Week 3: Leading Philadelphia’s Planning Towards Equity & Trust
In the rapidly evolving context of Philadelphia’s neighborhoods, Eleanor Sharpe is a catalyst for change. As a former Executive Director of the Philadelphia City Planning Commission and now Interim Director of the Department of Planning and Development, Eleanor is imagining not just what is built in Philadelphia but also how and for whom it is built.
Eleanor’s planning framework would index transparency, equity, and trust while at the same time being deeply informed by the lived and storied past of the city and visionary in its future.
From Urban Renewal to Urban Healing
Within her platforms, Eleanor has recognized and built awareness of the challenges to the complicated and edited history of planning in Philadelphia with one emphasis on the damage that urban renewal did to communities of color that experienced displacement and how communities experienced dislocation with highways or other heavy urban infrastructure. For her, acknowledging a planning history is not a side story and that “healing begins with telling the truth.”
If “Philadelphia is going to be a model of excellence,” Sharpe puts the agency on planners to “fix what happened in the past…to repair relationships with communities of color that were displaced by urban renewal and divided by highways.”
The Phila2035 Plan: Centering equity
Eleanor believes and has resurrected the Phila2035 Comprehensive Plan to emphasize modern-day issues of climate resilience, racial justice, and community co-visioning. With over 68% of the original Phila2035 plan being realized, the updated plan is going even deeper with a long-term vision for the city based on justice, affordability, and sustainable change.
Planners were assigned to all of the city’s 18 planning districts to develop more robust ties between community engagement and city governance. The model of engagement in all of the districts is deepened by neighborliness, partnership, and sustained patience–or, as Eleanor sometimes cautions, planning at “the speed of trust.”
Empowering residents through the Citizens Planning Institute
Eleanor has become an essential voice for civic learning and engagement. The Citizens Planning Institute (CPI) — the Planning Commission’s official civic engagement and learning branch–has renewed opportunities for citizen engagement by teaching residents how to understand zoning maps, evaluate development proposals, and connect with their communities.
To date, CPI has graduated 700+ Philadelphians from 125 neighborhoods to become citizen planners in their own right, transforming residents into legitimized, informed voices in local decision-making.
Rebuilding with intention
As cities across the country address climate risk and housing and inequitable pressures, Sharpe’s vision for the city of Philadelphia is unmistakable: codified development that is inclusive, sustainable, and historic. Eleanor’s planning philosophy attends to a disconnection in planning history between policy and the people, and attending to and resourcing that disconnection has the power to structure policy for justice and resist unjust processes.
Eleanor reminds us that the built environment is more than building–dignity, belonging, and opportunity.
Why Eleanor Sharpe Matters Now
As the City of Philadelphia continues to evolve and change over time, Eleanor Sharpe allows people to become more than passive observers of change by involving them as co-creators of that change. In all the planning work and decisions she faces, she forges an action-taking process based on equity, listening, and legacy.
Her work is a potential model for cities everywhere, where justice is not a consideration but the starting consideration of design.
Learn more about Philadelphia’s planning initiatives:
Visit phila.gov or citizensplanninginstitute.org to get involved
