The 21st Century Urban University: New Roles for Practice and Research

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The 21st Century Urban University: New Roles for Practice and Research
Judith Rodin. American Planning Association. Journal of the American Planning
Association. Chicago: Summer 2005.Vol. 71, Iss. 3; pg. 237, 13 pgs

Abstract (Document Summary)
The University of Pennsylvania has spent the last decade investing heavily in its neighborhood, University City, a disadvantaged community suffering population decline, property neglect and abandonment, and sporadic gentrification. Informed by contemporary urban planning theory, it crafted a five-pronged approach, known as the West Philadelphia Initiatives (WPI), that has had significant results in neighborhood revitalization.

Following the success in the implementation of the WPI, the university created the Penn Institute for Urban Research, which seeks to blend practice and theory in urban-focused research that identifies and examines critical questions for the future. This essay outlines the evolution of the University of Pennsylvania's urban initiatives in the past decade.

[PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]
Full Text (8452 words)
Copyright American Planning Association Summer 2005

[Headnote]
The University of Pennsylvania has spent the last decade investing heavily in its neighborhood, University City, a disadvantaged community suffering population decline, property neglect and abandonment, and sporadic gentrification. Informed by contemporary urban planning theory, it crafted a five-pronged approach, known as the West Philadelphia Initiatives (WPI), that has had significant results in neighborhood revitalization. Following the success in the implementation of the WPI, the university created the Penn Institute for Urban Research, which seeks to blend practice and theory in urban-focused research that identifies and examines critical questions for the future. This essay outlines the evolution of the University of Pennsylvania's urban initiatives in the past decade.

In every one of the 20 largest cities in the United States, an institution of higher education or a medical center is among the top private employers. Moreover, more than half the nation's colleges and universities are located in cities. I believe that these knowledge-generating entities not only have the capacity but also the responsibility to take on roles of civic leadership in powerful and groundbreaking ways. Many such institutions are already helping to rebuild community assets in their cities, including the University of Southern California (Los Angeles); Yale University (New Haven, Connecticut); Trinity College (Hartford, Connecticut);
Georgia State University (Atlanta); University of Illinois, Chicago; and others. The University of
Pennsylvania's experience in Philadelphia provides an important case study for such university-based transformation initiatives.

Penn's case is notable not only for the ambitious scale and breadth of its neighborhood development initiatives but also for its linkage of this work to the creation of a university-wide
institute dedicated to developing an urban-focused scholarly agenda.

As Penn's president during this period of institutional redefinition, I saw first-hand the value of reconnecting with cities and communities. I watched as Penn's engagement with its neighbors had a regenerating effect on both the neighborhood and the university, which in turn energized the search for new ways to bring knowledge and experience to bear on urban problems locally and beyond. This article explores the first part of the program, neighborhood transformation efforts, and touches lightly on the second, the urban research institute. However, before moving to this discussion, I will put Penn's activities in context.

Penn and the Community: Historic View1
The University of Pennsylvania, founded in 1749 by Benjamin Franklin, is located in an inner-city neighborhood in West Philadelphia known as University City. It houses 12 schools in 151 buildings on a 269-acre campus that is edged by residential neighborhoods to the north, west, and south, and open industrial spaces to the east. It has 23,243 students, including 9,917 full-time undergraduates in four schools, 8,996 full-time graduate and professional students, and over 4,000 part-time students; there are 2,440 full-time faculty. With more than 24,000 employees at the university and Penn Medicine, Penn is the largest private employer in the City of Philadelphia. The university's operating budget for FY 2005 is more than $4 billion.

The majority of its budget comes from private sources including tuition and endowment income.
Like many older urban universities, Penn outgrew its first central city site, prompting its relocation in 1871. In developing its new campus, Penn relished its urban location along an active transit corridor. It knit its buildings into the area's gridded streets. Students, faculty, and local citizens shared the sidewalks and burgeoning retail establishments. However, the Depression and World War II brought campus development to a halt. In the postwar period, Penn trustees engaged in a major planning effort, yielding a 1948 university plan aiming to make Penn a pedestrian-oriented "community of scholars residing in and around a campus closed off to vehicular traffic" (Cohen, 1998, p. 31). (These ideas had emanated from national campus design
ideas of the mid-zoth century, based on European medieval ideals exemplified by Oxford and Cambridge of segregating communities of scholars from the outside world.) In the next three decades, Penn transformed its environs in accordance with the plan. It worked with the city to de-map as many campus-crossing streets as 10/03/2005 03:32 PM Archives: Journal of the American Planning Association Page 2 of 10 http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/planning/869723401.html?MAC=65b15322�Century+Urban+University%3A+New+Roles+for+Practice+and+Research

possible. It also embarked on a series of multimillion dollar construction projects orienting new buildings toward a newly formed commons. The resulting ring enclosed the perimeter, fostering a fortress-like appearance to passersby while providing the desired academic sanctuary for the faculty and students within.

