnerabilities, discrimination, and exploitation workers face in this labor market. Pinedo-Turnovsky shows how workers market themselves to conform to employers’ preconceptions of a “good worker” and how this performance paradoxically leads to a more precarious workplace experience. Ultimately, she sheds light on belonging, community, and what a “good day laborer” for these workers really is.

Democratizing Urban Development: Community Organizations for Housing across the United States and Brazil, by Maureen M. Donaghy
Rising housing costs put secure and decent housing in central urban neighborhoods in peril. How do civil society organizations (CSOs) effectively demand accountability from the state to address the needs of low-income residents? In her groundbreaking book, Democratizing Urban Development, Maureen Donaghy charts the constraints and potential opportunities facing these community organizations. She assesses the various strategies CSOs engage to influence officials and ensure access to affordable housing through policies, programs, and institutions.

Ecohumanism and the Ecological Culture: The Educational Legacy of Lewis
Mumford and Ian McHarg, by William J. Cohen, With a Foreword by
Frederick R. Steiner
Lewis Mumford, one of the most respected public intellectuals of the twentieth century, speaking at a conference on the future environments of North America, said, “In order to
secure human survival we must transition from a technological culture to an ecological culture.” In Ecohumanism and the Ecological Culture, William Cohen shows how  Mumford’s conception of an educational philosophy was enacted by Mumford’s
mentee, Ian McHarg, the renowned landscape architect and regional planner at the University of Pennsylvania. McHarg advanced a new way to achieve an ecological culture through an educational curriculum based on fusing ecohumanism to the planning and design disciplines.

Healing Our Divided Society: Investing in America Fifty Years after the Kerner Report, edited by Fred Harris and Alan Curtis
Outstanding Academic Title, Choice, 2018

In Healing Our Divided Society, Fred Harris, the last surviving member of the Kerner Commission, along with Eisenhower Foundation CEO Alan Curtis, re-examine fifty years later the work still necessary towards the goals set forth in The Kerner Report. This timely volume unites the interests of minorities and white working- and middle-class Americans to propose a strategy to reduce poverty, inequality, and racial injustice. Reflecting on America’s urban climate today, this new report sets forth evidence-based
policies concerning employment, education, housing, neighborhood development, and criminal justice based on what has been proven to work—and not work.

Latino Mayors:  Political Change in the Postindustrial City, edited by Marion Orr and Domingo Morel
As recently as the early 1960s, Latinos were almost totally excluded from city politics. This makes the rise of Latino mayors in the past three decades a remarkable American story—one that explains ethnic succession, changing urban demography, and political contexts. The vibrant collection Latino Mayors features case studies of eleven Latino mayors in six American cities: San Antonio, Los Angeles, Denver, Hartford, Miami, and Providence.

Painting Publics: Transnational Legal Graffiti Scenes as Spaces for Encounter, by
Caitlin Frances Bruce
Public art is a form of communication that enables spaces for encounters across difference. These encounters may be routine, repeated, or rare, but all take place in urban spaces infused with emotion, creativity, and experimentation. In Painting Publics,
Caitlin Bruce explores how various legal graffiti scenes across the United States, Mexico, and Europe provide diverse ways for artists to navigate their changing relationships with publics, institutions, and commercial entities.

Making and Remaking Philadelphia: From William Penn to Jim Kenney

This week in North Philly Notes, Roger Simon, author of Philadelphia: A Brief History, explains how the decisions of the past are linked to the issues of today

Last week City Council approved the first phase of Mayor Jim Kenney’s Rebuilding Community Infrastructure program to repair and rebuild the city’s parks, playgrounds, recreation facilities, and libraries.  One might ask:  Why is this initiative necessary? Why have those facilities been allowed to deteriorate in the first place? Has this effort been tried before? The starting point to answering those questions is to understand the city’s past. Philadelphia: A Brief History explains how the Quaker city evolved over three-and-a third centuries in a compact and an eminently readable format.

The book is built around two important themes: First is the recurring tensions between communal needs and private and personal gain. This is a particularly salient tension in Philadelphia’s history because William Penn himself articulated the goal of a harmonious and holy community, but one that would also be a prosperous settlement for the residents and for Penn himself. The tension is embodied in the name itself: Philadelphia was a city in ancient Greece, and the word does mean one who loves his brother, but it was also a prosperous port, and a place to which Saint John the Divine addressed a message in the Book of Revelations. So it embodied the ideas of prosperity, brotherhood, and holiness.

The second major theme of the book is the role that the economy has played in shaping the city. The book is structured around the major economic and technological eras: the pre-industrial age, coinciding largely with the colonial period; early industrialism in the decades before the Civil War; industrial colossus, from the Civil War to World War II; and deindustrialization and the post-industrial age since the 1950s. Throughout the book, there is considerable emphasis on the physical city, the built environment, with three dozen illustrations and maps.

Philadelphia’s history is written all over its landscape. To know how to read that landscape, not just City Hall and Independence Hall, but the public spaces, transportation lines, public institutions, and those facilities that Mayor Kenney wants to repair requires a sense of the past. This volume is an excellent place to start.

Philadelphia: A Brief History is part of the Pennsylvania History series, short monographs on topics in the history of Pennsylvania published jointly by the Pennsylvania Historical Association and Temple University Press. These volumes are intended for a general audience as well as for high school and college classrooms.