Philadelphia Speaks: Community Insights on Key Administration Focus Areas

The Lenfest Institute for Journalism, as part of Every Voice, Every Vote, recently collaborated with qualitative research group SSRS to conduct focus groups with Philadelphia community members of diverse ranges of age, gender, parental status, income level, and area of residence. The focus groups aimed to capture meaningful insight into the perspectives of Philadelphians on the Parker administration’s efforts in key focus areas that included education, the administration’s “Clean and Green” initiatives, and public safety, with an additional lens on civic engagement habits and trusted news sources among community members. The direct connection with community voices on these key issues presents social impact leaders with a valuable opportunity to gain a deep and comprehensive understanding of the city’s current landscape, as well as actionable takeaways for the future.

Overarching Findings: Pride, Awareness, and More Engagement

The focus group data overall confirms what Philadelphians everywhere already know: Philly pride runs deep. Participants across groups expressed a genuine love for the city’s culture and a sincere desire to see it improve. 

Awareness of city initiatives was high-level and extended beyond neighborhood lines. For instance, many of the participants knew of recent initiatives like twice-weekly trash collection and efforts around Kensington, regardless of whether these initiatives directly impacted their immediate neighborhood. According to findings across focus groups, community members were informed about these initiatives through local news coverage and seeing them enacted firsthand.

While awareness is high, however, understanding around the details of some initiatives – particularly those by spearheaded by the Parker administration – seems to be less robust. For example, some participants had heard of the year-round school initiative but were unclear about specific details, such as logistics of the program and when and where it is slated to begin. 

A standout theme across the focus groups was the desire for greater visibility from the mayor and administration. Participants had positive recollections of Mayor Parker’s engagement with communities during her campaign and shortly after taking office but pointed to a noticeable decline in direct engagement since then. 

Furthermore, concerns about education, cleanliness, and public safety were echoed as a common theme widely across different neighborhoods. Participants, by and large, focused on issues on a citywide scale rather than hyper-local one, which strongly reinforces the fact that many of the shared challenges are systemic rather than isolated. 

The research also illuminated a need for a stronger and more robust structure for the city to communicate important information to Philadelphia communities about initiatives and available resources. Focus group participants often learned about resources from each other during the course of focus group discussions, which indicates that existing programs may not be effectively serving the communities they aim to, due to being inadequately publicized or communicated.

Education: Successes, Challenges, and Calls for Investment

Focus group participants pointed to several successes in Philadelphia’s education system: namely, curricula that support literacy, the dedication of teachers to their students’ success, the integration of technology into learning, investments made in student mental health services, and school curricula that focus on social-emotional learning. However, the focus group findings suggest that significant challenges persist. Participants expressed concerns about underfunding for critical and basic programs, insubstantial wages for teachers, the quality of education in many city schools, insufficient after-school programming, class temperatures and environments non-conducive to learning, and the condition of school buildings. 

The most recognized Parker Administration initiatives in education include year-round schooling and extended school days, asbestos abatement as part of efforts to modernize school buildings, providing social-emotional learning resources for teachers, and bolstering mental health services for students. However, participants noted that there is still a need for clarity around details – like to what extent across the school system these initiatives are being implemented and how to access them, among others. 

Many of the ideas proposed by participants themselves include increasing school funding, vigorously recruiting teachers and paying them more, updating school facilities (including adding air conditioning to buildings that lack it), building new schools to replace ones housed in unsuitable buildings, expanding after-school programs, improving education quality, and stimulating parental involvement.

Clean and Green: Progress and Persistent Issues

When participants named positive developments in the city’s environmental efforts, they included an increase in trees planted, extra attention on trash pickup in some areas, including additional collection days, citizen-led cleanups, electric buses, and the increase in bike lanes on city roads. However, numerous concerns remained, such as persistent litter, slow or nonexistent repair of the city’s potholes, challenges with abandoned cars and dumping, inconsistent trash pickup frequency, inadequate green spaces across neighborhoods, and a lack of trees in many areas. 

