In the three years since I started PhillyEcoCity, I have observed how people in the Philadelphia region have made changes to their lifes to decrease their impact on the environment. I have witnessed Alex Mulcahy successful efforts to launch and stabilize Grid Magazine, I have attended every Greenfests, every GreenExpos and every Philly Naked Bike Ride, a large number of the Urban Sustainability Forums organized at the Academy of Natural Sciences, a bunch of Transition Town meetings, visited LEED certified “green” office and apartment buildings, interviewed budding entrepreneurs barely of legal age and on and on…
What stands out is:
- The incredible energy and enthusiasm that I see in young people for the “green revolution”.
- We have a mayor who wants to make Philadelphia the “greenest city” in the country
- The number and diversity of green initiatives that people take on their own.
So what is missing?
To accelerate this dynamic, we need people passionate about the Green Revolution to easily find each other, to collaborate, to co-locate, to brainstorm together, to build green stuff together, to take action together. The goal of PhillyEcoCity is to provide a virtual meeting place for people to find each other from across the Philadelphia region. It is a tool for the city dweller or the suburbanite who are working on installing a green roof to find each other, for green entrepreneurs or aspiring entrepreneurs to find each other, for people who oppose Marcellius Shale Drilling to find each other.
This is a tool to build critical mass.
Critical mass is what made Silicon Valley possible. Critical mass is what will make Philadelphia the greenest city in the country.
Everyone who registers to PhillyEcoCity automatically has the capability to Post Articles, Create Events in the calendar and Create Groups in the Forum. This is your space, use it.
Jacques Sapriel
