2022

Thanksgiving 2022 Light Read

November 24, 2022 by Mike Daly

For this week’s Present Value post, we gave thanks! Please enjoy this list of interesting reads, fun activities, and ways to support charitable causes this holiday season.

On behalf of the entire ESI team, we hope you have a happy Thanksgiving.

Ways to Celebrate

Activities, Shopping, and Dining

Check out this list of 29 things to do in Philly during Thanksgiving week, courtesy of Visit Philadelphia

Find a new favorite restaurant with this list of 40 new and soon-to-open restaurants the Inquirer has assembled

Discover your new favorite retailer this Small Business Saturday

Charitable Causes

Consider joining the Giving Tuesday movement or become a Kiva lender and support a worthy cause you are passionate about

Make an in-kind donation to Bethesda Project, People’s Emergency Center, Why Not Prosper, or the Philadelphia Foundation

Volunteer your time with Philly House, Mighty Writers, or Philadelphia Animal Welfare Society (PAWS)

Support the Veterans Multi-Service Center, or Esperanza, Project HOME, or Prevention Point

The Current State of EV Policy in the United States

November 18, 2022 by Mike Daly

Cities and states across America are beginning to take more strides toward fully adopting electric vehicles (EVs) and integrating them into the fabric of their road and urban infrastructure. The benefits of making the switch from internal combustion engines (ICE) to EVs are growing and well documented, and their popularity has also grown significantly in the past few years. States are hoping that with regional consensus, cities will be cleaner, greener, and quieter with widespread EV adoption. This has proven challenging for American cities, and there have been significant barriers to preventing EVs from gaining a large market share. We have outlined these barriers in a previous article titled, Prioritizing Equity in EV Infrastructure Planning with Data, but they can be summarized as the following:

EVs are generally still more expensive than traditional ICEs
Lack of charging stations and charging infrastructure
Lack of EV knowledge, exposure, & visibility
Limited EV financial incentives
EV model availability

Addressing these barriers will need effective, comprehensive, and long-term policy and strategic planning for cities to reach electrification and emission targets. Municipalities both small and large will need to look to their states for not only guidance on EV policy, but also as a partner to voice their specific needs to. Adapting state policies to different levels of government – local, regional, and federal will be key for widespread EV adoption and will also be the most challenging.

How can cites be sure they are implementing the most effective EV policies? Here are some popular policy recommendations and case studies that have been effective across different states.

Zero Emission Vehicle Mandate

Some governments leading mass EV adoption have implemented aggressive electrification goals with the intent of adopting a 100% electric share between 2025-2050, with zero emission mandates. Zero emission vehicle (ZEV) regulations have accelerated the rate of EV adoption on a regional scale within states like California, and have had immense success in in achieving lofty goals of reducing greenhouse gas. In the United States, ZEV mandates are issued at the state level, and California has been a state leader ever since their first ZEV mandate in 1990. One of the key features of California’s mandate is its requirements of manufacturers to meet rather strict ZEV percentage credits. The mandate also requires auto manufacturers to produce an increasing number of ZEVs each year beginning in 2026. The mandate also takes measures to ensure that consumers are buying ZEVs that are sustainable and have longevity with enhanced durability and warranty requirements. By 2030, California expects vehicles to maintain at least 80% of electric range for 10 years or 150,000 miles. Although California has some of the stricter EV and ZEV policies in the nation, the direct intention with future-proofing mobility innovation, and building direct relationships with manufacturers and technology providers is a lesson that could be adopted in other states across the country.

Flexible, Long-term EV Financial Incentives

Ensuring that citizens can afford EVs is critical. Tax benefits, incentives, and rebates have been successful ways for states to promote the use and ownership of EVs. 45 states and the District of Columbia all provide some sort of incentive. Increasingly, states are amending their policies to include additional provisions for low income and disadvantaged communities.

Virginia recently passed an EV rebate program that applies to new and used EVs. As EVs begin to take up a larger portion of the market, expanding access to used vehicles also expands EV access to a significant number of Americans. This rebate program allows for a $2,500 rebate at the time of purchase for both buyers and leasers, with an additional $2,000 rebate toward either a new EV, or $500 towards a used EV for low-income customers.

