ESI offers its deepest condolences to the family of David Crawford, who passed away May 27th of this year. Dr. Crawford was President of Econsult Corporation, which he founded in 1979 and out of which Econsult Solutions, Inc. was formed. Dr. Crawford was an accomplished labor economist, acclaimed teacher of economics and statistics at the University of Pennsylvania, and a friendly colleague, mentor, and inspiration to many of us in ESI. His obituary can be found here.
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!
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
Museum of the American Revolution
The African American Museum in Philadelphia
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
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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).
Richard 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.
Communities in the Chesapeake Bay watershed and across the nation are deploying green infrastructure to manage stormwater and provide economic, environmental, and social benefits for residents. Large cities such as Baltimore, Washington, and Philadelphia are leaders in the use of green infrastructure to 1) fulfill regulatory mandates (i.e., reducing combined sanitary-storm sewer overflows, or CSO) and 2) achieve broader community objectives (i.e., improving health and addressing climate change). For smaller communities, lack of financial resources can be a significant barrier to employing green infrastructure solutions.
This report provides a guide for decision makers in small to mid-sized communities on how to pay for green infrastructure. It covers green infrastructure definitions and benefits, the monetary value of benefits provided, available funding sources and financing techniques, and how to develop a funding and financing strategy for green infrastructure investment. The report draws on interviews and research of green infrastructure applications by communities inside and outside the Chesapeake Bay watershed. Several case studies drawing from ESI’s research on the economic value of protected open space and stormwater infrastructure are included alongside examples of green infrastructure practices, financing techniques, and key takeaways from communities that have effectively implemented green infrastructure.
ESI Senior Advisor David Rouse served as project lead for this white paper and was supported by Senior Vice President and Principal Steve Wray, Associate Director Melissa Wright, and Analyst John LaVaccare.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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:
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.
City officials must educate their employees on cybersecurity vulnerabilities. This includes, but is not limited to:
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.
, and outbound-traffic proxies.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:
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.
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.