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Light Read: Fourth of July Weekend 2022

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A Local’s Guide to the Fourth of July in Philadelphia

What better place to spend this year’s Fourth of July than right here in Philadelphia, a historic city that just so happens to also be the birthplace of the United States! Fun, fireworks, concerts, and good food are all to be had here. Check out the annual Wawa Welcome America, where good times are sure to be had by you and your families. This festival, which is the City of Philadelphia’s official Independence Day celebration, runs all the way from June 19th up until July 4th to honor and commemorate both Juneteenth and the Fourth of July. You’re sure to have a great time with local neighborhood fun and events, free concerts across the city, educational and inclusive programming, free museum admission across the city and, last but not least, the fantastic firework spectacle at the Art Museum!

Below, find a number of other festivities to celebrate the holidays in Philadelphia. There are a multitude of opportunities for engaging education for everyone, including the Museum of the American Revolution, the National Constitution Center, The African American Museum in Philadelphia, and the Betsy Ross House, to name a few. More information and links on those below as well. With so many festivities to take part in for everyone of all ages, there’s truly something for everyone. We hope you have a fun, safe, and reflective holiday!

Festivities

Wawa’s Welcome America Festival: Freedom – Liberty June 19th – July 4th

Our America Now: Expressions of Freedom & Waterfront Fireworks July 1, 6:00 – 10:00 PM

Celebration of Community & Culture @ Esperanza Arts Center July 2, 11:00 AM – 3:00 PM

Pershing’s Own Concert & Waterfront Fireworks July 2, 7:00 – 9:00 PM

Philly POPS on Independence July 3, 7:00 – 9:00 PM

PNC Presents: Salute to America Independence Day Parade July 4, 11 AM – 12 PM

Party on the Parkway July 4, 12:00 – 7:00 PM

Blue Cross RiverRink Summerfest Open Now – September 25th

Other Historic and Cultural Attractions to Consider

Museum of the American Revolution

National Constitution Center

The African American Museum in Philadelphia

The Betsy Ross House

The Latest from Present Value

The Economics of Housing Affordability

Cities of the Future Must be Heat Resilient: A Framework for Combatting Urban Heat Islands

Smart Cities and Cybersecurity

Local Businesses: Important Components of Communities

PA Agriculture: A Staple of the Economy

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Where to Watch Free Outdoor Movies in Philadelphia this Summer

The Best Public Pools in Philly

Philadelphia on the Cusp of Becoming a Top 10 Startup Ecosystem in the U.S.

Nicole Taylor’s Juneteenth Cookbook Gives Recipes for Joy

Where Adam Sandler’s Netflix movie ‘Hustle’ was filmed in Philly

The Economics of Housing Affordability

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Housing is a crucial aspect of society. Unfortunately, the costs of housing can be so disproportionately high relative to income levels that people simply can’t comfortably afford it. Not only is housing affordability a concern in many US metropolitan areas, it is a concern across the globe. With the large number of individuals and families struggling, and with an increasing number of people without housing, this issue deserves serious attention.

Affordable housing is essentially “housing that a household can pay for, while still having money left over for necessities like food, transportation, and health care.”  According to one measure of housing affordability, the Median Multiple which provides a good assessment of middle market housing affordability, the numbers are quite literally off the charts.

housing affordability categories

Any Median Multiple score that is 5.1 or over is deemed severely unaffordable. Unfortunately, a number of cities worldwide greatly exceed this upper limit, moving into ranges upwards of in the 20s.

cities median multiple ratings

As is evident in the figure above, many individuals and families across the world cannot afford housing. But acknowledging the issue is one thing—understanding it and ways that can potentially address it is another.

Demand, Supply, and Market Equilibrium

Like any other good the price of housing depends on the demand and supply. In terms of understanding the demand for housing is the attractiveness of a location. Amenities like public transit, education, parks, safety, and access to economic opportunities all lead to increased demand in housing. Until recently, very low interest rates have further contributed to increased demand for housing. Unfortunately, the supply of housing has not kept pace with demand in part because affordable housing production is only profitable but only at higher densities than established communities have been willing to accept, or in locations that are far from economic opportunity.

