With all the news about the library and pool closings and Chinatown’s fight against a Center City slots barn, one thread ties these struggles together – the love of community. These struggles aren’t so much against something as much as they are a powerful statement of the sanctity of sacred spaces in our neighborhoods, of the rare places where the fabric of community is built, where our relationships with one another are fostered and cherished, and where lessons and values are passed onto new generations. Our communities are the heart of civil society.

Recently, Philadelphian Debbie Wei wrote just about the best piece I’ve ever seen on the notion of community and struggle in an essay "A Question of Place" published in Asian Week. Here's an excerpt:

As Philadelphia’s Chinatown fights a proposed casino mere feet from its doorstep, I’ve been thinking a lot these days about why saving Chinatown means so much to me.

Several years ago my youngest son, who studied kung fu and Beijing Opera in Chinatown, told me: "My favorite place to be is Chinatown. I know everyone there. I can walk around and hang out. The guy in the laundromat always gives me candy and everyone knows I’m a lion dancer and the old people all smile at me."

Chinatowns around the country represent an increasingly rare phenomenon. They are communities in the deepest sense: places not only defined by geography but also by memory and relationships. It is why my son would rather buy his candy in Chinatown even though he could get it cheaper at Walmart. When he buys his candy in Chinatown, he knows the clerks, he feels happy to see them and they are happy to see him.

The responsibility that comes with relationships and knowing that there is something bigger than yourself is part of what makes a community live — it is part of what makes us fundamentally human. It isn’t just about a geographic area. It is about emotion, about connection to a place.

It is a deeply moving and personal piece, especially at a time when our struggles seem greatest. As she writes:

"True progress has to do with the human heart and the relationships we build and sustain over time. Our future as a city is not about me and mine, not about rugged individualism, but about collective
responsibility. It’s about what is ours — all of ours.

When you see us in the streets protesting, this is why we fight.

Daily News columnist Ronnie Polaneczy wrote a nice Friday column about this as well. Ronnie was kind enough to reprint Debbie's essay on her blog post. And of course, you can find it at Asian Americans United’s website as well.

Tomorrow City Council is holding a public hearing at 10 a.m. at City Hall on whether to re-zone the Gallery to permit gambling in the heart of Philadelphia.

Here’s a PSA about what’s at stake.

What’s interesting about this re-zoning, is that the broader area being discussed in the bill is actually 6th to Broad and Chestnut to Arch. This is the area that is defined as amenable to taking a CED (Commercial Entertainment District), which is the zoning specifically designed to permit gambling.

Let's repeat that again: A 16-square block area covering 6th to Broad Streets, Chestnut to Arch Streets. Take a look at that area here.

What’s it mean? Who knows?

After all, it’s our Mayor himself who said:

"I don't have anything on the back of a napkin to show what this would look like."

At a Society Hill forum earlier this week, Planning Commissioner Andy Altman denied that there was any intent to put a gambling strip on Market East, saying that the zoning process would protect that from happening. But in the same breath, he disregarded that same zoning process and said it was essential to forfeit zoning privileges in order to "get a process started" for Foxwoods. As residents pointed out to him after the forum, how do you say zoning doesn’t matter in one case, but it’s an essential protection in another?

So tomorrow, we’ll be headed to City Council to say slow up this process. A rush job after all feels like a hack job. Everyone knows you plan first and zone later. Doing otherwise raises eyebrows.

And in between the Phillies celebration and before canvassing for the most important election of our time, I'm inviting you to join hundreds of citizens for an hour or two Saturday morning to march from Chinatown to City Hall. We’re marching for neighborhoods and a better vision for Philadelphia, and we’re marching to make Philadelphia’s political process as worthy as its World Series title and as the deliverer of the PA electoral vote.

Saturday, November 1st
9 a.m. gathering
Chinatown gate: 10th & Arch Sts.

I’ll leave the last words on the significance of this hearing for Chinatown’s Debbie Wei.

