Pennsylvania

Subway violence and crime in Philadelphia have been unofficially traced to truant students, who are enabled by unlimited rides on the SEPTA throughout the week. Whether or not the student TransPass system should be eliminated is being debated.

Evangelical pastor Rev. Jack L. Wisor was giving shelter to four homeless people in his church in downtown Brookville, PA. When he was ordered to move them on a zoning violation, Wisor - and the ACLU - sued the city.

In this op-ed, the former Secretary of the PA D.O.T. bemoans the lost opportunity to lease the PA turnpike to receive $12.8 billion from a private investor group, placing the blame squarely on the state legislature and the Turnpike Commission.

Thanks to the ambitious clean-up efforts of a few residents, a neglected, unofficial park on city land is now maintained daily and is on its way to being a greenway.

This piece from the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review looks at the rising amount of wildlife being seen in urban Pittsburgh. According to local experts, this trend has both good and bad implications.

Sixty years after twenty people died from air pollution spewing from a steel and zinc mill in Donora, PA (just outside Pittsburgh) in perhaps the worst air quality tragedy in the U.S., a museum has opened to commemorate and learn from the tragedy.

In this election, Scranton has come to symbolize blue-collar America, with visits by all four national candidates, parodied on Saturday Night Live, as well as the scene of NBC’s The Office. But the city is in a turnaround after decades of decline.

As cycling increases in Philadelphia, more bike parking is needed. But the common upside-down U-shaped rack won't provide enough for the city, according to this piece from The Philadelphia Inquirer.

Supermarkets are moving back to urban areas like Philadelphia. But their big box designs are decidedly un-urban, according to architecture critic Inga Saffron, who calls for more relevant urban designs.

The Pennsylvania Fresh Food Financing Initiative (FFFI) has provided $42 million in grants and loans to finance 58 locally-owned grocery stores, combating fresh grocery shortages in areas of rural and urban Pennsylvania.

Philadelphia is still trying to figure out where to put its two approved casinos as it prepares to become the nation's biggest city to host gambling. In this piece, Inga Saffron says a new proposed site could make gambling work for Philly.

The ACLU is helping a woman in Pittsburgh sue the city for violating her right of free expression. The city denied her occupancy permit to open a pole-dancing studio, teaching classes in "power lap dance" and "seXXXercise".

The mother of all toll road leases appears to come to a head next month, and though the chances of the near $13 billion lease of the the 537-mile Pennsylvania Turnpike to Citigroup-Abertis team are most uncertain, the PA saga is worthy of study.

Witold Rybczynski wrote The Last Harvest about a new development being created in an exurban cornfield. NPR visits the half-finished community with Witold, which is suffering from the economic crisis.

Pittsburgh becomes first city in Commonwealth of Pennsylvania to hire a full-time bike/pedestrian coordinator.

The Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission, the MPO for the Philadelphia metropolitan region, has introduced an innovate way of making people aware of the benefits of older, established suburbs: market them.

Hiking and cycling traffic on the Great Allegheny Passageway has brought jobs and prosperity to small towns along the route.