If you want to feel really 'happy', check out a few headlines this AM from the Inquirer:

-Demand Heavy for Philabundance food program

-Homelessness increased in Phila., decreased nationally in 2007

And, the ever-cheery:

-Housing Phila. homeless could pit poor against poor

.......

Barack Obama is going to kick John McCain's ass in Pennsylvania:

In Pennsylvania, Democrat Barack Obama has opened up a big, early lead over Republican John McCain - in the number of local offices.

Obama has 24, McCain has three, not counting an additional seven that serve all Republican candidates.

Whether this gap ultimately makes any difference as to who wins Pennsylvania's 21 electoral votes Nov. 4 remains to be seen.

But Obama's strategists say the offices are part of a highly structured, volunteer-heavy plan to help carry a state that is must-win for Obama and high on McCain's wish list.

In a conference call with reporters yesterday, Craig Schirmer, who is running Obama's Pennsylvania campaign, laid out a plan to create more than 700 neighborhood teams to cover the state.

Oh, by the way, the Pollster.com average now has Obama up by ten points.

.........

And, Penn Praxis said that the Casinos, as presently designed, don't mix with their plans for the Delaware waterfront:

A group of architectural and traffic experts last night concluded that plans for two proposed riverfront casinos are not compatible with the city's long-term plan to redevelop the banks of the Delaware River.

That comes as little surprise to the casino developers, who refused to participate in the discussion, run by the academic group PennPraxis, because they considered the outcome preordained.

The reaction of the casino owners is great. Apparently we are supposed to be outraged that the accolade winning design for the Delaware doesn't have a spot in it for two ugly slot barns, with two huge accompanying parking lots.

How dare they!

Below is my piece in today's Inky. I really hope those of us who attend the Praxis event tomorrow night ALSO go back to their communities and spread the word, share information and begin to rally around the idea of taking the riverfront back from the people who have hurt it for generations. The plan will be available online by tomorrow night. We should use the net to inform and empower on this critical matter.

Of course, anyone who owns a home, is building a future, raises children, or dreams of doing any one of these things some day anywhere near the riverfront has a stake in this. But I don't like to balkanize this city. We ALL have a stake in what happens on the waterfront.

Let's take it back. Let's organize. Let's turn it up!
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Taking Back The Riverfront
It's time for the public to rally against the special interests.

By Vern Anastasio

As of today, over 900 people have registered for the "presentation of a civic vision for the central Delaware riverfront" Wednesday at the Convention Center.

The presentation comes at a pivotal point: after a year of an amazing design process, detailed charmingly and fascinatingly by Matt Blanchard here, and just as the city gets ready to welcome an exciting new mayor.

That mayor, Michael Nutter, spoke starkly during the primary of the need for Philadelphia to finally re-embrace large-scale civic planning. He said he intended to "re-establish the Planning Commission as the nation’s preeminent city planning agency," and used the sort of sweeping and inspiring language that marks Penn Praxis's plan.

"We plan in order to protect our future as well as our past."
-- Michael Nutter

The whole process of developing the plan to be presented Wednesday for our shared waterfront has been inspiring: resolutely participatory, and fueled by immense local as well as national talent. It is a good model for the future as we move into the exciting time of a new administration that has been laden with so much hope and expectation that it can reverse the things that had seemed to fatally plague our city, the things we no longer want to accept: underperforming schools, inadequate transit, isolated and economically suffering neighborhoods, and unharnessed development.

The last, unharnessed development, is a good place to start. As our new mayor said:

"Recent Mayors of Philadelphia have pursued unrelated transactions rather than followed a plan. We no longer need to chase growth; now we need to guide it."
-- Michael Nutter

These are words Philadelphia needs to hear, and to which the government needs to be held. They are at the heart of the fight over the waterfront.

We should all go Wednesday and join in a celebration of the civic life of our city: civic participation and civic vision. You can register here. Go and stand in the old Philadelphia (the Convention Center) and see the new Philadelphia (an ambitious and democratically planned waterfront) made visible.

And we should seek not only to advocate for the Penn Praxis plan, which is in many ways OUR plan, but we should seek to continue the inspiring process of participation and collaboration that they sparked and apply it to the other areas where we want change.