Upcoming Building One PA Events
Mark your calendar to attend the one nearest you! 

No more for 2010.  Please keep your eye here for events in 2011!

For more information on all of these events, please contact Marilyn Wood, 10,000 Friends of Pennsylvania, at 215-985-3201 or Janis Risch, Good Schools Pennsylvania at 215-332-2700.

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Pennsylvania’s manufacturing towns and older, suburban communities were once thriving, diverse and attractive places.  But for many decades they have been victims of federal and state policies that have favored new suburban development at the expense of established communities. Our aging communities are now experiencing crumbling infrastructure, abandoned Main Streets, loss of jobs, struggling schools, and excessive tax burdens...while newer communities are at risk for unbalanced growth.

Origins of Building One Pennsylvania

These problems have been well documented and catalogued in policy reports and roundtables, addresses to the legislature, and media outlets across the commonwealth. But the problems continue to get worse, exacerbated by the weak economy and the diverse fragmented nature of our commonwealth. 

In order to ‘Build One Pennsylvania’, the project will work with leaders from older communities across the state to create the political will for a more comprehensive, transformative approach to these interrelated problems of population loss, aging infrastructure, concentration of poverty, and inadequate school funding.

Building One Pennsylvania Summit 2010

On July 16, 2010, approximately 600 people met at the Thaddeus Stevens College of Technology. Because of the diverse nature of the audience, the program was structured to give people with various levels of understanding a strong grounding in the policy underpinnings and the consequences of sprawl and disinvestment in older communities. Two national speakers addressed the audience.

David Troutt, Professor of Law and Justice, from Rutgers University, talked about the underlying factors that have led to the decline of Pennsylvania’s older communities with a focus on the policies that have fueled and enabled white flight.

Myron Orfield, Senior Fellow of the Brookings Institution and Executive Director of the Institute on Race and Poverty at the University of Minnesota, used maps of select regions of Pennsylvania to illustrate the impact that the policies outlined by David Troutt have had on Pennsylvania: 

1. Resulted in rapid land consumption even during periods of slow growth.
2. Increased neighborhood and school decline.
3. Created demographic trends that are undercutting the state’s economic competitiveness.
4. Multiplied unmanageable financial obligations for repairing and maintaining crumbling infrastructure.
5. Isolated the state’s low income and minority residents. 
   

Mr. Orfield's presentation, How We Got Here, is available at the bottom of this page.

A response panel of local leaders including  pastors, school board members, business owners and land conservationists from Allegheny County, Northeast Pennsylvania, Southeast Pennsylvania, and South central Pennsylvania provided the local context of how these issues have impacted their communities.

In the afternoon, Mr. Orfield outlined the broad framework of a policy agenda to 1) revitalize urban cores; 2) stabilize inner ring suburbs; and 3) diversify newer suburbs.

During the session entitled “Response from Policy Makers, Building One PA heard John Porcari, Deputy Secretary of the US Department of Transportation, outlined how the new changes in his department and the collaboration with HUD to create the Sustainable Communities program will help solve some of the problems many of our older communities are facing.  Bryan Greene, from the US Housing and Urban Development Department, urged the group to continue fighting for regional equity and fair housing.  The chairs of the legislature’s two policy committees, Senator Ted Erikson and Representative Mike Sturla and the Democratic candidate for Governor endorsed the need for an energetic statewide response such as Building One PA to solve the problems.  All of the policy makers  promised to work with the Building One PA participants to solve those problems. 

Terry Madonna, a well know pollster from Franklin and Marshall College introduced the ”Call to Action” by telling the audience that government is broken in Pennsylvania because of hyper partisan ideological divides on top of the fragmented local governments and regions of the state.  He assured those present that “if this group can’t fix it, no one can.” 

Jacquelynn Puriefoy-Brinkley, event co-chair from the Southeastern Pennsylvania First Suburbs Project, urged those present to talk to their friends and neighbors and to work together to build a strong vocal coalition fighting for their communities across the state. James DeBord of York Counts, the other event co-chair, closed the “first statewide meeting of Building One Pennsylvania.”

News articles from outlets across the state noted the landmark event in Pennsylvania. The Pottstown Mercury declared that the “grassroots summit could start rebellion for a better future.”  The organizers reached and topped many of their stated goals and succeeded in launching a multi-issue, multi-sector, bi-partisan coalition to address the decline of our communities statewide.

Next Steps

Leaders and organizers of the event will meet in September to plan a series of proposed activities that will culminate in a statewide action agenda.  If you would like to receive updates about planning events, regional forums or other Building One PA activities, please send an email to: buildingonepa@gmail.com 

Resources

Integrated Effort to Fight Housing, School Barriers?, Remappingdebate.org

Partner organization websites:

York Counts
YorkCounts is a premier nonprofit coalition working to assess, sustain and enhance the quality of life in York County, Pennsylvania -- building alliances, introducing partners, spotlighting issues and facilitating conversations on education, economic development, health and safety, diversity and more.

 SE PA First Suburbs Project
The Southeastern Pennsylvania First Suburbs Project is a regional coalition of community leaders from developed suburbs that have joined together to harness their communities' power by directly engaging citizens to affect policies and practices that will lead to the stabilization and revitalization of their communities.

 Good Schools PA
Good Schools Pennsylvania’s mission is to ensure an effective system of public education to meet the needs of students, schools and communities. Since its inception in 2001, Good Schools Pennsylvania works through collaboration, grassroots organizing, policy development and communications strategies to raise awareness about education issues in Pennsylvania, and to improve the way Pennsylvania funds and supports public education.

Pennsylvania Conference of Churches
The Pennsylvania Council of Churches is the state-wide ecumenical presence in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Formed by 43 church bodies and agencies representing 20 Anabaptist, Anglican, Orthodox, Pentecostal, and Protestant communions (denominations), the Council works for Christian unity for the sake of the world. [John 17:23]