Despite these neighborhood-unfriendly design policies, Penn's administration was keenly conscious of the university's position as an urban institution. Its president of the time, Gaylord Harnwell, sought opportunities to define Penn's special role in the neighborhood and the city at large. He was not alone in this concern, as evidenced by an unusual 1957 meeting and ongoing communications among the presidents of MIT, University of Chicago, Columbia, Harvard, Yale, and Penn that focused on how universities could ameliorate their respective urban environments (Cohen, 1998). These institutions developed a number of strategies, including participation in urban renewal programs whose federal legislation by the late 19505 qualified them for funding.

Yale, for example, became a national model for its involvement in downtown and residential redevelopment efforts in New Haven (Dahl, 1961; Powledge, 1970). As a contemporary participant later observed, "In general, people were welcoming the efforts of the federal government and the city to try and go in and clean up the slums. And there was enormous support for it from the city government at the time" (Cohen, 1998, p. 59).

In West Philadelphia, along with the other major institutions in the area (Drexel, Philadelphia College of Pharmacy, Presbyterian Hospital, Philadelphia College of Osteopathy), Penn also became an active participant in urban programs, work that combined social, economic, and physical activities (Cohen, 1998).

In the social arena, for example, Penn created a Center for Human Resources to work with neighborhood youth and schools. (Ultimately, this work evolved into today's Center for Community Partnerships, headed by Associate Vice President Ira Harkavy.) In the economic aspects, Penn helped create the West Philadelphia Corporation (WPC) that founded the nation's first inner-city technology park, the University City Science Center, to provide incubator space for emerging industries. In the physical area, all the institutions took advantage of the available redevelopment programs. For Penn, this meant work at the eastern and western ends of the campus yielding new dormitories and academic buildings designed according to the principles of
the day. These projects incorporated mandated relocation programs but, nonetheless, dispersed nearby lowincome residents, notably in the "Black Bottom" neighborhood, about which I will write more below.

Firmly grounded urban theories ranging from economics to design informed this process (Lowe, 1967; Tiebout, 1952). For example, economists joined housing reformers in calling for the decongestion of urban neighborhoods (Bauer, 1934; Colean, 1953). Architects united with real estate developers to oversee slum clearance and large-scale redevelopment incorporating so-called "Towers in the Park" and excellent transportation connections in the reconstructed areas (Abrams, 1946; Le Corbusier, 1935). Others posited that curbing obsolescence held the key to future economic strength (Jacobs, 1958; Woodbury & Bauer, 1953). Still others sagely predicted the importance of universities and health systems for the emerging service economies in the nation's former industrial cities (Lowe, 1967). While these campus planning and urban renewal programs contributed to Penn's ability to pursue its instructional and research mission and
enhanced the surrounding West Philadelphia area, they lost momentum in the 19705 and onward.

Furthermore, citing the expense and dislocation problems of urban renewal, urban theorists disavowed the approach (Anderson, 1965; Gans, 1962; Jacobs, 1961). Large-scale redevelopment programs fell out of favor at the national level. Penn turned its interests elsewhere.

Unfortunately, population decline and neighborhood deterioration began in the 19505, accelerated in the ensuing decades, and continued to the present. Philadelphia's population fell 23% from 2 million in 1960 to 1.5 million in 2000. In University City the story was no different. In the same period, it lost 20% of its population, so that in 2000 it had 46,500 residents, down from 56,600 in 1960 (Kromer & Kerman, 2004).

Like many other urban academic institutions, Penn had not made the upgrading of the surrounding neighborhoods a significant institutional priority in the 19805. Despite community outreach efforts such as the Penn Program for Public Service and the university's participation in the West Philadelphia Partnership, the renamed West Philadelphia Corporation, Penn's commitment did not involve major funding from the university's operating budget or participation by the university trustees and senior administrators. Moreover, as mentioned earlier, many of the university's investment and development decisions over the decades had
created new barriers between Penn and the adjacent communities.

By 1994 when I assumed the presidency of Penn, violent crime in West Philadelphia had grown
exponentially, reaching crisis proportions when a graduate student was murdered close to the campus. The main commercial thoroughfare bordering the north side of Penn's campus had more surface parking lots than shops, and a depressed and desolate commercial corridor on the western edge of campus had become an invisible boundary beyond which Penn students and faculty dared not venture. In the immediate surrounds of Penn, 35% of the residents lived below the poverty level and 1,450 properties were vacant (of these more than 350 were boarded up). Most (81%) households rented, with the annual median contract rent ranging from $2,568 ($214/month) to $5,868 ($489/month), while the median household income was $8,800 at the
low end of the range and $23,200 at the high end, well below the figures for the metropolitan area ($47,536) and city ($30,746; U.S. Census Bureau, 1990).

The public schools of West Philadelphia were in especially bad shape. Not only were they overcrowded and antiquated but also three elementary schools located there ranked at the bottom in state-administered math and reading tests.

The Case for Change and Setting the Course of Action By 1994, the worsening condition of University City neighborhoods and the lingering community resentment caused by Penn's past expansion projects raised important questions for the university: Should it take action
to improve neighborhood conditions? How could it reduce the isolation of the campus from the community by creating a public environment with broad appeal and a welcoming presence to all? Making decisions about the extent of an institution's participation in leading, managing, or allocating staff or funding resources to support a neighborhood initiative is especially challenging for urban institutions with core missions not directly related to that initiative. Resources are fungible, and there are always many compelling academic needs unfulfilled or underfunded.

