Market Street is empty.

A few newspapers, memories of a day that has now come and gone, flutter and tumble down the sidewalk. Old, beaten, and unloved, they are left to roam the streets waiting for nothing more than their eventual demise at the hands of giants, to be picked up and tossed away. Although they knew and understood their life on earth and their time was short, it was a faith they greatly accepted at the hands of both their creators, the public that enjoyed them, and the giants that would dispose of them. Thus is also the faith of the youth of Philadelphia.

When I announced that I was going to run for Mayor of Philadelphia earlier this year, I knew, understood, and welcomed the cynicism and ridicule that comes with someone so young aiming so high. While the news was met with arms wide open by not only those who wanted to see more young people involved in politics, it was also welcomed by many who were in politics for ages and wanted to see new blood, those who wanted real and dedicated reform, and those who were fed up with the archaic ideas and traditions of the past and wanted an end of the corruption, crime, and nepotism that was prevalent in modern-day Philadelphia politics. Anyone who so quickly gains the heart and the minds of so many people so fast is often, then, and understandably, seen as a true threat, a novelty, or something that can easily be dismissed as a fad. While many see my campaign as nothing more than a "cute little stunt", the fact that the very people who say they want progress and promote it have also been the one so quickly to dismiss it.

The scene I mentioned earlier is the general feeling you get when walking down Market Street at, of all times, 8'o Clock on a Friday Night. It's hard to call yourself a major city when there is virtually nothing open and hardly anyone on the streets at 8'o Clock on a Friday Night. Anyone wondering what part of the reason is for young people to leave Philadelphia need look no further than the lack of nightlife in this city. Yes, there are nightclubs, but other than that, there is very little to do and very little reason to stay. Compare us to New York City, a mere 2-hour away, and you’re in a city with a lower homicide rate, more people, businesses that stay open later, and a cleaner subway system. It's easy to see that in those terms alone, young people would be eager to leave for the Bigger City. When you add in a blooming art and music scene that welcomes outsiders instead of shunning them, welcoming the change instead of resisting it, you see why the people with the most to give Philly tend to not want to stay or come here in the first place.

The ultimate irony of all of this? The same people who demand that anyone running for office must be a reformer, that they must be progressive and enact positive change in Philadelphia are also the first to be shot down by the same type of people. They call them naive, stupid, idealistic, and are more than happy to rip them to shreds with every possible verbal attack they have. The youth of Philadelphia are not given the chance, let alone the voice, to be heard or do what they want to make Philadelphia a better place to live, and are instead relegated and told to fall in line and in step with the way things are. This, of course, prevents any true or possible change at all and stifles creativity. So while a reformer who is determined to fix a broken system is forced to wait longer due to the personal insecurities of those who claim want reform, the person then becomes nothing more than a broken-down cog in the same machine they were fighting against.

What your reading is not to tell you how to fix this problem, because anyone reading this knows exactly what needs to be done; Instead of putting the city into a lockdown, in terms of not only imposing curfews and not encouraging businesses to stay open, it also needs to do more to make young people want to stay here by showing them that they aren't just feeding lip-service and will actually enact ideas that concern them. The city needs to encourage change and young people. It may be cliché, but if you do want a seed to grow, you need to help it and nurture it to grow.

The folks over at Philebrity said it best:
"To us, the mere existence of Larry West’s candidacy gets to the heart of why we got involved with the New Rules project in the first place. Just having him in the room begs questions about how do we get young people involved in city politics, and just as importantly, how do we stop the brain drain of the young and educated from the city in the first place.”

If we, not only as a community of people on-line who want reform and progress, but as a city, expect to see change, we need to realize that free-thinkers are only dangerous to those who think corruption and "business-as-usual" politics is fine. We must encourage these young people, whoever they may be, and help them to achieve their goals.

I can think of no better way to end this than to use the immortal words of Edward R. Murrow: "Good night... and good luck."