BY Larry Platt
Sep. 13, 2024
Yes, your newsfeed has been particularly overwhelming these last months, what with a presidential candidate disappeared from the race like a dissident in a banana republic, and wacko allegations of migrants chewing on pets taking up room in our headspace. So you’d be forgiven if you missed the release of a stunning Harvard study that ought to have Philadelphia rallying around a Marshall Plan that reverses our ongoing slide when it comes to providing opportunities for social mobility.
The study, by the renowned researcher Raj Chetty (we featured his partner, John Friedman, in conversation with now-Governor Wes Moore at our 2021 Ideas We Should Steal Festival), is fascinating. Race, it seems, is no longer as determinative of economic immobility as class. And social capital reigns supreme; poor kids in close proximity to any adult with a job have access to opportunity even if his or her own parents aren’t working.
But what should open our eyes here in Philly is how poor our city fares in just about every cohort studied. Mean child household income for low-income White families? We’re dead last, 50th of 50 counties. Low-income Black families? 31st. High income Black-families? 40th. All families? 36th.
The good news is that economic mobility can change quickly, if there exists political will. Charlotte, North Carolina tops almost every cohort studied and has turned itself around since a Chetty study over a decade ago. In Charlotte, civic and business leaders, led by locally-based Bank of America, have made targeted investments in job training, education, and housing. It’s no coincidence Charlotte is ascendant, while Philly languishes.
You will not have read anything in-depth about this study in The Inquirer, though this week we did get a report that our poverty rate dropped by a percentage point from 2022 to 2023, our largest decrease in 10 years, despite remaining the nation’s poorest big city. That’s an easy story to report, of course: Just track the rise or fall of safety net metrics, a type of ready-made stenography, as opposed to diving into our systemic barriers to opportunity. It’s the kind of story that creates a false sense of accomplishment, when, as Chetty’s study shows, we’re trending the wrong way compared to peer cities when it comes to building a middle class.
Where are the political leaders pointing to the Chetty study and using it as a clarion call to get serious about growing good jobs at good wages? Well, behind the scenes — here’s another hopeful development — a group of civic and business and political leaders have been laying the groundwork for an approach that unites our region in common economic cause.
Yes, we talkin’ ‘bout regionalism, because Chetty’s numbers show that Philly can’t turn itself around by itself. The city of Philadelphia has long competed economically with a virtual hand tied behind its back.
For me, the aha! moment along these lines came in 2017, when our city made quite the compelling push in the sweepstakes for an Amazon headquarters. But … wait … what’s that? I remember thinking, incredulity mounting. Another bid?… from Bucks County?!? You mean, our neighbor wasn’t part of our plan?
Well, that was just the most high profile and egregious example of a failing we’ve long perfected, again and again. The Philadelphia metro region is the only major one without a real strategic economic development plan. Oh, there’s the federally-designated Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission, but that’s an advisory agency with no teeth to actually get stuff done. Meantime, we’re leaving opportunity on the table. Think about it: Instead of competing against one another for jobs, talent, capital, taxpayers, and federal and state handouts, wouldn’t the Southeastern Pennsylvania counties be stronger together?
With a nearly $500 billion Gross Metropolitan Product (GMP), Philadelphia, Montgomery, Delaware, Bucks and Chester counties — not to mention South Jersey — all working together would become an economic behemoth. But that would mean a level of cooperation we haven’t consistently seen.
Instead, Philadelphia, with a few momentary exceptions — which we’ll get to — has long been in a rut: Either providing poverty-level jobs or ones that virtually guarantee, at best, a paycheck-to-paycheck future. (The median household income in Philadelphia is $56,517, while in Boston it’s $89,212.)
Well, here’s hoping all that might be changing. Pew Charitable Trust and the Brookings Institute are partnering on a still-in-development $2 million regional economic development plan. They’ve convened what Pew’s Elinor Haider calls an amalgam of “thinkers and doers” to come up with a first of its kind comprehensive “roadmap for quality jobs.” What’s exciting about this is those who are leading the project on the ground: The Chamber of Commerce’s Chellie Cameron; Visit Philly’s Angela Val (a Citizen board member); City Commerce Director Alba Martinez; PIDC’s Jodie Harris, and Philadelphia Works under Patrick Clancy. With the exception of Clancy, what’s the throughline? Right. All fierce female leaders, looking to create a sense of collaboration among historically siloed, and sometimes warring, factions.