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During the early months of my presidency, however, I concluded that for Penn to flourish academically, our neighborhood had to flourish as well. Moreover, I felt strongly that we had to set an example of integrity for our students. The state of the neighborhood was our business. How could we educate and encourage our students to contribute to society if we did not offer them an institutional example of positive civic engagement? If Penn could make discoveries that saved lives and drove the global economy, then surely we had both the capacity and moral obligation to use our intellectual might to make things right at our doorstep.

The Thinking Behind Penn's Program
When we began our efforts, now known as the West Philadelphia Initiatives (WPI), the prevailing mantra of community development was "Work from the grass roots up." Government entities or institutions-in this case, Penn-should write the checks and distribute resources to nonprofit community development corporations (CDCs), which would take the lead in rebuilding capacity into the neighborhood. Yet stark realities in our environment made us reconsider this approach. First, no CDC in West Philadelphia had the full capacity or the track record for turning distressed neighborhoods around. Second, we did not have the luxury of time. It was clear that if Penn did not seize the initiative and develop both pubic and private partnerships to revitalize
the neighborhood at that time, no one else would.

After deciding to act, we turned to urban theory to forge an aggressive, ambitious community development agenda to rebuild West Philadelphia's social and economic capacity. For example, we relied on the urban planning canon, evolving in response to earlier efforts, that reliance on a single approach such as physical redevelopment or social programming simply would not work. We also recognized that we had to employ both short-term and long-term strategies. Above all, we subscribed to Jane Jacob's (1961) "eyes on the street" and "organized chaos" prescriptions. While West Philadelphia was not Greenwich Village, it was definitely a city neighborhood with "good bones" that needed more flesh.

For our short-term strategy, we sought to have a demonstrable effect on the neighborhood's appearance, especially in the streets. We immediately addressed issues of sanitation and safety. Here, we took our lead from two streams of thought: the "broken windows" syndrome (Wilson & Kelling, 1982), addressing small crimes fast, and the burgeoning business improvement district movement (Houstoun, 2003; Hoyt, 2001), capturing landowner funds to supplement municipal services for community policing, sanitation, and place marketing.

Our long-term strategy took shape through blending basic economic development strategies with urban revitalization theories addressing demographic and economic issues. On the economic side, we knew that we needed to bring money into the neighborhood by bolstering what some economists label "basic industries" and to circulate that money in the neighborhood through "non-basic industries" (Blumenfeld, 1955; Klosterman, 1990; Tiebout, 1956). We also knew that as a resident of our neighborhood, Penn had extraordinary buying power that was going elsewhere for lack of opportunities (Porter, 1995).

Furthermore, we were aware that the surrounding neighborhood had many residents who fell into what William Julius Wilson has characterized as the "truly disadvantaged," with concomitant issues of unemployment, poor education, and lack of role models, as well as others who were pioneer gentrifiers with their own set of demands and values (Berry, 1985; Wilson, 1987). From our own urban experts and others, we knew we should craft a strategic program that would protect neighborhood diversity while bolstering its strengths (Garvin, 2002). And we closely followed (and continued to monitor) new discussions about gentrification and equitable development (Freeman, 2005; Freeman & Braconi, 2004; Vigdor, 2002; Wyly & Hammel, 1999).

With regard to neighborhood revitalization, we took instruction from many experts. They included David Varady and Jeffrey Raffel (1995), who argued that dealing with schools and crime along with housing rehabilitation and increased homeownership are keys to restoring declining neighborhoods. We also followed Charles Tiebout (1952) and his many disciples who had hypothesized that services -not just housing costswere determinants in residential location. In addition, as we scanned the area, we realized that we had to define a specific district in which we could act effectively-we could not restore all of West Philadelphia (Jones, 1990). This was especially important because we believed it was critical to intervene in all five areas described below, simultaneously. While we focused on different tasks (ranging from safety and sanitation to education and housing renewal), each one had its own target area.

Nonetheless, we had to make a decision about the overall bounds. So we set University City, a 2-squaremile area, as our neighborhood.

The Strategy
Once we had chosen our target area, we realized that we had to be strategic with our nvestments because we had limited discretionary resources. In developing our housing policy for abandoned properties, for example, we based our actions on the hypothesis that improving one or two abandoned buildings on an otherwise sound block would stem decay, an idea since proved correct (Mallach, 2004). By 1996, we had developed a five-pronged strategy for the West Philadelphia Initiatives:
1. Making the neighborhood clean, safe, and attractive, with a variety of new interventions.
2. Stimulating the housing market.
3. Encouraging retail development by attracting new shops, restaurants, and cultural venues that were neighborhood friendly.
4. Spurring economic development by directing university contracts and purchases to local businesses.
5. Improving the public schools.