Market equilibrium occurs at the intersection of supply and demand. House prices effectively allocate people across locations. When demand increases, so do average house prices and rents, unless supply responds sufficiently. Locations where it is easy to build new housing will see supply increases when demand increases, and hence average house prices and rents will be lower.

Even increasing supply, however, will not necessarily create sufficient affordable housing. When rents reach the level of exceeding the cost to build, that is when developers begin to build. However, developers opt to build the most profitable option possible, which will usually not be any type of affordable housing.

Where Does Affordable Housing Come From?

Affordable housing is primarily generated in three ways—filtering, inclusionary zoning, and public investment.

Filtering is essentially “the process by which properties age and depreciate in quality and price, becoming more affordable to lower-income households.” Increasing the supply of market rate of housing results in more affordable housing as some households “move up” to new housing, making more affordable older housing available. The greater the availability of filtered housing, the more affordable housing for lower-income households becomes. However, although filtering is a primary way of generating affordable housing, it is only a partial solution at best. Filtered housing may be obsolete, in poor condition, and in an unsafe neighborhood with poor schools. Further, locations where there is lots of filtering will most likely be in places far removed from any significant economic opportunity. 

Inclusionary Zoning refers to the requirement of new market developments to include affordable housing. This tactic ultimately reduces the overall supply of housing, which as discussed will lower the average rent price of a property. It can potentially lead to the generation of affordable housing in desirable neighborhoods, yet challenges lie in allocating a limited number of affordable housing units. 

Public investments can create affordable housing. Most cities have Public Housing Authorities which produce, own, and manage affordable housing. In the US, however the largest public investment in affordable housing is through the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) program. This program involves public subsidy of private affordable housing production through the selling of tax credits to investors of affordable housing. This is the largest source of public housing subsidies. A primary form of affordable housing subsidy in the U.S. currently, “The credit provides an incentive for taxable entities to invest equity in rental properties in which most of the units are reserved for households making 60% or less of the area median income (AMI).” Finally, vouchers, which are often combined with LIHTC make new developments of affordable housing profitable for developers. 

As has been found in a paper published by ESI (Econsult Solutions, Inc) Principal Dr. Richard Voith, stand-alone and clustered LIHTC properties have positive spillover effects on property prices in the surrounding communities. This means that these LIHTC properties have positive effects on the community. Moreover, neighborhoods with 3 or more LIHTC developments had even larger positive spillovers on neighboring property values. Thus, LIHTC developments tend to create more affordable housing directly, while improving neighborhoods and increasing nearby property values.  

Why Is Affordability So Challenging Now, and How Do We Move Forward?

In the second half of the 20th century, increased suburbanization led to an excess of housing supply in cities which was good for affordability. Unfortunately, it also came at the expense of reduced urban economic opportunity, and worsening living conditions in the urban areas. As cities typically rebounded after 2000, the supply of filtered urban affordable housing diminished greatly as private investment increased, renovating or replacing older filtered housing. No longer are US cities affordable.

Moving forward to tackle this issue, restrictions on housing production should be reduced. More housing production will lower average housing prices. Additionally, significant public subsidies will be needed to ensure that affordable housing is available throughout metropolitan areas and not just in declining neighborhoods. Additional funding will also be crucial in lightening the burden of homelessness and continuing to combat this issue. Recent policies are addressing these issues. For example, The Biden Administration has just announced an extremely ambitious funding package of $365 million in order to further address homelessness in the U.S. Along the same lines, the Administration had also set forth a Housing Supply Action Plan back in May of 2022 to address affordable housing, which would essentially grant towns and cities with reformed land-use and zoning policies with higher scores for specific federal grants. The plan also would increase federal financing options for housing, and re-emphasizes the call to pass tax credits, expand LIHTC, and create a new $1.75 billion grant program.