The Parker Administration initiatives that participants were able to identify as such include the twice-weekly trash pickup program, pothole repairs, the planting of trees to promote green spaces, the removal of dumped trash in lots and on the street, the addition of more bike lanes, and the removal of abandoned cars. 

Public Safety: Achievements and Urgent Needs

Participants highlighted the overall reduction in crime across the city, the increase of police presence in neighborhoods such as Center City, cleanup efforts in Kensington, more traffic calming infrastructure and cameras, and better police-community relations as positive developments in public safety. However, concerns remained about substance use, SEPTA safety, the systemic root causes of crime, the dispersal of substance use issues from the streets of Kensington Avenue to the surrounding neighborhoods, rampant theft and carjackings, and reckless driving. 

Key Parker administration initiatives include reducing drug activity, ramping up street sweeping endeavors in Kensington, hiring more police and reconnecting with the practice of community policing by instating beat cops in neighborhoods. Participants also acknowledged some progress in traffic calming, a reduction in gun violence, and increased presence of traffic enforcement. Participants brought forward recommendations that involved solutions like an expansion of social services and programs and the creation of work opportunities for people in addiction, deepening the positive impact of community policing through relationship-building and engagement, and further improving traffic measures.

Civic Engagement: Participation and Barriers

The focus group results also highlighted the fact that participants held a broad and diverse definition of civic engagement that went far beyond politics. Civic activities like voting, creating and maintaining neighborhood green spaces, volunteering, helping neighbors, and serving as poll workers were all included, which suggests that civic engagement from a community standpoint can range from formal political actions to informal acts of neighborliness. Participants spoke to their motivations for engaging, and they included self-reliance, a fulfillment of civic duty, the desire to stay in the loop of issues affecting their communities, and a sense of personal and community empowerment.

They also were forthright about circumstances that posed a barrier to engagement – time constraints were a consistent theme across community members, as well as a lack of awareness of opportunities, and more than one participant spoke of a sense of a dwindling community cohesiveness, or community spirit, that makes them reluctant to engage where they otherwise might. 

Trusted News Sources: Traditional, Social, and Community

Philadelphians access local news through various, diverse channels, including traditional media (6ABC, Fox 29, The Inquirer), social media (Citizen app, Nextdoor), and community news sources (neighborhood newsletters, meetings). There’s a real, stated desire for unbiased news without “spin”, as well as a real, stated dissatisfaction with traditional media’s lack of hyper-local coverage. Participants reported engaging with social media for news, as well, but by and large take a trust-but-verify stance, and are generally wary of sites they identify as sensationalized. Community news sources are valued highly where they are available and sought where they are not.

Conclusion: A Call to Action for Social Impact Leaders

The focus group findings, in the end, reveal a city full of engaged community members who believe in its immense potential and are eager to see improvement and forward progress in initiatives that would make Philadelphia and its communities stronger. The insights of the participants paint a compelling picture, not just of where the city is now, but of the future collectively imagined by its residents. 

Some of these insights speak to direct actionable steps in the short-term; participant recommendations, such as increasing direct and meaningful engagement between the city administration and the public, strengthening the administration’s mechanism for communicating available resources and initiatives to Philadelphia communities, and creating opportunities for increased civic engagement and community- building in neighborhoods, are relatively straightforward actions that city officials can take to reinforce right away, and that community organizations and funders can start to conceive of now. 

Other recommendations, such as increasing investment in education and school infrastructure and enhancing public safety, are more long-view endeavors that will require a committed and sustained investment on the part of city officials, community-supporting nonprofits, and funders across all of these focus areas.

Undoubtedly, this sustained investment will benefit the entire city and ensure that Philadelphia continues to progress toward its full potential. And, if the focus group findings are any indication, Philadelphia communities are behind it, all the way.

If you’d like the opportunity to weigh in on the issue outlined above, Every Voice, Every Vote has a survey open now!

The Philly Pulse: Community Poll is an online survey that seeks input from Philadelphians on key issues discussed in the recent focus groups, including education, public safety, and clean & green initiatives. The poll can be accessed at PhillyPulsePoll.com and will close on Sunday, June 1, at 11:59 p.m. ET.

See the flyer below for additional details.