In order to take on these WPI challenges, we had to be as clear about what we were not going to do as about what was possible. These commitments were threefold:
* We would never again expand our campus to the west or to the north into residential neighborhoods. We would expand only to our east, which was made up entirely of abandoned buildings and commercial real estate.

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* We would not act unilaterally. Instead, we would candidly discuss what we could do with the community, and we would operate with transparency.
* We would not promise long-term financial assistance. Instead, we would invest heavily in the short term to leverage these investments by stimulating major longer-term investments by the private and public sectors.

Developing and Implementing the West Philadelphia Initiatives
Given our ambitions, the current state of the community and its limited capacity, and the stakes for the university and its students, we led the WPI by broadly delegating responsibility across the university. From the beginning, my senior leadership team and I worked closely with Penn's Board of Trustees to develop and oversee the Initiatives. We embedded them in our first 5-year strategic plan, "Agenda for Excellence, (1994-1999)." We reiterated them in our second 5-year strategic plan, "Building on Excellence (2000-2005)." And happily, when the trustees searched for my successor, they made commitment to the WPI a criterion for selection. Newly appointed president Amy Gutmann began her administration by stating her commitment to the West Philadelphia Initiatives (Gutmann, 2004).

Figure 1. The location of University City in Philadelphia, and of the Penn campus (PENN), the neighborhood school district (PAS), and the boundaries of the enhanced mortgage program (EMP I and EMP II).

To provide for ongoing oversight as the Initiatives were implemented, the trustees formed a standing Committee on Neighborhood Initiatives, equal in status to the Board's existing committees on finance, development, and other priorities. A steering committee of Penn senior administrators reports to this committee three times a year. The formation of the trustees' committee and the reporting process underscored Penn's commitment to engage university leadership at the highest levels in the management of the Initiatives.

Notably, in Grafting the program, the trustees and I made the Initiatives a top-priority university policy that widely engaged the whole institution. Rather than consolidating responsibility for the Initiatives within a single office or appointing an administrator to take charge of these activities, I delegated responsibility and authority across the university's major administrative departments as part of a broad, decentralized reorientation of Penn to this new priority. And while the WPI was firmly the responsibility of several administrative units,
many of these units turned to our academic arms for supplementary information and help. The partnership with expert and committed faculty was an important component of our overall success. For example, the Graduate School of Education is playing a key role in the community school efforts, the Cartographic Modeling Lab has supplied mapping and other analysis, and the Department of City and Regional Planning has undertaken studios on difficult sevelopment/ planning issues, one of which won the 2003 Pennsylvania Planning Association "Best Student Project" prize.

The decision to locate leadership and management responsibility for the WPI within Penn's administration ensured greater access to investment capital and strengthened Penn's ability to respond quickly and reliably to emerging opportunities. In addition, university leadership increased its communication with diverse neighborhood constituencies, improving opportunities for long-term collaboration and, through Penn's participation in business partnerships, the university leveraged substantial investment capital to support neighborhood improvement activities.

Penn established policies for starting and maintaining dialogue and information sharing about the Initiatives with constituencies that needed to be involved during every stage of planning and implementation. Although the Initiatives were not a government-funded program, review of plans and responsiveness to questions and concerns raised by government officials were essential. The city's chief of planning and head of its licensing and inspections division were important partners. In addition, we broadly consulted community members. For
example, the university's Office of City and Community Relations instituted a monthly "First Thursday" meeting with representatives of neighborhood organizations and civic groups to provide information about current plans and activities and to hear and respond to community concerns. The university administration also scheduled update meetings to provide information to and receive feedback from individual civic associations, nonprofit organizations, neighborhood groups, and area-wide coalitions (such as the West Philadelphia Partnership), as well as with interested citywide organizations (such as the NAACP, the Urban League, and the Black Clergy of Philadelphia and Vicinity).

Open community meetings and planning processes were also integral to the development of the Initiatives and were organized as needed in response to specific situations (Kromer & Kerman, 2004). Penn Praxis, a faculty-led consulting practice, also played a critical role in leading community-based stakeholder conversations.

Figure 2. Flow chart of accountability for the West Philadelphia Initiatives.

The WPI and their Results2
The West Philadelphia Initiatives began in 1996 and continue today. We rolled out the projects strategically and systematically. Some, such as the safety efforts, had immediate visibility; others, such as the housing and retail strategies, took a longer time to have an effect. Finally, others such as the economic inclusion program evolved through community participation and increasing experience among the participants.

Making the Neighborhood Clean, Safe, and Attractive To promote clean and safe streets and public areas in neighborhoods adjacent to Penn, the university founded and provided primary financial support for a new special services district, and expanded Penn's public safety operations, while launching block improvement programs that included sidewalks, lighting, and
landscaping.

In 1997, we led the creation of the University City special services district (UCD) with 10 other
institutions. Annual voluntary contributions of $5.2 million from the institutions and landlords in the 2.2-square-mile area finance both safety ambassadors, who walk the streets and support campus and city

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police, and trash collectors, who supplement city sanitation units and help remove graffiti. These were welfareto-work participants, thus contributing to another social action goal. The UCD also has a strong marketing and retail support program. Among its staff are commercial corridor managers who work with local CDCs and others to improve two key neighborhood-serving commercial spines, Lancaster and Baltimore Avenues.