Saturday November 1
9:00 a.m.
Friendship Gate (10th and Arch)
10:00 a.m.
City Hall

Last week, the Inky reported on a secretive meeting between the Governor, Mayor and Sugarhouse developer Neil Bluhm as Sugarhouse angled to gain the Mayor’s approval for its waterfront site. Bluhm offered to change the proposed big box design to curry the Mayor’s favor.

Nutter seemed non-committal, but two things stand out.

First, what’s up with all the secretive meetings? The decision to move Foxwoods to the Gallery and smack in the heart of Chinatown happened at a closed door August 21st meeting between the Governor, Mayor and Foxwoods. Now comes the news that the Governor, Mayor and Sugarhouse met in hotel corridors at the DNC in Denver to conduct side business.

In an interesting choice of words, the Governor’s spokesperson denied such a meeting as "nefarious." State Rep. Mike O’Brien had a different point of view:

O'Brien said the secretive nature of the meeting "doesn't build confidence" with the public and those who had complained about the process of selecting casino sites.

"The people were promised an open and transparent process," O'Brien said. "They deserve nothing less."

The proposal to build the Foxwoods Casino at the Gallery is a clear indication of the lack of accountability on the part of our elected officials to the citizens of Philadelphia. In fact, the casino-siting process has been undeniably undemocratic from the beginning. From South Philly to Fishtown to Chinatown, backdoor deals have created these siting proposals with little to no input from neighborhood residents or community groups.

Simply put- Casinos do not belong in any city neighborhood. When casinos come into neighborhoods, crime rises and property values fall. They should not be in places where our residents live, work, learn and worship.

According to a 2007 poll, 79% of Philadelphia residents support the 1500 foot neighborhood buffer that is being proposed by community groups like Casino-Free Philadelphia and Asian Americans United.

Gambling and gambling addiction in Asian communities is a well-known problem. Jennifer Lin’s Inquirer story today shows just how severe it is. Among the stunning statistics:

• A survey of southeast Asian refugees in Connecticut (where statewide they only have two casinos), found that 59% were pathological gamblers.

• In Atlantic City, an estimated 15-20% of revenues come from Asian gamblers.

• A national study found that Asians had a prevalence of pathological gambling three times higher than whites.

Studies in general on Asian particularly Asian immigrant mental health problems are limited by the lack of bilingual and culturally responsive outreach. But for people on the ground level the concern about gambling addiction is overwhelming. The few doctors and family health counselors who work in Asian immigrant communities all point to gambling addiction as a major problem in Asian immigrant communities. But even more relevant is the lack of available help for immigrant gambling addicts.

Access to help already is a problem for Asians who don't speak English.

"Treatment of gambling addiction that is culturally competent is nonexistent in Philadelphia," said Philip Siu, founder of Chinatown Medical Services, the city's largest community health center for Asians.

Gamblers Anonymous, the best-known self-help group for compulsive gamblers, does not offer local meetings in Asian languages. The state-supported Council on Compulsive Gambling of Pennsylvania hands out printed information on how to get help, but not in Asian languages.

Last week, I and one of the leaders of the Chinatown community went door to door to businesses to do a sample survey of their feelings about the casino. We found that more than 80% of businesses oppose the proposed casino or needed more information (this latter group was less than 10% of respondents). The number one concern cited, even by those who supported a casino, was the concern about gambling and gambling addiction. It wasn’t a generic fear of gambling. It was literally: I am afraid my husband, or my mother, or my children will be at the casino.

So what does that mean for the city? In our meeting with city officials, most professed that they had no knowledge that gambling was any greater a problem in Chinatown than in other communities. We’re willing to give them that. But now that concrete evidence indicates that not only could there be a serious problem, but that the city and state centers are poorly equipped to handle such a problem, what does it mean for the city to go ahead and continue to place the casino next to such a vulnerable community?

