Rethinking our Region: From Infrastructure to Social Structure

WHYY and the Penn Project for Civic Engagement, along with the William Penn Foundation and the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission, hosted Rethinking our Region: From Infrastructure to Social Structure on September 24, 2009. The event included a special screening of The New Metropolis followed by focused dialogue.

The dialogue was led by the Penn Project for Civic Engagement, the nationally known expert on productive dialogue that has led projects locally such as the Central Delaware Visioning Project, Great Expectations, The Big Canvas and the recent Tight Times, Tough Choices city budget workshops.

WHYY, PPCE and the William Penn Foundation were joined at the event by The Southeastern Pennsylvania First Suburbs Project, 10,000 Friends of Pennsylvania and the New Jersey Regional Coalition. Each of theses organizations is dedicated to stabilizing and revitalizing older developed communities in the region. They are working on turning what was learned from the small group and plenary sessions into action.

“These films capture a story which has not yet been told and asks the difficult question that all older communities are facing: How do we revitalize and reinvent ourselves in the 21st century?” said Jonathan Schmidt, director of the Southeast Pennsylvania First Suburbs Project.

The evening was made possible by generous support from the William Penn Foundation and the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission (DVRPC).