Additional WPI actions aimed at increasing the safety and attractiveness of the area included strengthening and moving Penn's Division of Public Safety and supporting lighting and greening programs. We hired more police officers-increasing the total by 20%-invested in state-ofthe-art communications technology, and opened a new police station further west beyond campus, locating it near the combined Philadelphia police precinct substation and the special services district, signaling Penn's commitment to the safety of our neighbors as well as of our students. We worked with neighborhood residents, the electricians' union, and the local electric company to install fixtures to uniformly light the sidewalks of 1,200 neighborhood properties.

Not only did these efforts create a brighter and cleaner neighborhood, which attracted more and more foot traffic, but by requiring whole blocks rather than individual homeowners to commit, we encouraged a revival of community associations, block by block. This, in turn, led to greening projects-such as the planting of 450 trees and 10,000 spring bulbs, and the creation of four public and three children's gardens-which set the stage for the dramatic transformation of Clark Park from a dangerous, drug-infested space into a thriving recreational venue for children and the locale for a weekly farmers' market.

Stimulating the Housing Market
Along with making University City cleaner and safer, Penn created a multifaceted housing strategy that had a huge initial impact on the area's housing, especially with regard to homeownership. (In the early 19905, University City had a homeownership rate [22%] that was only one third as high as the city's overall rate of 62%.) We began by acquiring 20 abandoned properties in strategic spots throughout the neighborhood, renovating them, and selling them to the public. Figure 3 provides examples of this work. We were not seeking a profit on these homes, and we planned and funded a financial loss in this area, recognizing that early in the program we had to serve as both housing developer and source of housing subsidy. This early
intervention had the intended effect of stimulating and restoring confidence in the real estate market in University City. We were seeking to build capacity by stabilizing blocks and promoting homeownership.

We stepped up our efforts to encourage more Penn affiliates to move into the neighborhood by redirecting Penn's Guaranteed Mortgage Program (GMP) and creating an Enhanced Mortgage Program (EMP) and other homeownership initiatives. The GMP provided 120% university guarantee of mortgages, while the EMP offered a $15,000 forgivable loan for associated costs. By 2004, the GMP and EMP leveraged $48.57 million in private lender mortgages, enabling 386 Penn-affiliated households, ranging from mechanics and lab technicians to professors and senior administrators, to acquire homes. Of these loans, 70% were less than $150,000, 40% were under $100,000, and the average was $120,489. For existing homeowners, we also
sponsored a Home Improvement Program extending interest-free loans for exterior improvements, with the loans to be forgiven at 20% annually over a 5-year period, provided the borrower maintained the home as a primary residence. This program served 146 households, leveraging almost $1.1 million in matching debt and equity financing for home repairs and modernization during the same period.

Through the capitalization of a new fund and the assignment of university personnel to develop and manage targeted rental properties, Penn also further improved the availability, affordability, and quality of rental housing in University City. Our objectives here were to arrest landlord neglect of strategically located apartment buildings and to strengthen the rental market, particularly at the lower to middle end. Between 1999 and 2001, in conjunction with Fannie Mae and other investors, we acquired and renovated more than 200 substandard units, most of whose tenants are moderate-income neighborhood households, some of whom are the original "Black Bottom" residents now firmly rerouted in the neighborhood.

Encouraging Retail Development
To make the neighborhood more attractive to residents, students, and visitors alike, we needed to provide retail and cultural amenities. Through market studies we determined that our trade area could support an additional 400,000 square feet of retail-apparel, groceries, dining, and entertainment. We estimated that neighborhood residents and visitors would supply two thirds of the demand and students, one third. Three urban design principles guided our planning. First, we would use university resources (funds and staff) as a catalyst by providing two major retail anchors, aiming to attract private investment. Second, we would design the retail to complement and reinforce (not overwhelm) its physical location. Third, we would integrate public
space with retail in order to enliven the street and provide opportunities for the different constituencies to mingle-this idea was drawn directly from Frederick Law Olmsted.
[Photograph]
Figure 3. Renovated houses in University City.

Providing two retail anchors was the centerpiece of this part of Penn's strategy. As seen in Figure 4, along one largely deserted stretch on Walnut Street, we built a 300,000-square-foot project, Sansom Common, which included a luxury hotel, a beautiful new Penn bookstore, public plazas, and a raft of stores and restaurants. At the periphery of the campus at 40th and Walnut, we bought out leases to make way for a 75,000-square-foot project that provided two critical amenities that we gambled would breathe new life into 40th street: a movie theater and a full-sized grocery store. We assumed all of the risks and encountered our share of obstacles.
While Sansom Common developed smoothly, the 40th Street project did not. For example, our original plan for the movie theater/jazz club/coffee house, a joint venture with Sundance Cinemas executed in 1998, floundered when Sundance's parent company, General Cinema, filed for bankruptcy in 2000. We were left with a hole in the ground. Rather than abandon the project, we redesigned it and scrambled to find other partners. Ultimately, National Amusements took over the theater, renamed the Bridge Cinema de Luxe.