There is unfortunately some public perception that public housing is bad for neighborhood property values (which is not true), along with other opposition to it. As research has suggested, more investment in public and affordable housing will do quite the opposite, and will bring much needed relief to individuals and families across the world who are struggling to afford such a fundamental part of life.

 

Intern in suit

Salvatore Gullotta | gullotta@econsultsolutions.com

Salvatore Gullotta is an intern at Econsult Solutions working in the Business Development and Marketing Department. He is currently a second-year student at Drexel University, and assists at ESI with proposals and content management (managing ESI Present Value [weekly blog] and social media).

 

Voith, Richard-webRichard Voith | voith@econsultsolutions.com

Richard Voith Ph.D. is a Founding Principal of Econsult Solutions Inc. (ESI) and Research Fellow of the University of Pennsylvania Institute for Urban Research (Penn IUR). Dr. Voith is a widely published expert in real estate economics, transportation, and applied microeconomics. He oversees a wide variety of projects in the realm of housing, labor markets, transportation, and economic development. Just as importantly, he is involved in setting the strategic direction of organizations both large and small. Dr. Voith served on the board of directors of the SEPTA for 8 years and was Vice Chair for 3 years. He regularly provides analysis and testimony in support of litigation in real estate and transportation matters.

Cities of the Future Must be Heat Resilient: A Framework for Combating Urban Heat Islands

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We are a few short days away from the start of summer and the first heat advisory warnings have been issued across the country— it looks like it’s the start of a very hot summer. Experts at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) released their monthly climate trend report predicting above-average temperatures and below-average participation for most parts of the U.S. (See map below) The northeastern region in particular is expected to see high temperatures throughout the summer, with Philadelphia already experiencing an early spring heat wave in May.

The Problem 

It seems like each summer we are breaking a new record of high temperature across the globe and this, by no means, is a coincidence. Due to increased levels of greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere, the earth has seen its hottest days on record in the past 10 years since 2005 according to climate research at NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, State of the Climate. Higher temperatures have devastating impacts on weather events, increasing both their severity and frequency. Warmer oceans mean more hurricanes, increased rainfall and flooding for coastal cities, severe tornadoes across the Great Plains and parts of the northeast, and devastating wildfires in the west. However, extreme heat is the primary cause of climate-related deaths in the U.S., much deadlier than the aforementioned weather events. 

The Impact  

Although extreme heat will be an issue for the U.S. at large, cities are going to see much more exacerbated levels of high temperatures due to a phenomenon that scientists have categorized as the urban heat island (UHI) effect. Cities are hotter than rural areas due to the large concentration of asphalt buildings and cement, which absorb solar heat and reflect it back into the dense city environment. Long periods of extreme heat, reduced nighttime-cooling, and high air pollution levels can have devastating consequences on the cities’ most vulnerable populations. Children, older adults, and individuals with certain medical conditions are particularly susceptible to increased heat-related health problems and heightened mortality rates. This reduces the overall quality of life of residents in cities and can have negative consequences for many other aspects of the city economically.  

Urban heat islands and their consequences are not just formed between the city and rural regions comprehensively.  Even within city walls, urban heat impacts different parts of the city differently due to the variety of surface cover temperatures. These micro-islands are geographically located in low vegetation, low-income, black and brown neighborhoods, while cooler areas of the city often are wealthier, whiter, and greener according to a 2021 study, with African American residents experiencing more exposure on average.

The Framework

Resilient Citizens and Communities  

Creating heat-resilient cities means expanding our knowledge about the different and various ways people experience heat. Understanding the complexities of urban heat and how it impacts each of us differently is crucial in avoiding a one-size-fits-all solution to combating it. Differentiating how low-income residents experience heat versus how farmers or construction workers experience heat will help create intentional and site-specific adaptations and designs while also addressing the actual needs of each resident.  

