I Love It When City Planning Comes Together

Unfortunately, George Peppard passed away too early in 1994, otherwise I'd be screaming from the mountaintop for the mayoral candidacy of Colonel John "Hannibal" Smith - a man who truly knew the value of planning. Granted, the type of planning favored by Hannibal had more to do with blow torches, scrap metal, used machine parts to make indestructible, all-terrain battle vehicles that crashed through phalanxes of hopelessly overmatched bad guys with bad 80s mullets and a tendency to fire their weapons into ground at the feet of A-Team members.

Setting aside whether the use of clearly non-union laborers to build these projects would pass muster in this town, it's still a level of planning that has been missing here since the glory days of Ed Bacon. Lack of a vibrant and influential Planning Commission - quick tell me the name of the Executive Director without looking it up - has begun to rear its ugly head as the pace of neighborhood and waterfront development accelerates. This failure to plan comes in a city with a legacy of fine city planning that goes back to its very founding by William Penn.

Both Inga Saffron and Tom Ferrick had things to say about one former mayor's distaste for planning.

Saffron from Friday's Inquirer:
All of a sudden, it seems, Ed Rendell is terribly concerned about the lack of thoughtful waterfront planning. This is the same politician who, back when he was mayor, virtually banned city planners from going anywhere near the Delaware. Rendell was convinced that he needed only to hook up with some rich developer and Penn's Landing would be transformed into the next waterfront wonderland.

That anti-planning legacy still casts its dark shadow over Philadelphia. Mayor Street has faithfully followed Rendell's lead and muzzled his planners.

From Ferrick's column today:
Planning is vital, essential and necessary, Rendell said.

This, I note, is from a public official who, as mayor, wouldn't know planning (not to mention the Planning Commission) from a plantain.

Both of these columns refer to Governor Rendell's recent decision to rein in development along the Delaware waterfront - exactly the kind of action that becomes necessary when an area is allowed to go without a clear, comprehensive plan for so long.

What do our "Could-Be" candidates for mayor know about city planning and what kind of influence will the next mayor let his or her own planning commission have within the administration? Keep these questions in your back pocket as we get to 2007. They could be useful.