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Opened in 2002, it now has an annual audience of 500,000. Completing the rest of the project took a little longer, but by fall of 2004 we had secured an associated restaurant, Marathon Grill, to fill out the space with a caf�, restaurant, and nightclub.

The grocery store was another difficult challenge. As we conceived the project, we envisioned working with a national chain, but we had no takers due to the risks perceived to be associated with the University City neighborhood. We finally struck a deal with a local purveyor, FreshGrocer. Today, that store, open 24 hours, seven days a week, has among the highest per-square-foot revenues of any grocery store in the City of Philadelphia due to its 30,000 weekly customers.

Despite the initial difficulties, 40th Street has come alive. Scores of new shops that run the gamut are opening there. And a commercial corridor given up for dead now bustles with art galleries, performance spaces, and an international restaurant row that reflects the dynamic cultural diversity of University City. An additional project, the Rotunda, a nighborhood/ university cultural center conceived of by urban studies and city planning students, is in the process of development. Thousands of people-from the Penn community, from the neighborhood, from all over the region-are flocking to shops, restaurants, and cultural venues that came into being as a direct result of Penn's decision to redevelop a dying commercial core into a thriving, productive asset. Having large crowds on the streets has made the neighborhood safer and much more exciting. It has been a shot in the arm for the local economy. And, finally, it has made University City very attractive to private developers.

Penn's $150 million investment in Sansom Common and 40th Street did prove catalytic, attracting approximately $370 million of private investments to West Philadelphia. Now, we have partners like developer Carl Dranoff, who invested $55 million to convert a former 700,000 squarefoot industrial warehouse into the Left Bank, a mixed-use complex featuring 282 market-rate apartments, new shops and restaurants, a child day-care facility, and brilliantly redesigned office space. The Left Bank is a perfect model of creative reuse of
historic, fallow properties that can transform a neighborhood, and Dranoff Properties is now one of two lead partners (Forest City Ratner is the other) in redeveloping two contiguous buildings.
[Photograph]
Figure 4. Examples of new retail development: a cafe (left) and the full-scale grocery store (right).

Spurring Economic Development by Directing University Contracts and Purchasing
The West Philadelphia Initiatives not only focused on strengthening housing and amenities, but also aimed to contribute sustainable economic capacity back into University City by providing new opportunities for local businesses and job growth among neighborhood residents. Planning an economic inclusion policy involved a good deal of community outreach and participation as we sought to target our buying power in construction contracts and purchasing. In fashioning our program, we worked with the Greater Philadelphia Urban Affairs Coalition (GPUAC), a diversity consultant. First, we formed an Advisory Committee on Economic Inclusion, chaired by Penn's vice president of business services and our director of community relations, and having
community leaders, clergy, elected officials, contractors, and representatives of university operating departments as members. Next, we developed and implemented an Economic Opportunity Plan, with provisions that applied to all university construction projects of $5 million or more. It set goals for minorityand women-owned business participation and established a monitoring system. Finally, we put together a number of technical assistance measures, including compiling a directory of minority- and women-owned businesses, supporting pre-apprentice training programs, and facilitating partnerships between large
contractors and smaller minority- and women-owned enterprises.

In purchasing, we directed that major Penn suppliers of recurring items such as office supplies and hospital laundry services either use local businesses (in the eight census tracts surrounding the university) or, failing that, locate branches or warehouses in West Philadelphia and hire minority and community residents for associated employment. To assist in the implementation of this mandate, Penn created four special staff positions-purchasing specialists-with jurisdiction in specified categories (computing commodities, athletic and related services, research products and facilities, and office supplies) and charged with providing instruction and guidance to new vendors in negotiating the university's procurement procedures. We also started a Supplier Mentoring Program, working with Wharton's Small Business Development Program, to help with business operations, publicity, and other arrangements.

In conjunction with the opening of the hospitality and retail facilities, Penn adopted a conscious policy of favoring neighborhood residents for jobs in these operations. Again, to turn this objective into a reality, we supported training programs in these areas.

The economic inclusion program has had and will continue to have substantial results. Between 1996 and 2004, minority- and women-owned businesses have captured 24% ($134 million) of Penn's $550 million construction projects, including ongoing academic, research, and health facilities, as well as WPI initiatives.

Furthermore, in this period, Penn has spent $344.1 million on goods and services in West Philadelphia. (In 2003, our local purchases amounted to $61.6 million compared to $20.1 million in 1996). Finally, 3,000 or approximately one of seven current Penn employees live in West Philadelphia. And local residents have filled more than half the jobs created through the WPI retail initiatives.

All told, the WPI interventions have been quite effective in revitalizing the neighborhood. Over
a-year period, crime has fallen 31%. Our development of 375,000 square feet of retail has stimulated more than 150,000 square feet of new retail inventory, with 25 new stores opening over the past 4 years, and the commercial corridor managers of the University City special services districts have fostered the opening of additional new stores and raised $350,000 for small business assistance. We have encouraged the creation of hundreds of new jobs for local residents. Thanks to a partnership with Citizens' Bank, more than $28 million has been made available to local nonprofit community development groups, for-profit developers, small businesses, and homeowners.