EV-Cross Collaborations

Collaborative EV efforts across state lines will be a critical strategy in transportation electrification, and states have been leading the way in creating integrated policies to ensure a more robust buildout of charging infrastructure across major highways.

The Regional Electric Vehicle Midwest Coalition (REV Midwest) has made bipartisan efforts to involve governors and decision makers from Illinois, Michigan, Indiana, Minnesota, and Wisconsin to develop a new regional charging infrastructure network. The REV Midwest sets out to accomplish three goals: Accelerate medium and heavy-duty fleet electrification, elevate economic growth and industry leadership, and advance equity and environmental goals. Additionally, increasing the number of charging stations is one of the main goals of REV Midwest, as they hope to boost potential consumers’ confidence and ease the range anxiety that comes with not knowing if charging is available outside of private at-home chargers. This multi-state collaboration leverages increased public and private interest/funding for EV infrastructure and allows states to share ideas and opportunities surrounding EV implementation. More state collaboration can make room for taking bigger risks with EV infrastructure and finding innovative partners to get the job done.

Local partnerships are just as important as multi-state partnerships, and San Francisco has been a leading example in this, creating the Electric Vehicle Working Group. This group aims to identify key policies and partners to aid EV growth within the city. The group is comprised of 15 representatives from city departments and agencies, along with stakeholders from regional and state agencies, as well as industry and non-profit organizations.

These are just some ways cities and states can prioritize equitable widespread electrification. Policies that are both strict enough to reach target greenhouse reduction goals, but also flexible enough to change with the needs of consumers will be important for cities and states to transition to a more sustainable future.

Kendra Hills, Intern | 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.

An Interview with W. Wilson Goode, Jr.

November 11, 2022 by Mike Daly

Last month, ESI President and Principal Lee Huang sat down with Senior Advisor and former Philadelphia City Councilperson W. Wilson Goode, Jr. to discuss the state of equity and inclusion in filling city contracts. As a member of city council, Goode, Jr. was instrumental in creating initiatives to boost participation from underrepresented groups in city affairs. Read their conversation below.

Can you describe your first experiences around MWDBE goal-setting while as a City Council Member?

Cities need to develop a serious approach to supporting an inclusive economy through government spending. During my first year in office, the City was considering legislation regarding the
build out of Lincoln Financial Field and Citizen’s Bank Park. As a freshman councilperson, I was able to weigh in on it, however at the time, there was no current disparity study to point to and assess utilization of Minority, Women, and Disadvantaged Business Enterprises (MWDBEs). A study was initiated in 1998 but not yet completed, so the City’s stadium legislation couldn’t be based on any up to date and precise goals. Rather, it had to be driven more so by aspirational targets.

Eventually, Bill #030125 was signed into law in 2003, however a year later in 2004, the prevailing legal opinion was that council exceeded its authority to pass such legislation. After questioning during budget hearings and session hearings, the only way to implement the signed law was through a charter amendment, which I introduced – and it was approved by a supermajority of City Council and the voters through a ballot question.

In your view, how should DBE participation goals be leveraged to offer more opportunities for public contracting?

Disparity goals shouldn’t stop at billion-dollar investments like stadium builds, but instead they should be interwoven into all aspects of a city’s procurement and investment strategy. In Philadelphia, we have tended to look at large-scale projects to advance certain policies. From the stadiums to the convention center, to Mayor Kenney’s Rebuild initiative. In my opinion, I don’t believe these project-based efforts should be our primary way at addressing utilization matters, but they absolutely present a good opportunity to highlight the issues at hand.

What do you think city government levers are to affect availability? What can the City of Philadelphia do, and what should it do to grow capacity?

The City can do more when it comes to prime contracting with minority and disadvantaged businesses. The City sets overall participation goals, however majority-owned contractors are essentially
left to make best faith efforts to create opportunities for diversity. So, on some level, the City does not make any immediate decision on the diversity of subcontractors selected to participate at the bidding level and which entities are in the running for public projects except through goal-setting.

How can we create an inclusive entrepreneurial ecosystem if lending discrimination persists, particularly for African Americans? And without access to race-based data for business lending, how do we remedy discrimination?