Education will play a huge role in addressing urban heat, and empowering citizens with the information and resources to combat it in their own communities. Implementing a city-wide campaign on extreme heat will increase the public’s awareness of the health risks that come with extreme heat exposure and the cooling opportunities/resources available to them. Heat action plans like Boston’s, and community mapping initiatives like Atlanta’s are setting a great precedent for creating heat strategies that are not only publicly available, but community-involved. This type of public education campaign will be useful in cities that historically do not experience long periods of heat. However, it is important for public awareness about the severity of urban heat to remain at the forefront in cities like Houston, Phoenix, or Orlando where extreme heat exposure is much more common.  

Early warning heat advisory communications are also life-saving tools that can be used when the chance of a heat wave does in fact present itself. Philadelphia’s Heat Health Watch Warning System was the first in the country and has proved useful for heatwave forecasting. It has since been implemented in cities worldwide. Providing early information and education about when excessive heat is forecasted, how to respond, and where resources are located are important strategies for mitigating heat crises in cities.  

Resilient Climate-Informed Design  

Cities will need to leverage technology to create nature-based design solutions for urban heat adaptation. Resilient strategies like greening roof efforts, planting street trees specifically in tree-poor areas, public green spray grounds and cooling centers are ways to offer communities relief from the summer heat. Green water infrastructure is another vital sustainable strategy that allows for more natural vegetation, soils, and open water surfaces to combat the excessive heat loads within a city block. Green and blue infrastructure designs are not only tools for climate change adaptation, but they also strengthen the capacity of heat resilience within cities.  

With climate-informed design, it is important to know that these technologies must work in tandem with other greening solutions. For example, alternative pavement coatings can reduce city temperatures overall due to the materials’ ability to have higher solar reflectance, but studies have shown that their impacts on humans actually increase body temperatures. Scientists and climate activists have echoed that cool pavements paired with other heat-resilient infrastructure like street trees and cooler street corridors would be more impactful to both the city and its inhabitants.  

Resilient Networks  

Tackling urban heat and the inequities that come with it will require building out cooling networks where government entities, community organizations, residents, planners, developers, scientists, and the private sector are all in collaboration with one another. This network will need to support one another in UHI mitigation strategies starting with policy adaptations, zoning code refinements, and retrofitting new building code requirements that align with climate-resilient design standards. Developing a citywide network will aid in both the prevention and responsive operations for cities vulnerable to not only UHI but other extreme weather events. Establishing roles like Miami-Dade County’s Chief of Heat Officer will help expand, coordinate and accelerate efforts to reduce and prevent heat related tragedies.

When cities address urban heat, they are advertently addressing inequality. The future of cities will require combating both the imminent consequences of climate change, as well as the inequities and disparities that will be exacerbated because of them. Prioritizing and implementing an action plan for urban heat and establishing a framework that is city–specific, resident–centered, and technologically forward will save lives… especially because it is only going to get hotter from here.

 

Kendra Hills | hills@econsultsolutions.com

Kendra Hills is an intern at Econsult Solutions supporting ESI’s Center for the Future of Cities. She is currently a Master’s student at the University of Pennsylvania, studying city & regional planning with a concentration in smart cities.

Smart Cities and Cybersecurity

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Historically, most cyber attacks have been directed toward firms, but as cities continue to grow smarter, they carry more information on their residents, making them more valuable targets for cybercriminals. On June 1, 2022, Costa Rica’s National Health Service was taken captive by ransomware known as Hive. To regain control of its systems, Costa Rica must pay the criminals $20 million in bitcoin. Over the last five years, cities in the U.S. such as Atlanta, Baltimore, New Orleans, and Albuquerque have been the victims of cyber attacks. For the cities of the future to defend their citizens’ data, they need to elevate their approach to cybersecurity.

So how can governments know if their cybersecurity is up to standards? Unfortunately, there is currently no widely accepted measurement for evaluating the strength of a city’s cybersecurity. Governments tend to cite the amount they spend on cybersecurity each year as an indicator of its strength, but there is no way to know if that money is being used properly. However, there are several standards currently in practice across various industries that could be modified for government use, such as the ISA/IEC 62443 system for automation and control system applications, the North American Electric Reliability Corporation Critical Infrastructure Protection (NERC CIP) system, which secures North America’s bulk electric system, and the UL 2900 series of standards for network-connectable products (UL 2900-1), medical and healthcare systems (UL 2900-2-1), industrial control systems (UL 2900-2-2), and security and life safety signaling systems (UL 2900-2-3). Other resources, like the Lockheed Martin Cyber Kill Chain, are general enough to be used by smart cities with little to no adaptation. Regular vulnerability assessments will also be crucial in determining a city’s cyber strength.

