“The greenest city in America”
Green Notes
That’s the ambitious goal
that Mayor Nutter has
set for Philadelphia
By Mark Alan Hughes
This goal is our opportunity to reposition and repurpose Philadelphia as
a city of the future and with a future.
This challenge is taking on even
greater urgency—and who’d have
thought it possible?—with the inauguration of President Barack Obama.
Everyone expects energy and the
opportunities of a transition toward a
post-carbon economy to dominate policy debates in the coming years.
Recently, the Mayor electrified
Congress with testimony before the
House Select Committee on Energy
Independence and Global Warming.
Mayor Nutter was asked by the
Committee, what stimulus policies
would help Philadelphia and other
cities rebound from a weak economy?
The Mayor swung for the fences and
proposed a residential retrofit program
at a scale serious enough to address
the realities of both a failing economy
and the need for energy efficiency.
Noting that the current call to
weatherize 2 million homes in the
U.S. translates into merely 10,000
houses in Philadelphia, the Mayor
said “We have 400,000 rowhouses
alone in Philadelphia. We must
think bigger.”
“We could raise the energy efficiency of, say, a quarter of our 400,000
rowhouses by 20% (with insulation,
air-sealing, cool roofs, and so on) by
investing $250 million over two
years. 50,000 projects a year would
directly employ at least 1000 people
full-time, and probably three times
that number.”
“With a two-year payback to replenish
the fund, we could weatherize every
rowhouse in Philadelphia in less than a
decade, harvesting a huge return in
reduced energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. In order to maximize the benefits of this large-scale residential retrofit program, Philadelphia is
in the process of creating a Municipal
Energy Authority to leverage and revolve
these funds.”
The Mayor noted that $250 million
for Philadelphia translates into a $50
billion program nationwide. That’s a
small share (less than a fifteenth) of the
$850 billion stimulus package under
discussion. It’s just the kind of smart
investment in the future that the times
demand and our Mayor was the guy
making the case before Congress.
For the first time in a century,
changes beyond our control (primarily rising energy prices but also climate change) are increasing the
value of our assets.
These realities all favor cities and
regions like Philadelphia. Our dense and
durable stock of housing, infrastructure,
and amenities is well-positioned to
compete and prosper in a carbon-constrained future.
To be candid, much of this derives
from our backwardness. Atlanta and
Phoenix boomed over the last fifty
years following a supercharged but
unsustainable trajectory that has left
them vulnerable to en