Regionalism as a concept can get wonky, but here’s the thing: As Brookings’ Marek Gootman says, for us, it really means enacting vast culture change. It means bringing each counties’ workforce development and economic development teams, as well as the supply chain community — few who have even met each other — together with their counterparts in other counties. And then widening the aperture of all of those lenses so they see themselves as teammates, not opponents. Not to mention then putting in place the infrastructure — staffing, resources, expertise — in order to capitalize on that newfound sense of common purpose. Over the years, even when we’ve had good policy intentions, we’ve lacked the followthrough and expertise needed to implement them.
Not long ago, then-Mayor Jim Kenney admitted to The Business Journal that he rarely spoke to elected officials in the suburbs, and never about anything substantive. In a mayoral debate last year, one candidate blurted out that the quality of Chester’s air should be of no interest to the mayor of Philadelphia. Now comes Cameron, introducing Mayor Parker at regional Chamber gatherings. “Mayor Parker’s administration has done a good job of reaching out,” says Chester County Commissioner Josh Maxwell. That’s an encouraging sign: Some broader strategic thinking might be afloat.
To be clear, it’s not that regionalism hasn’t been tried here. It just hasn’t always survived the political landmines in its way. Let’s walk through the recent history.
Back in the 90s, legendary Penn professor Ted Hershberg and other civic leaders convened over 1,000 regional leaders at the Convention Center to map out a strategy. Hershberg had spent countless hours making the argument that a regional strategic plan, smartly done, would benefit both city and suburb. He had the data and the anecdotal case studies to prove it.
“The Mall of America in the Twin Cities at the time was the largest mall in the United States,” he told me in 2021. “Did you know that the retail taxes of the mall were shared by 170 different municipalities? Because they realized that working together meant everybody wins.”
Ultimately, though, what Hershberg calls “the stunning parochialism” of the region’s leadership doomed his vision from coming together.
Fast forward to the mayoralty of Michael Nutter. He picked the brain of then-Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, who’d created something called the Metropolitan Mayors Caucus — a membership organization of the Chicago region’s 275 cities, towns and villages. Founded in 1997 by Daley and leading mayors from nine suburban municipalities, the Caucus became a way for Chicago area leaders to work together on common goals that transcend arbitrary geographic boundaries.
“Five of our commonwealth’s 67 counties — Philadelphia, Montgomery, Delaware, Chester and Bucks — represent 40 percent of the economy of Pennsylvania,” Nutter says. “We’re a net tax contributor to the state versus what we actually get back, so we’re actually important to the rest of the commonwealth. Today, all of our competition should be regional — on jobs, transportation, clean water, clean air, arts and culture. All of those activities are regional because they go back and forth across our arbitrary boundary lines. On eds, meds, technology — we can compete on a regional basis with virtually any other region.”
Taking his cue from Daley, Nutter created the Metropolitan Caucus here, consisting of business, civic and elected leaders throughout the five-county region. He pressed the flesh in Ardmore and Marcus Hook. He’d govern by day and then hightail it out to Paoli for a rubber chicken dinner. It was at a time when much of the suburban leadership was Republican, and there Nutter was, establishing rapport.
“My first job,” Nutter would tell them, “is to create jobs in Philadelphia. My second job is to create jobs in the region.” Such cooperation not only resulted in $11 billion of economic development, it also led to the expansion of the Pennsylvania Convention Center and greater transportation and police funding throughout southeastern Pennsylvania.
Meanwhile, then-Temple Professor Joe McLaughlin created a Center on Regional Politics, which launched a series of convenings and released reports, all evangelizing for the transformative power of bipartisan regionalism. Simultaneously, in the state house, then-Rep. Mike Gerber found that there was a Philadelphia and an Allegheny County delegation, but no southeastern Pennsylvania delegation, so he and other lawmakers started one.