By incorporating elements from various existing industrial cybersecurity standards, cities can develop a concrete plan for evaluating and improving their cybersecurity. That plan might look similar to the following structure:

Integrate

Cybersecurity is more effective and less expensive when it is factored into decision-making processes, not just tagged on after already making a decision. This could mean choosing not to adopt certain smart technologies if an effective way to mitigate their cybersecurity risk does not exist yet. For example, emergency alerts, street video surveillance, and smart traffic signals are high-risk smart technologies, so they should only be installed if it is determined that their benefits outweigh both the cost of installation and their cybersecurity risk. For all new technologies, cybersecurity must be built in from the beginning, not added on at the end.

Educate

City officials must educate their employees on cybersecurity vulnerabilities. This includes, but is not limited to:

  • Using multi-factor authentication
  • How to properly use WiFi
  • Using secure passwords
  • How to avoid phishing emails and other online scams
  • Requiring anti-malware software
  • Staying away from risky websites

Evaluate

A city’s cybersecurity must be regularly evaluated by a third party. This will include live tests, such as vulnerability assessments, as well as other metrics, such as ensuring the city has multiple backups of all essential data and plenty of IT and cybersecurity professionals. To pass this step, those working with sensitive information must use most, if not all of the following measures. 

  • Anti-malware helps identify, remove, and block malware. This can include IP blacklisting, data loss prevention tools, antivirus/antispyware software, web browsing policies, egress filtering, and outbound-traffic proxies.
  • Endpoint detection and response works with anti-malware to perform automated action when a breach is detected. It alerts security analysts when an endpoint is compromised, provides immediate action, such as isolating the infected portion of software, and provides security teams information to help analyze the incident. It also tends to be better at detecting breaches from unknown sources than anti-malware.
  • Continuous Vulnerability Management involves constantly scanning for security weaknesses. This includes manual work, such as vulnerability assessments and fixing bugs, as well as automated work, such as application patchwork and scanning for coding bugs that could be exploited by attackers.
  • Intrusion detection and prevention systems have two types: IDS and IPS. An IDS detects and monitors threats, but it won’t take action on its own. An IPS decides on its own whether to accept or reject packets based on rules. Both IDS and IPS analyze traffic and compare it to known threats.
  • Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence use behavior analytics to proactively detect threats, assess threats in real-time, and evaluate risk. Artificial intelligence in cybersecurity is still mostly aspirational, but over the coming years, as cities grow ‘smarter,’ it will continue to grow stronger with more user interaction and will eventually become an important capability in cybersecurity.
  • Mobile device management software should be installed on each high-risk government employee’s work-dedicated device. The MDM software monitors behavior and critical data. This gives an administrator full control to monitor, troubleshoot, track, and even wipe device data if a breach is detected.
  • Network access control sets network policies and prevents noncompliant devices from accessing a network. Paired with anti-malware, it helps avoid an initial breach by keeping government employees away from high-risk websites.
  • Next-generation firewalls detect and block more sophisticated attacks than previous generations of firewalls. They include features such as application control (automated whitelisting and blacklisting), IPSs, and sandboxing, which tests potentially malicious software by running a program without allowing it to affect the application, system, or platform it runs on.
  • Strong authentication and authorization. This authenticates users and grants them access based on their authorization level. Newer versions provide additional security by using digital certificates and public key infrastructure solutions, like a Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certificate, which encrypts connections and verifies that the website is trustworthy.