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Perhaps the most intriguing statistic of all is the population change. While Philadelphia as a whole has seen its population decline by 4.5% over the past 5 years, University City has seen an increase of 2.1%. That may not be a staggering number by itself, but considering the alarming condition of this neighborhood a decade ago, that figure puts an exclamation point on our revitalization efforts.

Improving the Public Schools
To make the neighborhood a place where families would sink roots, we had to improve public education, and as we considered our approach, the university and a large number of stakeholders agreed that we needed to build an inclusive neighborhood public school. We also realized that for this public school to succeed, it had to involve the school district, the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, and Penn in a true partnership.

We worked on this project for 3 years-one to reach the three-way agreement, another to come up with a design and plan for the school, and a final one to address the fears and concerns of residents, some of whom were suspicious of our motives, and others who didn't want to be left out in the cold. In the tripartite agreement, Penn made substantial financial and staff commitments. It provided a ground lease for the site at a nominal cost, made available a subsidy fund of $1,000 per student (up to $700,000 a year) for 10 years, and provided the expertise of our Graduate School of Education (GSE). The City of Philadelphia supplied the capital funds for the school's construction and worked with GSE to hire the principal and teachers. The union, the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, agreed to relax rules regarding class size and other matters, giving a "Demonstration School" designation to the school.

We faced many complex issues in developing this agreement. One difficult and protracted discussion revolved around the nature of the school: magnet vs. neighborhood. We successfully argued for a K-8 neighborhood school, seeing it as an important element of sustaining the area's revitalization. This decision led to deep discontent on the part of parents living just outside our school's boundaries. In response, we undertook financial and pedagogic support for a nearby elementary school while continuing significant work already underway in other schools in the area.3 Ultimately, with the leadership of the GSE, we created a public school near Penn's campus for up to 700 neighborhood children (see Figure 5). In addition to its educational mission, it is strengthening the city's existing neighborhood schools by providing professional
development and serving as a source of best practices. Also, by linking the school to ongoing neighborhood revitalization, the school is evolving into a community center that offers many vocational, recreational, and adult education programs; cultural events; and a town hall where the community can come together to explore and debate issues and visions of the future.
Lessons Learned

All the markers of success are now beginning to show in University City as described above. In addition, public/private partnerships have taken hold. The West Philadelphia Initiatives are winning national and international recognition for design, creative land use, and economic impact.4 And far from robbing the university's academic future to pay for this progress, our engagement has played a critical role in enhancing Penn's academic reputation.5
Making the Link from Practice to Theory But that is not the end of the story, as the engagement with West Philadelphia stimulated a further question:
What impact can the lessons of the West Philadelphia Initiatives have on the university's academic agenda?

While remaining fully committed to contributing to a robust, healthy future for our neighborhood, Penn has recently devoted significant resources toward its research and practice related to urbanism in founding the University of Pennsylvania Institute for Urban Research (Penn IUR). This initiative exemplifies our belief that the university's identity and academic mission are deeply linked to the future of cities. We believe that we must now reflect on how the WPI efforts and, more generally how our commitment to our city, translate into a meaningful research and instructional agenda with broad application.

Just as we worked with our neighbors to transform West Philadelphia, through this institute we hope to form creative partnerships among our faculty and with others including urban planners, government officials, foundation leaders, urban developers, and concerned citizens who are looking to transform their cities. From our West Philadelphia Initiatives, we have seen first hand that by their very complex nature and scale, cities pose great challenges to researchers, activists, and policymakers. Meeting these challenges requires an integrative approach that merges the social and physical sciences with engineering, urban and regional planning, and architecture. It requires a broad perspective that engages the biomedical sciences and the
humanities, as well as the professions of law, education, business, social work, and communications. And it must rely on new technologies in communications, geographical information systems, and computer modeling to capture and understand the complexity that has thwarted so many previous efforts at improving urban life.

Finally, we knew that we should draw on Penn's long and continuing record in contributing to the scholarly dialogue about urban issues.

6 As it draws from all parts of the university, the Penn IUR is focusing on three areas: understanding and advancing knowledge about successful city-building processes, including equitable development; exploring urban growth patterns, concentrating on how economic, demographic, and spatial transformation have resulted in urban forms unprecedented in history; and supporting new modes of urban spatial analysis employing information technology. Central to this mission is the application of research to public policy, including the development of innovative strategies for placing research-based knowledge in the public arena and for promoting civic engagement.7 Penn IUR is also working with other urban-focused university
operations. These include Ira Harkavy's Center for Community Partnerships, which sponsors more than 130 academic service-learning classes bringing Penn and neighborhood (K-12) students together around topics of health, community planning, and computer technology; the HUD-sponsored Center for Affordable Housing, which is engaged in developing innovative, low-cost housing; and the Center for Community Urban Revitalization Excellence (CUREx), whose program is training the next generation of urban community planners/developers.