Significant divisions had to be overcome: political, racial, geographic. The anti-Philly bias was, and remains, real. Yet strides were being made, until Kenney — no doubt seeing the strategy as belonging to his predecessor, chose to govern as though Philadelphia were an island unto itself rather than smartly make the policy his own. How’s that been working out for us?
What’s truly encouraging now is that a new commitment to regionalism is not the product of another elected official’s platform — which is often hostage to political whim. No, it’s being driven by a series of invested civic institutions. When the strategy rolls out by year’s end, expect the first phase to be a much-needed deep dive into data and research. For too long, the local economy has flown blind. It would be nice to have a regular scoreboard, wouldn’t it, so we all operate on an agreed-upon set of facts and can see what works and what doesn’t in real time?
Perhaps it will be something like this cool interactive dashboard of the Greater Washington Partnership, which champions growth from D.C. to Virginia and Maryland. Here, such an operation will be housed at the Chamber, but the data will drive decision-making throughout the five-county region.
The other priority will be a much-needed analysis of what works elsewhere — and what might be right for implementation in our backyard. So who is doing regionalism right? Well, some 50 years ago, voters in Nashville, TN chose to consolidate the city’s government with its surrounding Davidson County. From then on, there was no choice but to act through regional consensus — and today Nashville is one of the nation’s fastest growing metro areas.
In Arizona, three large cities — Phoenix, Mesa and Tempe — share voluminous staff at the Greater Phoenix Economic Council, where they work together on regional research, business expansion, and international economic engagement. In recruiting job providers from other states or other countries, they’ve learned they have more to offer together than apart. The same holds true in Pittsburgh, where cross-sectional collaboration thrives through the Allegheny Conference, a vast array of stakeholders that have collaborated on producing a 10-year vision for their region.
Just recently, the aforementioned Greater Washington Partnership released the 5-year refresh of its employer-led Blueprint for Regional Mobility, updating how it’s doing on meeting its original 2018 goals on items like modernizing inner city and commuter rail and expanding access to opportunity. The fact that, seven years ago, leaders issued a report and it didn’t just sit on a shelf somewhere but instead has been updated time and again is a sign of a leadership class committed to accountability and change.
Which gets us to our final word of caution. Our business class needs to own the issue of economic mobility. I’ve cheered on any effort where that happens, because — despite what my progressive friends might say — a city can’t have jobs without employers. We’ve long had a business community that is altogether too willing to defer leadership to our sclerotic political class. Worse, it has sometimes felt like business leaders — many of whom essentially run branch offices here — are too timid when it comes to influencing local political actors.
Other recent efforts at collaboration suggest maybe that’s changing, as does the makeup of the steering committee of this latest regionalism play. Among those involved include Comcast’s Bret Perkins (a Citizen board member); Community College of Philadelphia President Guy Generals; representatives of the Diverse Chambers; developer Leslie Smallwood; Varsovia Fernandez, CEO of the Commonwealth’s CDFI Network; restaurateur Ellen Yin; technologist Danae Mobley; and Science Center CEO Tiffany Wilson.
Still, the challenge is getting the city’s movers and shakers out of their silos and reoriented toward a shared purpose bigger than their own P&Ls. Historically, the Chamber has lobbied Council and the Mayor for change, rather than actually asking its members to invest directly in making it happen. An employer-led — and funded — plan to reverse the trend of Chetty’s study could exert significant influence.
But that’s still going to take a deliberate change in mindset. Recently, I attended a meet-and-greet between an elected official and a pretty boldface name crowd of business and civic leaders. After the politician’s opening remarks, it was time for questions, almost all of which consisted of a civic leader asking for something related to his or her own thing, when they actually have the power to say to those who seek their donations: “Here’s what I want you to do for the city, and for the region. And here’s how I’ll help you get that done …”
Forget for a moment about tax rates or city licensing you might need and instead demand something that simply contributes to the common good. Something like a blueprint for economic mobility, with real goals and timetables and public reporting — the kind of transparency elected officials shy away from, unless those who fund their campaigns demand it. You have more power than you think, macher.
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