Recuperate

When all these measures fail, cities need to be prepared with a Computer Security Incident Response Plan (CSIRP or just IRP for short) to minimize the damage of a successful attack. Officials must realize that public scrutiny is inevitable, and it does not justify rushing the recovery process. According to the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), the general steps for incident response are the same for companies and cities:

  • Before the attack, an incident response team must be established.
  • Once the attack occurs, the indicators of a breach must first be detected and analyzed. 
  • Then, the threat must be contained. Often, this means either sandboxing or disconnecting the attacking force from the data source, but NIST makes it clear that the incident response team should have a specific containment plan for each type of attack they anticipate.
  • Next, the threat must be eradicated, which often involves deleting malware and compromised accounts.
  • Then, the infected department can start to recover. This will involve restoring data from clean backups, notifying any civilians or employees whose data was involved in the breach and reinstalling defense mechanisms against a future breach.
  • Finally, the department’s security plan must be updated, and employees must be trained to ensure immunity towards the same attack in the future.

In addition to using cybersecurity at large firms as a model for smart city cybersecurity, cities can partner with them directly. In August 2021, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency established the Joint Cyber Defense Collaborative (JCDC) to unify the federal government, states, and cities with the public and private sectors in a joint cybersecurity effort. JCDC has 21 private sector Partners, including Microsoft, Google Cloud, and Verizon. By working alongside cybersecurity specialists across the globe to create objective standards, as well as working to integrate cybersecurity into decision-making processes, educating employees on vulnerabilities, evaluating their cyber strength regularly, and recuperating properly from a breach, moving into the future smart cities can elevate their cybersecurity and keep their citizens’ data safe.

More about Cybersecurity

Check out some of these sources to learn more about cybersecurity yourself:

 

Caleb Cavazos | ccavazos@econsultsolutions.com

Caleb Cavazos is an intern at Econsult Solutions, Inc. He is currently a senior at the Haverford School, and will be attending Duke University in the fall. He assists ESI with general research, note taking, and business development.

Local Businesses: Important Components of Communities

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As you casually walk through the city streets on your way to nowhere in particular, a peculiar sight meets your eye: rows upon rows, upon rows of tables, tents, and all sorts of venues and local businesses are set up next to one another. As you focus your eyes a bit more to try to make out what’s going on, you realize—it’s a flea market! 

All sorts of people from all walks of life—from locals to tourists—stroll up and down, left and right through the labyrinth of these small businesses and their owners. And what a wonderful sight it truly is, to see so many people together, talking and laughing, trying some frozen delights from that little ice cream stand that so many people are crowding around. That woman is looking dazzling as she wraps herself in a homemade shawl she just bought. That man over there is grinning ear to ear, smiling proudly as he’s just sold a piece of his artwork to a fellow enthusiast. 

All the while walking towards the hustle and bustle you see in front of you, an emboldened and fiery scent fills the air. The unmistakable scents of authentic Indian cuisine meet you head on, and you stop for a moment. The busy streets, the tents and tables, the laughter, the scents in the air, you realize—life would be dull without local businesses! Aside from adding so many layers of vibrancy and life to communities, these businesses are truly an underrated staple to them as well. The benefits that they bring about often go unnoticed, and it’s important to try to bring them to light as best we can, because without small businesses, we might be lost! 

Economic Benefits 

To start, the clear economic benefits that communities receive from small businesses are difficult to ignore. Typically, roughly 60-70% of money spent on buying locally is funneled back into the community, vs. About 40-50% when buying from non-locally owned businesses. This is consistent with a study that ESI conducted in 2021 with American Express, which found that 67% of money spent on local businesses remains circulating within the community. Furthermore, the study “found that if small businesses in the US, defined as business employing fewer than 100 employees, were a country, they would have a GDP of $4.8 trillion.” Keeping money localized in communities has a plethora of benefits, including aiding in the education, health, and wellness of our youth. 

Keeping money localized is important, as is the creation of new jobs, which local businesses are adept at doing. Small businesses account for just under half of all economic activity across the U.S., and the more that small businesses are supported and created, the number of jobs they will create will only increase as well. 

