I remember one time we were building a park in my neighborhood and we put a water feature in that would literally just be a spout of water that came out of the cement when you pressed a button and the city told us we had to either remove it or staff the park with a lifeguard.

We always figure out a way to say no. There are so many citizens out there trying to make this city a easier, better or more joyful place to live and the city’s first response is to always throw a stack of forms at them or yell “liability” like chicken little.

We are a city that always assumes the worst of our citizens. Yeah, sometimes the worst case scenario will play out. But the opportunity cost that we pay to avoid it is far greater than the trouble of fixing it when it happens.

I remember working with a client that wanted to build planters with benches to beautify its campus in Center City and the RCO lost its mind because “wHat if HomEleSs PeoPle UsE ThEm?”

We are a city that embraces actively hostile design to avoid focusing on the underlying issues. Not having homeless citizens sleeping on benches doesn’t mean we’ve solved homelessness it means we’ve solved the problem of you feeling uncomfortable about homelessness.

Another example: street trash cans. Back in the day, the city pulled its wire mesh trash cans because “neighbors were putting household trash in them” and the city couldn’t keep up with emptying them.

The city looks at this issue and identifies the problem as the behavior of its citizens.

But what’s the real problem? Maybe it’s staffing levels, maybe it’s frequency of residential trash pick up, maybe it’s the lack of alternatives for proper mid-week disposal.

Instead of figuring out a long term solution for an underlying systemic issue, we pull trash cans. We create a situation where people either litter, throw their trash in a lingering private trash can or have to hold their items until they get home.

But wait...let’s say you’re a neighborhood that wants a trash can. Oh ho ho. Let me introduce you to the community cans program.

“Community Cans is a public private partnership program where the City of Philadelphia partners with community organizations and businesses to support community responsibility for clean business districts and commercial areas in Philadelphia neighborhoods.”

So what does this P3 to get * public trash cans* look like?

Well to even ask you have to be formally organized and INSURED because (LiaBiLITy).

You then have to sign a contract with the Streets department. And then congrats you are officially a sponsor.

What does being a sponsor get you? It gets you permission to put out a public trash can that you buy, you maintain and you are responsible for. This is what the city offers to do:

Suggest where to put them and help develop branding for the trash cans.

So to recap: we, the public, after obtaining insurance, can sign a contract with the city to allow us to put out a trash can which we buy and we maintain in order to collect and dispose of publicly generated trash.

This is ridiculous. This is insane. This isn’t a P3. This is a P1. This is asking private citizens to perform the most basic function and duty of city government.

I’m not sure where to end this rant, because I have been so frustrated with this city that I love so deeply. I just want us to do better. I want us to stop blaming people for being people and using it as an excuse to not make Philly a better place to live.

If we as a city can’t figure out how to execute basic functions, it doesn’t instill much hope that we as a city will be able to tackle the larger and more critical issues of poverty, racial injustice and economic inequity impacting the lives of so many Philadelphians.

I just want to live in a city that is governed by people who are more afraid of failing to make change than they are of failing.