For many people in the community, this is what environmental racism looks like. It’s not only that a tiny residential community has endured 30 years of urban renewal projects that have taken away half the land and destroyed a third of the housing. It’s not just that there’s a lack of investment in the community – Chinatown despite being one of Philly’s oldest immigrant neighborhoods still lacks a public library, health clinic, rec center, or neighborhood public school.

Environmental racism also raises its head when there’s evidence of mental health problems and lack of infrastructure to address such problems, but all we get is a social worker or Foxwoods-sponsored counseling program or some translated brochures about gambling addiction. That just doesn’t cut it.

There are lots of things wrong with this site, but dismissing Chinatown’s anguish over the sufferings of its own people is not only cruel, it’s environmental racism at its clearest.

This weekend marks one of Asia’s most significant holidays – the Harvest Moon – as well as Asian Americans United 13th Annual Mid-Autumn Festival, an event AAU founded to celebrate the cultural survival and community power of Philadelphia Chinatown, one of the city’s oldest immigrant neighborhoods.

Eight years ago, Mid-Autumn Festival was marked by the thousands of people who used this cherished gathering to declare their defiance of a new mayor’s proposal to establish a baseball stadium on Chinatown’s borders. At the time, it was considered a “done deal” and few expected resistance from a largely non-English speaking community with one of the poorest zip codes (at the time) in the city. No effort was made by the city to communicate with the residents of the neighborhood or to engage with the community’s plans for affordable housing, schools, parks, and gardens.

Chinatown had to fight tooth and nail to establish itself as a neighborhood with real needs and a vision for itself. Among the many arguments used against us was that Chinatown had no alternatives for the land north of Vine Street. But eight years is telling. Eight years later, Chinatown North (as it is dubbed) is a far different vision for a city’s development than the one nearly forced upon this community.

Cross Vine Street and walk the footprint of what would have been the stadium. You’ll find:

• a new annex for Chinese Christian Church, to house their growing congregation;

• the building headquarters of the Greater Philadelphia Fujianese Association, one of the fastest growing ethnicities in Philadelphia, whose business and community leadership has changed the face of the community;

• Khmer Art Gallery, which celebrates the culture and arts of Cambodia, and Liao Collection, a gallery and store of Asian arts and antiques, whose owners relocated to this location after being active participants in the battle against the proposed baseball stadium; and

• Folk Arts-Cultural Treasures Charter School, an arts-based elementary charter school serving 400-some students founded by Asian Americans United and the Philadelphia Folklore Project.

Contrast this with a stadium that would have stayed empty two-thirds of the year, and offered this community little of the kind of “progress” it desired. Is it any wonder that this community fought a baseball stadium with every bit of its breath?

So why would city and state officials think that a casino would be any less repellant? The expected announcement today of the Foxwoods casino re-site to the Gallery is shocking on a number of levels.

First, since it’s apparently been forgotten: Chinatown is a NEIGHBORHOOD. Almost a quarter of its residents are children. We have homes, places of worship, cultural centers, and schools. A casino has no business in or around residential neighborhoods

Second, given the stadium history, it’s shocking that city and state officials would repeat past mistakes and make an announcement without any communication with neighborhood residents. The broader Chinatown community was neither consulted with or even informed of this announcement. We applaud the move to re-site the casinos – done largely in recognition of the flawed process and community activism that sunk the waterfront sites. But it is ironic/disrespectful/outrageous to ignore these past lessons and simply re-site to a different neighborhood with the same lack of process and communication.

Third, the Gallery location reportedly may come with perks for Foxwoods – including potential input on the development of the Market East corridor, a trouble-free approval process, tax breaks or compensation to abandon the waterfront sites, and legal immunity. None of these are priorities or an appropriate use of public process or dollars in difficult economic times.

And finally, we deserve a city that sets its development priorities based on a public planning process guided by unifying principles for what a city and its people need. It doesn’t need politically-connected operators to dictate how and when a city develops and uses its precious resources and money.

Obviously we need a lot more information to know where this is going. But right now, unless we hear differently, we’re ready for a fight.