Uniqueness, Diversity, and Inclusion 

Along with keeping funds flowing through the local environment, small businesses just keep things fresh. They can provide a diversity of perspectives and a variety of international cultures, flavors, scents, and scenes coming together. 

Communities are a point of pride for many people, and the diversity that flows through an abundance of local businesses only adds to that sense of pride and uniqueness. Furthermore, speaking of diversity, roughly 20% and counting of all businesses in the U.S. are women-owned, and nearly 19% and counting of businesses are minority-owned. These numbers are on the rise, which leads to the belief that the expansion of local businesses is helping to level the playing field. 

In 2020, ESI participated in a team effort to assess opportunities for equitable entrepreneurship and development strategies to increase business opportunities for Philadelphia’s Black- and People of Color-owned small- and mid-sized companies and entrepreneurs. Through inventorying firms and reviewing capital provisions available to small- and medium-sized businesses, the team worked to continue identify and expand the necessity and great benefit of opportunities by such firms. 

Environmental Benefits 

Additionally, the health and wellbeing of our environment is becoming an ever-more important topic of discussion, as it should be. A community that is more equitable is a community whose citizens are better equipped to stand together against environmental issues.  

SMEs, or small and medium-sized enterprises, play a pivotal role in answering the call and combatting global warming. These SMEs play such a significant role in sustainability for a couple of reasons. Firstly, proprietors of many SMEs tend to focus more on doing what they can do to aid the environment. Some of these companies are solely focused on just that—employing sustainable practices such as reusing materials, using waste-free, plastic-free, and non-toxic materials, and using vegan and cruelty-free methods of conducting their business. Supporting businesses such as these are direct ways that we as consumers can aid in the fight against global warming. 

Moreover, having a large number of local businesses thriving in our commercial corridors for patrons to support and utilize can only lead to increased use of public transportation and more sustainable means of commuting, such as walking or biking. This in turn can also decrease the amount of sprawl we create, and allow for fewer vehicles on the road emitting toxic greenhouse gases. 

Closing Thoughts 

Aside from these three key points, there are so many fantastic reasons for supporting local businesses, from just meeting new people to being able to acknowledge others for their hard work and passions. At ESI, with our new initiative ESI Eats, we’re trying our best to do our part for the local community. While the world we live in becomes increasingly advanced and progressive, cities will be evolving moving into the future. The continuous creation and reinforcement of small businesses should no doubt be at the forefront of the future.

 

Intern in suitSalvatore Gullotta | gullotta@econsultsolutions.com

Salvatore Gullotta is an intern at Econsult Solutions working in the Business Development and Marketing Department. He is currently a second-year student at Drexel University, and assists at ESI with proposals and content management (managing ESI Present Value [weekly blog] and social media).

PA Agriculture: A Staple of the Economy

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Agriculture has been and continues to be an integral part of Pennsylvania’s economy. According to a previous report published in 2021 by ESI, “Pennsylvania’s $81.5 billion agriculture sector supported 301,900 direct jobs and $14.5 billion in labor income.” Farms are located in all 67 counties within the state, providing necessary support to all Pennsylvanians in the form of jobs, economic output, and livelihood. Without continued support and success of Pennsylvania’s agriculture sector, the state would lose a multi-billion dollar industry that is supported by both domestic and migrant workers.

Working in agriculture can be intense and demanding. Farm labor can be tiresome, requiring a full day’s work every day of the week. According to FWD.us, a pro-immigration lobbying group, “farmworkers spend extremely long hours harvesting crops in all types of weather while risking injury or illness from heavy equipment or pesticide exposure.” Given the challenges of the work and the lack of competitive pay, combined with a rapidly aging population employed in the agricultural sector, Pennsylvania has seen a decrease in domestic-born employment and a rise in migrant employment. In fact, in almost every county in the state, total farm employment has been steadily decreasing over the past five years. In order to sustain the level of economic output and to keep producing vital resources for Pennsylvania and the country, it is necessary to invest in migrant agricultural worker programs.

