Grid Magazine

At former PES refinery, pollution concerns persist under the surface

In the 340 years since Philadelphia’s founding, the city’s landscape has constantly shifted, as waves of development and redevelopment shipped out with the old and in with the new. Unfortunately, on ...
Grid Magazine

Are Philadelphia’s efforts to eliminate traffic deaths stalling out?

Samara Banks was the life of the party. Everyone waited for her to arrive at family gatherings, knowing that she would be the one to rally her cousins and entertain the crowd with a song or dance.
Grid Magazine

Urban agriculture continues to suffer from lack of land security

In the summer of 2023, farmers and gardeners in Philadelphia had good reason to be optimistic. The City had just published its first urban agriculture plan, called “Growing from the Root,” which ...
Grid Magazine

Philly is spending $2B+ to fix its sewage problem. But is Green City, Clean Waters working?

In the early 1700s, botanist John Bartram surveyed his farmland abutting the banks of the Schuylkill River in what is now Southwest Philadelphia and had an idea: build a garden for his beloved plants.
Grid Magazine

What have Mayor Parker’s signature “clean” initiatives achieved thus far?

At her inauguration on January 2, 2024, Cherelle Parker said, “We will make Philadelphia the safest, cleanest and greenest big city in the nation.” Philadelphia has long been plagued by litter, poorly ...
Grid Magazine

Philly’s progress toward its carbon-neutrality goals is difficult to gauge

Mayor Cherelle Parker leads Philadelphia at a key point in the fight against climate change. By 2030 — that is, in a mere five years — the City hopes to have slashed municipal emissions in half and ...
Grid Magazine

Roosevelt Boulevard subway could slash congestion, save lives and bring investment to the Northeast

Jay Arzu was front and center with Leslie Richards, searching for answers. He wanted to know why Philadelphia’s transit expansion had slowed to a bumper-to-bumper crawl over the years. As he watched ...
Grid Magazine

School district farm brings hands-on agricultural lessons to thousands of city students

Amani Lee, a senior at The U School, hadn’t given gardening much thought until this year. As part of her school’s horticultural program, she’s now researching crops in Ukraine, Puerto Rico and the ...
Grid Magazine

For our city to beat the heat, it’s going to take a whole lot of green

If you’re reading this story when it’s still hot off the press, odds are you’re probably pretty warm yourself. Another July has arrived in Philadelphia, and they ain’t what they used to be. From 1939 ...
Grid Magazine

SEPTA’s efforts are continuing with planned deployment of hydrogen- and electric-powered buses. Industry and government turbulence could disrupt them again

Nearly two decades ago, in 2006, SEPTA bought its very first hybrid bus with hopes of eventually transitioning the region’s public transit system to clean energy. The agency attempted to go ...
Grid Magazine

There is no such thing as PFAS-free synthetic turf. The City is installing it anyway

South Philadelphia dad and Little League coach Alex Kaslowitz remembers watching the Phillies play at Veterans Stadium, one of the first to install artificial turf in 1970. Since then, as reported in ...
Grid Magazine

Philadelphia isn’t prepared to help people struggling with addiction and homelessness, but that isn’t slowing down Mayor Parker’s plans to end Kensington’s open-air ...

On May 8, the City of Philadelphia cleared a homeless encampment that stretched two blocks on Kensington Avenue between East Allegheny Avenue and Orleans Street under the Market-Frankford Line. This ...