Nutter Asks For 10,000 Cleaners

By now you may have heard that Michael Nutter is attempting to clean up our city. He’s going to go out with a mop and bucket himself and clean up City Hall (or something), and he wants 10,000 men people to clean up with city on April 5.

He wants us to remove on million pounds of trash from our city’s streets on 5,000 city blocks, and he even has a nice press release quote that even tells us when we have to be clean: “I want thousands of Philadelphians to join me out in the streets of this city from 9am to 2pm on April 5th to make our city beautiful.”

And after 2 pm: Littering party!

Filthadelphia, Deconstructed

The Inquirer’s Melissa Dribben has an article today about the cleanliness of Philadelphia. This was, of course, inspired by Ray Nagin’s comment that New Orleans is cleaner than Philadelphia. (It may very well be, but that didn’t stop people from angrily responding to Nagin that Philadelphians are the only ones allowed to bash Philadelphia.)

Dribben’s article is actually really interesting, and I suggest you read it. (There’s also some fun photography, displayed at right, from Michael Perez.) Part of the article discusses how, say, a losing lottery ticket on the ground is viewed as perfectly okay and part of urban life while a syringe is not.

“I always look on the ground, and when I see a used condom or dime bag, it makes me sad,” says Maria Kefalas, a professor of sociology at St. Joseph’s University. “I take it as a sign of how broken things are.”

Kefalas then walked right into a street light she didn’t see.

A dirtier city? It’s all relative [Inquirer]
April 23: Mayor Of Dirty City Bashes Other Dirty City