The City needs to set the tone in terms of policy and investment. How can we create an inclusive ecosystem if lending discrimination occurs on any level? Match-paired mystery shopping has been one way of examining this issue on a national level where we can show that Black business borrowers are treated differently. The National Community Reinvestment Coalition has performed research in several cities and found that on average, Black borrowers received more examination of their business and questions about family income, while also receiving fewer resources and information from lending institutions.

We can create a better entrepreneurial ecosystem – but I don’t believe that we can call it “inclusive” without directly addressing such racial discrimination. We know that there are higher home loan denial rates for African Americans in areas where there are lower self-employment rates, in such places like Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Baltimore, Detroit, Chicago, New Orleans, and Memphis. Systematic and historic differences in access to capital to buy a home make it inevitably harder for those to start businesses. Typically, our homes are our biggest asset on our balance sheets.

The City’s standpoint should be to look at disparities in terms of business and other lending, but also making it a point to focus substantial time toward investing in solutions to those problems, such as loan guarantee funds, special programming with banking institutions, CDFIs, and strengthening housing subsidies as examples.

Increasing self-employment rates and building up capacity in Black and Brown communities is good for the City as a whole. If policy leaders want to grow the economy, this is a good way to do it. Access to capital is incredibly important. There’s also no way MWDBEs can scale and grow without private sector procurement opportunities. The public sector measuring its spend is good, but how do we broaden the conversation to springboard businesses into accessing private sector contracting to generate revenue and scale up.

W. Wilson Goode, Jr., Senior Advisor | Goode@econsultsolutions.com

W. Wilson Goode, Jr. is a public policy advisor who served as a Philadelphia City Councilman At-Large from 2000 to 2016. Mr. Goode graduated from the University of Pennsylvania and did Graduate Studies in Policy Design and Delivery at Harvard Kennedy School. When Mr. Goode served on the Philadelphia City Council, he was the primary sponsor of over 145 ordinances including: budget appropriations; revenue increase for public education; civil service preference for local residents; living wage and benefits standard for City-supported employees; labor peace requirement for City airport and City-supported hotels; annual economic disparity analyses; diversity goals for city contracting; fair lending plans and community reinvestment goals from depository banks; contract enforcement of economic diversity; reduction of the business gross receipts tax; business tax credits for job creation and investment in neighborhood economic development; as well as landmark legislation enacting the only campaign contribution limits for municipal elections in Pennsylvania.

Lee Huang, President & Principal | Huang@econsultsolutions.com

Lee Huang brings over 20 years of experience in economic development experience to ESI public, private, institutional, and not-for-profit clients. He leads consulting engagements in a wide range of fields, including higher education, economic inclusion, environmental sustainability, historic preservation, real estate, neighborhood economic development, non-profits, retail, state and local government, strategic planning, tax policy, and tourism/hospitality, and is a sought-after speaker on these and other topics.

Catalyst for Change: The Future of Cities

November 8, 2022 by Mike Daly

As Econsult Solutions celebrates the one-year anniversary of ESI Center for the Future of Cities, we are thrilled to present a collection of our smart city-focused thought leadership and research. This portfolio connects the firm’s urban economics, policy, and strategy expertise and sits at the forefront of addressing the most challenging issues city leaders face today. The ESI team has produced ground-breaking research that has helped lay the foundation for building out a more just, sustainable, and prosperous future in four key focus areas:

Livability – Investigating how cities can improve quality of life for all citizens, interconnecting and leveraging resources to ensure cities are safer, and cleaner.

Mobility – Exploring the rise of autonomous and electric vehicles, assessing the catalytic impacts of transit investment, in addition to exploring the delicate balance between optimal density and congestion.

Investment – Analyzing how technology can improve and foster inclusive economic growth, the importance of an environment that attracts and retains innovative talent, strategic public and private partnerships for sustained success of smart city programs.

Governance – Understanding how governments are leveraging new technology and practices to enhance quality of life and foster growth, enhancing cybersecurity systems and increasing citizen engagement.

As we move forward, ESI Center for the Future of Cities will continue to build on those ideas and sit squarely at the intersection of public and private needs. As the firm’s thought leadership arm, it brings together ESI’s expertise in urban economics to address the most prominent issues facing cities around the world. City leaders need a blueprint for building safer, more sustainable, and resilient 21st Century cities.