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[Photograph]

Figure 5. The Sadie Alexander public school (top) in University City and some of its students (bottom).

Penn is putting resources into forming an urban institute because urbanism is now at the core of our institutional self-image, based on our experience in West Philadelphia and the commitment and expertise of our outstanding faculty. And because cities are where the action is-and will be for the foreseeable future.

Within the next 5 years, half the world's population will live in cities. By 2030 the urban population will reach 4.9 billion-60% of the world's population. Many of the world's problems-inadequate housing, rising infant mortality, income inequality, poor nutrition, illiteracy, crime, not to mention racial, ethnic, and religious tensions-will clearly manifest themselves with greater frequency and intensity in cities. By addressing these problems creatively now, Penn and other likeminded universities can help shape the future of urbanism and promote the future viability and vitality of cities.

Acknowledgments
The author wishes to thank John Kromer and Lucy Kerman for aggregating the data and evaluating the WPI, and Eugenie L. Birch for assistance in preparing this article.
[Footnote]

Notes
1. Except where otherwise noted, all statistics related to the University of Pennsylvania and University City come from personal communications with Lucy Kerman, Office of the President, University of Pennsylvania.

2. For a detailed description of the specific initiatives and an evaluation of their quantitative and qualitative outcomes, see Kromer and Kerman (2.004).

3. Later, with the widely publicized collapse and state takeover of the Philadelphia school system, the GSE responded positively to a School Reform Commission solicitation to advise on the management of an additional group of elementary and middle schools in the system.

4. We were especially proud that the initiatives received the prestigious Urban Land Institute's 2003 Award for Excellence.

5. All the markers of academic success-our rankings, faculty awards, student applications, selectivity, growth in endowment-have soared to record levels.

6. For example, Paul Davidoff, the father of advocacy planning, developed his revolutionary approach working with Thomas Reiner while they were Penn faculty members (Davidoff, 1965; Davidoff & Reiner, 1962); Herbert Cans, who earned his PhD in city planning at Penn, began the research that became the landmark book Urban Villagers (1962) while in Philadelphia; Martin Meyerson (1956) authored the classic piece "Building a Middle-Range Bridge to Comprehensive Planning," drawn, in part, on his experiences in the City of Brotherly Love; Chester Rapkin and William G. Grigsby (1960) used Philadelphia as a model to develop breakthrough housing analysis; Britton Harris (1967) worked on models born of his work in the regional transportation programs; and Ian McHarg (1969) added an environmental dimension to land use planning based on his work in the region. In some cases, these scholars were reacting to work in West
Philadelphia that the university was engaged in.

Currently, Penn faculty who have recently published important urban-focused research, including Elijah Anderson (1999), Michael Katz (1996), Thomas Sugrue (1996), Katherine Edin (1997), Wendell Pritchett (2002), Susan Wachter (Calem et al., 2004), Joseph Gyourko (Gyourko & Saiz, 2004), Lynne Sagalyn (2001), Bob Yaro (Yaro & Hiss, 1996), Tom Daniels (Daniels & Daniels, 2003), Seymour Mandelbaum (2000), Jonathan Barnett (2003), Gary Hack (Simmonds & Hack, 2001), Genie Birch (2005), and others are continuing in this tradition.

7. In the past 6 months, the Penn IUR has launched several programs to pursue these aims. It has sponsored public interest forums attended by the community at large, tackling such issues as globalization and its effects on cities and contemporary challenges in public education, safety, and municipal finance. In spring 2004, two large faculty groups began i8-month seminars. One with participants from history, social work, and education is focusing on immigration and population change in urban areas. The other is assembling scholars-people who have never worked together before-from education, health, and social welfare to develop new applications of spatial analysis in their work. Also, this past spring, 15 undergraduates and their faculty mentors participated in a semester-long seminar exploring the substance and methods of urban research projects, several of which looked at West Philadelphia issues. Finally, in conjunction with the School of Design's Penn Praxis and the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Penn IUR began a
several-month citizen participation project designed to evoke development principles for the city's planned $1 billion investment in new high schools in the next 10 years. Fall 2005 sees the beginning of the Penn IURinitiated Master of Urban Spatial Analysis, a degree program that will train professionals from a wide variety of fields from planning, health, business, criminology, social work, education, and other disciplines.
[Reference]

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[Author Affiliation]
Judith Rodin is president of the Rockefeller Foundation. She served as president of the University of Pennsylvania from 1994 to 2004. In March, 2005, she delivered the keynote address at the national conference of the American Planning Association in San Francisco, from which this essay is drawn.

Journal of the American Planning Association, Vol. 71, No. 3, Summer 2005.
� American Planning Association, Chicago, IL.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction or distribution is prohibited without permission.
Subjects: Urban planning, Urban renewal, Colleges & universities, Case studies
Classification Codes 9190, 9110, 1200, 8306
Locations: United States, US
Companies: University of Pennsylvania (NAICS: 611310, Sic:8220 )
Document types: Feature
Section: Longer View
ISSN/ISBN: 01944363
Text Word Count 8452
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