Social Issues

John Jones clears his throat and leans into a small microphone. “B 61,” he calls out. Everyone’s eyes in the room are glued to their bingo boards in hope that their board will hold a [continue reading…]

Factories and textile mills line the neighborhood’s streets. The owner of a local restaurant runs down the street to fill up on supplies. The number of those employed outweighs the number of those unemployed. Business [continue reading…]

Frank Peterson interacts with patrons of the Free Library System on a daily basis. Peterson, the head of the newspapers and magazines department at the Northeast Regional Branch, has been working at the second-largest branch [continue reading…]

According to a recent National Telecommunications and Information Administration report, 40 percent of Americans do not have broadband access. In Philadelphia, that number is slightly higher–48 percent, according to the Philadelphia Division of Technology. The [continue reading…]

In mid-September, the Freedom Rings Sustainable Broadband Adoption Partnership, a coalition of non-profit organizations, institutions of higher education, private businesses and government organizations, was awarded an $11.8 million grant to increase Internet access in Philadelphia. [continue reading…]

https://vimeo.com/18637306] Ten years ago, West Girard Avenue looked like a completely different street. What used to be a sidewalk littered with vacant storefronts is now a budding commercial corridor where new businesses are cropping up [continue reading…]

“I call this particular site here ‘one stop,’” Lenora Jackson-Evans beams from her seat at the Strawberry Mansion Community Development Corporation’s conference table. “We try to do whatever we can for the neighborhood as a [continue reading…]

For six years, Casino-Free Philadelphia’s mission has been to stop casinos from coming to Philadelphia, bankrupt any that do and reclaim local neighborhoods. The activist group’s No Casino in the Heart of Our City Coalition [continue reading…]