What Tuesday’s Election Could Tell Us About Philadelphia’s Political Future

November 4, 2022 by Mike Daly

Post updated November 15 with new unofficial election data from the 2022 gubernatorial and U.S. Senate races, as well as an analysis at the bottom of the post.

The most recent presidential election found Philadelphia at the center of the American political universe. For days after the election, the nation’s attention was glued to the vote-counting at the Pennsylvania Convention Center as the election hung in the balance, and along the way, an ordinary landscaping business became an internationally recognized landmark.

The 2022 midterm elections will renew national attention on Philadelphia, with competitive races for open Senate and Governor seats set to decide the nation’s balance of power heading into the 2024 Presidential election. The city has often been at the center of statewide election debates during this campaign season — in Pennsylvania and across the nation, urban crime has been raised as a campaign issue to an extent not seen in many years, although data shows a complicated story regarding overall crime trends.

As a swing state, Pennsylvania often plays a critical role in determining the winner of the electoral college, and the upcoming Senate election is crucial for both parties, each hoping to control the chamber.

Not only are election results in Philadelphia important to city politics, but city results often shape the results of statewide elections, determining how wide margins have to be in the rest of the state. This means that reducing Democratic margins in the city, even if all other factors stay the same, makes it easier for Republicans to win the state, presidency, and control the Senate, and vice versa.

With these trends in mind, and with a mayoral election looming in 2023, the 2022 election could be a bellwether for Philadelphia’s political future – even though no local offices are on the ballot.

To better understand Philadelphia’s political geography and how the upcoming election may signal changes to come in city politics, ESI analyzed publicly available data on Presidential, Senate, and Governor races in the City of Philadelphia between 2008 and 2020, with results broken down by City ward and division. Election maps for each of these contests can be viewed below, with a red to blue color scale representing the Democratic margin of victory or loss in each division:

The following takeaways result from the election data above:

Philadelphia is a heavily Democratic city — even in its most conservative neighborhoods. It comes as no surprise that Democrats typically win by large margins in Philadelphia. Still, even in the city’s most conservative neighborhoods, many still vote for Democrats. Look no further than the 2014 gubernatorial election, when Gov. Tom Wolf won nearly every division in the city —a strong enough Democratic candidate has been shown to win even in the city’s most right-leaning divisions.
The 2020 presidential election results differed from prior races both presidential and non-presidential: though Democrats still won handily in Philadelphia, Republicans made unprecedented inroads into urban communities. In the days and weeks after the 2020 presidential election, Republican reductions of Democratic margins in strongly-Democratic urban neighborhoods were among the most significant shifts from 2016. In Philadelphia, this trend is most apparent in Eastern North Philadelphia, including Fairhill and Kensington, where a significant swath of the city dipped from >75%+D to 50-75% D in the 2020 election. While these are still very large margins for Democrats, they represent a significant change — and this data shows that this change is essentially unprecedented not only in presidential elections, but in any major elections of the past decade and a half.
The 2022 election will test whether the 2020 presidential election results signal a paradigm shift, or simply a one-time occurrence. If Republican gains in urban neighborhoods from 2020 hold or increase in 2022, a political shift may be occurring — potentially altering national and local campaigns for years to come. If Democrats return to large margins in urban neighborhoods, the 2020 election results may be considered a one-time fluke.

At the national level, the results of this test will signal what is to come in the 2024 presidential campaign. At the local level, these results will have implications for next spring’s mayoral race. A campaign in which Republicans continue to make inroads into urban communities could preview a mayoral campaign in which conservative approaches — including the “tough on crime” approach which brought Democratic New York City mayor Eric Adams to office in 2021 and is now being emulated by statewide Republican candidates — return to the agenda. Conversely, should the political tides swing back towards stronger Democratic showings, the 2023 mayoral campaign may look more like the 2021 Philadelphia District Attorney’s race, where progressive DA Larry Krasner won handily citywide against a “tough-on-crime” opponent.

