Dividing Lines: How Pennsylvania’s elections really are rigged →

November 04, 2016

In the months leading up to the 2016 election, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has repeatedly made claims that the election is rigged. In a way, he’s right. Only the rigging happens long before anyone casts a ballot on Election Day and in most places it’s completely legal.

Gerrymandering is the age-old practice that’s made many teenagers’ eyes glaze over in high school civics class. In case you need a refresher, it’s the process of drawing election districts to give one political party — Republican or Democrat — an advantage over the other.

Maps are drawn to maximize one party’s voters over as many districts as possible while concentrating the opposing party’s voters in as few districts as possible. The result is districts that favor one political party. In most states, whichever political party holds the majority and the power in state government gets to determine where the lines are drawn every 10 years.

Keystone Crossroads went out to some of the most gerrymandered congressional districts in Pennsylvania and spoke to people who live and work along these lines about the current election.

Continue reading the story at Keystone Crossroads.

Photos: Re-imagining abandoned train line as Rail Park →

September 12, 2016

At the Reading Viaduct, it's hard to imagine that this shaded and quiet section of Philadelphia was once a part of a bustling thoroughfare to transport goods and people into Center City.

When the viaduct was built more than 125 years ago, Philadelphia was known as the workshop of the world — a mishmash of small industries and small businesses— from hat makers to textiles manufacturers to meat markets. At the time, Philadelphia's City Hall was under construction and considered one of the tallest buildings in the world.

Continue reading the story at Keystone Crossroads.

In one neighborhood, some push for change while others resist →

December 08, 2015

Developer Dennis Benner has big plans for the area surrounding Lehigh University in south Bethlehem.

"We're going to recreate a new neighborhood here," said Benner, a Lehigh alum and lawyer.

South Bethlehem — residents refer to it as "the southside" — has long lived in the shadow of Bethlehem Steel and Lehigh University. Today, the neighborhood sits across the street from one of the highest grossing casinos in Pennsylvania and Steel Stacks, a renowned arts center. But the neighborhood remains one of the struggling communities in the Lehigh Valley, with a high concentration of poverty.

Continue reading the story at Keystone Crossroads.

Exploring urban islands: from natural to developed →

September 14, 2015

Michael Catania walks on a rocky beach at Petty's Island. He picks up a flat stone and flings it out into the Delaware River. The stone skips a few times toward a shipping terminal and the church steeples of Philadelphia's Port Richmond neighborhood.

"I feel like a little boy when I come here," said Catania, chairman of the New Jersey Natural Lands Trust.

Wooden stakes protrude from the ground. The remains of an old pier line the perimeter of the beach. Plastic bottles, old tires, a TV, and bricks sliced in half — one side "key," the other "stone," litter the shoreline.

If everything goes as planned, in about five years, the rocky beach will become a part of a network of hiking trails that will traverse the island. Petty's Island will be transformed from an industrial wasteland into a nature preserve — an urban oasis with forested areas on either end, grasslands, ponds and an education center.

"You get back in the trail in the woods and you forget where you are," said Catania. "Five minutes later you burst into the open and see the Philadelphia skyline, and you realize how close you are to a really urban area. There's not that many opportunities to be in the wild immediately adjacent to a major city."

Continue reading the story at Keystone Crossroads.

Are term limits good ideas for Pa. elected officials? →

July 22, 2015

Last week, former Harrisburg Mayor Steve Reed was arrested on nearly 500 criminal charges that included corruption, theft, bribery and dealing in proceeds of unlawful activity.

"He was arrested for his role as the mastermind in a pattern of corruption that spanned approximately 20 years," Attorney General Kathleen Kane said at a press conference announcing the charges. "This scheme of serial issue of public debt sent the city of Harrisburg...into massive debt that sent this city into receivership and forced the sale of it's assets."

Reed, a Democrat, served as Harrisburg's mayor for 28 years from 1982 to 2010. He was elected into office seven times, each to four-year terms. He lost in the primary election to former mayor Linda Thompson in 2009.

After Reed left office, Harrisburg's City Council considered mayoral term limits — to two, four-year terms — but no legislation was ever enacted.

Continue reading at Keystone Crossroads.

Year-end crime stats for Pa. cities are out, but only tell part of the story →

February 09, 2015

How do you know if a city is safe? Sometimes a place might feel safe or unsafe depending on time of day and circumstance, but are those instinctual feelings accurate?

Keystone Crossroads collected year-end major crime data for the 14 most populous cities and borough in Pennsylvania and the numbers might surprise you.

All crime data was collected directly from municipal police departments and the Pennsylvania's uniform crime reporting system.

But before looking at the data, it's worth noting that the numbers alone offer only a limited view of the types of crime happening in Pennsylvania cities.

The uniform crime reporting system is "a blunt instrument,” said Jim Lynch, chair of Criminology and Criminal Justice at the University of Maryland and former director of the Bureau of Justice Statistics for the U.S. Department of Justice.

Similar to a census, Lynch warns the numbers don't give police and the public a detailed picture of crime in a city. “When you’re looking for a crime picture, broken windows, cyber crimes, domestic violence aren’t in the counts, or aren’t isolated in the counts," said Lynch. “It’s not a nuanced view of what’s going on.”

Continue reading at Keystone Crossroads.

Photos: Pittsburgh then and now, from industry to reinvention →

October 24, 2014

In Jack Delano’s black and white photograph, a man makes his way down a steep stairway in the winter toward a mill below. In the distance, smoke and steam billow from industrial stacks and obscure massive structures along the Allegheny River.

The iconic image shows Pittsburgh in 1940, on the verge of a production boom to supply steel, weaponry, and machinery for the U.S. Army and Allied forces in World War II.

Continue reading or check out the entire Then and Now series, looking at historical images and photographs of today from Pennsylvania cities and towns.

New priests answer the call to help heal scandal-weary Catholics →

May 16, 2013

John Stokely has known about his vocation ever since his religion teacher, Sister Patricia, asked every student in the first-grade class what he or she wanted to be when they grew up.

A priest, he answered.

"I didn't know much about the priesthood at all, but it was something I felt strongly in my heart – a simple desire," said Stokely, now 26.

Thomas Viviano says he "got the call" while he was teaching Spanish at Abington High School.

"From the very beginning, I got the feeling that this wasn't it. That if 30 years down the road, if I looked back and I had just remained a Spanish teacher – it would have been a good life, but it ultimately wouldn't be what God was calling me to," Viviano explained.

Now, Stokely, who has studied for eight years at St. Charles Borromeo Seminary; Viviano, 29; and another classmate, Sean Loomis, 28, will be ordained to the priesthood this weekend.

The three men will be the first seminarians to be ordained in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia since the conviction of Monsignor William Lynn last summer. Lynn was sentenced to three to six years in prison for covering up sex abuses by priests under his supervision and endangering children.

Behind the iron gates at St. Charles, the seminarians have not turned a blind eye to the landmark conviction or the scandal.

Stokely said last summer they spoke about the scandal nearly every day.

Continue reading at WHYY’s NewsWorks.