When concentrating this analysis on foreign-born employment (individuals who were not naturalized U.S. citizens at birth), it becomes clear that foreign-born workers are increasingly important to the state-wide economy. The number of foreign-born workers has increased from 4,260 NAICS 11 workers in 2010 to a peak of 7,067 in 2019. But looking at foreign-born workers alone does not tell the whole story. The organizations that support these workers play a vital role in the increase in agricultural employment.

H-2A Program

Of the many programs that support migrant workers, the H-2A program is the main initiative that supports migrant workers in the United States. The program, according to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, “allows U.S. employers or U.S. agents who meet specific regulatory requirements to bring foreign nationals to the United States to fill temporary agricultural jobs.” Over the past decade, the number of workers in the Federal H-2A Visa program has tripled in the state of Pennsylvania, demonstrating the importance of migrant workers for agricultural economic success.

Accompanying the aforementioned general employment decline and the increase in the number of foreign-born workers has been this skyrocketing state-wide increase in the number of H-2A employees since 2010. As a result, H-2A workers are becoming increasingly cornerstone to the Pennsylvania agricultural industry.

 

H-2a Employment

 

The bulk of this increase in H-2A employment is occurring in counties that are heavily focused on commercial agriculture. For example, Adams County experienced a 900 percent increase in the number of H-2A workers, neighboring Franklin County witnessed a 1,000 percent increase, and Berks County saw a similar increase of nearly 1,300 percent. Further, the share of H-2A workers as a percentage of total farm employment has been increasing. Since 2010, it has nearly doubled state-wide, with multiple-hundred percent increases in counties like Adams and Luzerne.

This increase in reliance on H-2A workers to supplement, but not replace the declining domestic farm workforce is accompanied by evidence showing that the PA agriculture sector is strikingly resilient. As a pertinent example well-ingrained in recent memory, the nationwide effects of COVID-19 on the U.S. agriculture industry have been unprecedented. Strains on the domestic food supply chain worsened by deteriorating trade relations, coupled with widespread labor shortages, put pressure on domestic farm owners to cut output and internalize the associated costs.

Closing Thoughts

Despite the pandemic’s impact, Pennsylvania’s agricultural industry through 2020 has been remarkably resilient. Total farm employment decreased by 4 percent between 2019 and 2020 compared to an eight percent decrease in non-farm employment across the Commonwealth. This suggests that Pennsylvania’s agricultural sector has been largely effective, partially through the continued expansion of the H-2A program, in mitigating the overall employment effects of COVID-19. Proprietor farm employment stayed relatively constant across counties through 2020, as did proprietor income (which even increased in some counties) and the wages and salaries of agricultural workers. These findings provide evidence that demand for the goods produced by the state’s agricultural sector remained strong through the worst of the pandemic, despite serious negative consequences felt in other parts of the country and by other industries. This demonstrates that agriculture remains, and likely will continue to remain, an important industry for the state.

Due to the great resignation and the tightening of the domestic labor market, combined with trends in domestic-born agricultural employment, employers are going to need to rely more on migrant workers. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, over the past decade nationwide, “H-2A positions certified by the U.S. Department of Labor increased more than 220 percent.” There is no reason to think that this trend will reverse, making it critical that this department has enough resources to serve the expanding labor demand. The United States heavily relies on its agriculture production, thus making the H-2A program integral to both the country’s prosperity and Pennsylvania’s economic success.

 

Jacob KayserJacob Kayser | kayser@econsultsolutions.com

Jacob Kayser is a research assistant intern for Econsult Solutions Inc. (ESI). He is a senior at the University of Pennsylvania, majoring in Urban Studies with a minor in Survey Research and Data Analytics. Jacob is originally from Chicago and has a passion for transportation and housing policy.

 

 

Kian Williams | williams@econsultsolutions.com

Kian Williams is a research assistant intern for Econsult Solutions Inc. (ESI). He is currently an Economics major and Political Science and Math minor studying at Haverford College. and is interested in consulting, international development, global finance, and geopolitics.