Post-Election Update: 2022 senate and gubernatorial election data as of November 15 has now been added to the visualization above. Historically, the part in power tends to lose seats in midterm elections, so Democrats’ unexpectedly strong performance in the 2022 elections was widely noted. However, data tells a more complicated story regarding potential political shifts in parts of Philadelphia. While it appears that Democratic governor and senate candidates regained some ground in Eastern North Philadelphia neighborhoods compared to the party’s presidential performance in 2020, Democratic margins in these neighborhoods still appear smaller than they were in the 2018 races for the same offices. The shift away from Democrats compared to 2018 appears to have been much more pronounced in the Senate race than in the gubernatorial race. The Senate race was closer overall, and there were more complicating factors, as compared to the gubernatorial results. These results indicate that a modest political shift in some urban neighborhoods may be here to stay, at least in national elections; these trends will continue to be watched in future elections.

This post does not represent an endorsement by the firm or by the author for any particular candidate or party.

John LaVaccare | LaVaccare@econsultsolutions.com

John LaVaccare is an analyst at ESI. As a graduate of the Master’s in Public Policy and Management program at Carnegie Mellon University’s Heinz College, where he concentrated in Urban Development, John LaVaccare has academic knowledge in urban economic development, urban design, urban ecology, and real estate development. Prior to ESI, Mr. LaVaccare gained work experience in local government, housing policy, and stormwater management. Mr. LaVaccare also has extensive experience in academic communications research, journalism, and professional writing.

SEPTA Key Advantage Update: Institutional Pass Program Expansion

October 14, 2022 by Mike Daly

Earlier this month, SEPTA made a few big announcements about the new Key Advantage program.

If you haven’t yet learned about the new initiative that’s part of a broader strategy for an inclusive post-pandemic plan for the region, Key Advantage is SEPTA’s new institutional pass program. It allows institutions to purchase passes for all their eligible members at a fraction of the price of an all-access pass. The commitment to purchase passes for everyone helps an organization spread costs out across the entire population, significantly reducing per-person costs to less than $1 per day.

The program was first piloted with three major employers in the region: Penn Medicine, Drexel University, and Wawa stores. While the pilot helped uncover some challenges of the program, it was ultimately a huge success. In July, SEPTA opened the program up beyond the three pilot partners, making Key Advantage available to large corporations with 500 or more employees. FMC will soon be joining the program, offering their employees free transit starting in November.

Earlier this month, SEPTA lowered the threshold: now companies with 50 or more employees are eligible to sign up for Key Advantage. The timing of this rollout aligns nicely with Philadelphia’s new commuter benefits bill that goes into effect in January 2023. Employers with 50 employees or more will soon be required to offer some sort of transit benefit to their employees. While Key Advantage isn’t the only option to fulfill this requirement, it’s a great way for companies to help employees lower their commuting costs, support return-to-office plans, reduce parking demand, and improve sustainability efforts.

Along with the announcement to expand to program to more employers in the region, SEPTA announced the Key Advantage UPass: an all-access pass for college and university students. Structured much like the employer program, schools can purchase passes for all of their students, or can pass these costs along to students via a small transportation fee. Not only could these passes help students get to school and to jobs or internships, but also help encourage younger folks to explore Philadelphia. This could be a great opportunity to reduce brain drain in the region and keep more students in Philadelphia following graduation.

It’s an exciting time for SEPTA and for the institutions that are signing up for Key Advantage. The program will eventually expand to cover employers of all sizes, and also allow commercial and residential landlords to offer passes to their tenants.

In 2022, ESI assisted Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA) with research, development, and implementation of the Key Advantage program. In support of this program, ESI led a research effort into comparable programs in other regions such as Chicago, Pittsburgh and Seattle, analyzed potential pricing models, and provided strategic recommendations and support on implementation. ESI continues to support planning efforts to expand the availability of the SEPTA Key Advantage to additional organizations through the development of a permanent program structure and guidelines.

Tiffany Hudson | hudson@econsultsolutions.com

Tiffany Hudson is a senior analyst at ESI. Ms. Hudson provides expertise in economic development, marketing strategies, infrastructure planning, as well as business and government strategies. Her experience dates back to 2013 when she was a sales analyst and category manager for Kao, USA. Ms. Hudson has 8 years of professional experience in project management, data analysis, client management, spatial analysis, design thinking, and strategic planning.