Talking Points for Philadelphia's Future

Nov. 4, 2007
Chris Satullo
Inquirer columnist

It was last Jan. 7, a sunny Sunday. In a few hours, the Eagles would play the Giants in a playoff game. In the polls, U.S. Rep. Chaka Fattah was the front-runner in the Philadelphia mayor's race.

I stood in front of 60 expectant faces in a room at St. Joseph's University and said this:

"This year, our city will elect a new mayor and Council. A city election is not just a contest among individuals. It is an invitation to a conversation; an invitation for citizens of that city and region to share their concerns and their dreams, to compare ideas, to decide where they want their community to go.

"An election conversation shouldn't just be about who's going to win; if should also be about what we want those folks to do after they win. It should be about raising expectations - great expectations."

Thus began the public phase of Great Expectations: Citizen Voices on Philadelphia's Future, a joint project of The Inquirer and the University of Pennsylvania. The St. Joe's event kicked off a wintry sprint of 30 neighborhood forums in 30 days, with 800 citizens gathering in libraries, church basements and schoolrooms to talk about their city.

Anyone who sat in on those dialogues would have known right then that candidates of the status quo were in trouble in this mayor's race, that the civic thirst for reform, for a sharp break with habits of the past, was intense. Anyone would have known that Michael Nutter, whom Philadelphians will elect their mayor on Tuesday, was not a dark-horse dreamer but a force to be reckoned with.

But, as I said that day, Great Expectations wasn't primarily about who would win, but about what they should do once they win.

So this project doesn't wrap up Tuesday. We've done a lot so far, but we're just warming up. Besides the neighborhood forums, the project has included:

Several mayoral debates, two lively issue forums on education and poverty, and the five-days-in-May blitz of Deliberation Days, during which we held 10 Council candidates debates and casino dialogues.

My Philadelphia, a student art contest, and Philadelphia Hopes and Fears, an independent filmmakers competition.

The Yo! Mike, Yo! Al project, during which more than 700 citizens wrote essays telling the next mayor what they needed him to do, capped off by the Potluck Dinner Dialogues, at which Nutter and Republican nominee Al Taubenberger sat down over pasta in Philadelphians' homes to talk over the issues.

A civic leaders summit on Oct. 13 in Mayfair, at which more than 70 leaders of neighborhood and civic associations came together to begin sketching the "New Deal" of accountability, responsiveness and power-sharing that they'd like to forge with City Hall.

Dozens of editorials, columns and citizen essays, including the Challenges Ahead series, which looked in depth at 12 issues that citizens identified as vital to them.

All of that effort has been prologue, and grist, for the next big task: drafting the Great Expectations Agenda. That will be an ambitious but practical to-do list for the city, its leaders and its citizens. A draft agenda will be published in The Inquirer from Nov. 25 to Nov. 30, leading up to the year's culminating event on Dec. 2.

On that Sunday, the Great Expectations Issues Convention will be held at the Convention Center. Nutter will give the keynote, then citizens will get to work reviewing and revising the draft agenda. The agenda will be completed in January, and presented to the new mayor and Council.

You are invited to attend the convention, which will run from noon to 5 p.m. You can register online on the project Web site, www.greatexpectations07.com, by phone at 215-854-5956, or by e-mailing me at csatullo@phillynews.com.

The project, using generous support from the Lenfest Foundation and others, won't end there. Follow-through on the agenda will continue at least through 2008.

One of the great things about the Internet is that it is a limitless storehouse. Another is its ability to spur dialogue. We've tried to take advantage of both on the Web site, www.greatexpectations07.com. All project activities are fully documented there. This month, the project blog has seen lively citizen discussion of the Challenges Ahead series.

I'd particularly urge you to take a look at the Web pages saluting the winners of the high school student art contest and the filmmakers' competition. The students' works varied in medium, but shared a preoccupation with the plague of violence. "Hypocrisy," the grand-prize-winning poem by CAPA graduate Sophia Ozenbaugh, offers a haunting metaphor for this plague.

The film contest grand-prize winner, which you can view on the site, was "A Prayer for Philadelphia" by Richard Hoffmann. This short film captures as well as anything I've seen the angry, stubborn love for a city that is the essence of being a Philadelphian.

So, a couple of recommendations. First, vote on Tuesday. Second, visit the Great Expectations Web site. And sign up for the convention on Dec. 2.