Digital On-Ramps

Like many cities, Philadelphia has faced and still faces major obstacles in delivering educational and workforce training services to its citizens (Wiig Reference Wiig2016, 541). It is a rather complex social problem. Could smart tech be the solution?

In 2011, Philadelphia was one of twenty-four cities chosen to receive a Smarter Cities Challenge grant from IBM. This IBM reward led to a direct consultation. A team of IBM experts spent a few weeks working on a report that delivered recommendations on how the city could use smart tech to increase literacy and improve employment opportunities in Philadelphia. The solution IBM recommended, and advised on, was Digital On-Ramps (DOR) (Wiig Reference Wiig2016, 536).Footnote ³ DOR was “a workforce education portal that would link unemployed or underemployed residents to online, easily accessible training modules for work in emerging industries of the globalized economy” (Wiig Reference Wiig2016, 540). According to IBM’s Smarter Cities Challenge Report, “[DOR] will provide Philadelphians with a framework for delivering comprehensive education and workforce training to youth and adults, using a blended learning approach” (IBM 2011, 4). The initiative was a part of an “ongoing, entrepreneurial economic growth agenda that oriented the city towards globalized enterprise” (Wiig Reference Wiig2016, 536). Incorporating familiar “rhetoric of the smart city, wireless, ubiquitous computing offered the potential to connect residents to digitized information that could take the place of civic services formerly found in physical locations, [in this case,] to move educational services from schools and community centers to a digital application” (Wiig Reference Wiig2016, 541). The DOR program sought to create

Could an online portal and smartphone app deliver these services and meet the ambitious goals set by IBM and the Nutter administration?

No, at least not at that time.Footnote ⁴ “[A] workforce education application could never, on its own, provide pathways for jobs for the 500,000 the Mayor claimed were in need of new skills” (Wiig Reference Wiig2016, 548). Nutter praised the initiative in his 2012 speech as if it had already been successful, but it had “neither recruited a single participant nor secured a job for anyone” (Wiig Reference Wiig2016, 536). According to Shelton, Zook, and Wiig (Reference Shelton, Zook and Wiig2015, 21), the DOR was driven mostly by hype, and “the smart city … acted primarily as a promotional vehicle.” The potential of the program to spark a substantial “change to the endemic poverty, marginalization, and social polarization in Philadelphia was present, but the smart city discourse relied too much on the possibility of new industries locating in Philadelphia in the near future because of the presence of a trained workforce, rather than on providing jobs for residents in need” (Wiig Reference Shelton, Zook and Wiig2015, 536).Footnote ⁵

One might say that IBM and others sold “tech solutionism” (Morozov Reference Morozov2013), and Philadelphia, at least Mayor Nutter, bought it.

A more charitable interpretation of the events is that the Nutter administration submitted a grant proposal, received a grant, ran a pilot, and learned that the smart tech intervention was not enough. As we discuss later, perceptions and expectations about smart tech varied among community members and have evolved with this and other experiences. However one interprets the DOR story, our study strongly suggests that community members learned and adapted their expectations (as will be discussed).

Smart Tech Planning and Governance via Executive Order

Alongside the DOR project, Mayor Nutter adopted a pragmatic governance approach rooted in conventional public administration.Footnote ⁶ He issued a series of Executive Orders, which set goals, clarified responsibilities, provided direction, generated positions and working groups, and paved the way for smart tech deployment and data sharing in Philadelphia.

Mayor Nutter’s Executive OrdersFootnote ⁷ have their roots in EO 11-93 issued September 15, 1993 by Mayor Rendell. That order established the Mayor’s Office of Information Services (MOIS), which had the responsibilities of:

The MOIS lasted until May 28, 2008, when Mayor Nutter signed EO 08-08, which established the Division of Technology (DOT). EO 08-08 focused on bringing Philadelphia into the digital era through the establishment of key positions and committees to oversee technology-based decisions. On July 6, 2009, Mayor Nutter signed EO 06-09, which effectively restated EO 08-08 with more explanation of various roles and responsibilities.

On August 22, 2011, Mayor Nutter signed EO 12-11, which took the existing DOT and restructured it into the Office of Innovation and Technology (OIT). OIT had the same responsibilities as the DOT, modified with language concerning interdepartmental cooperation and communication. EO 12-11 remains the guiding order on the structure and goals of OIT, which includes bridging the use of technology and information systems across city departments. EO 12-11 requires OIT to manage “[(1)] City telecommunications and information technology contracts, competitive bids, and requests for proposals … [(2)] establish information security policies … [and (3)] establish a Five-Year Strategic and Financial Plan defining … policies, procedures, processes, [and] guidelines … for Citywide telecommunications and information technology operation” (Executive Order 12-11, Information Technology, of August 22, 2011). The new OIT included several key positions and bodies including the Chief Innovation Officer (CIO), and the Technology Advisory Committee (TAC). The CIO serves as the head of the OIT and is responsible for managing the city’s technology and information systems as well as software acquisitions. The TAC serves to “provide strategic advice and counsel to the Office of Innovation and Technology and the CIO” (Executive Order 12-11, 4) It is comprised of thirteen people including the Managing Director, who serves as Philadelphia’s Chief Operating Officer, the Mayor’s Chief of Staff, the Finance Director, the Budget Director, the City Solicitor, the CIO, and several deputy mayors of various departments throughout the city.

Working in tandem with EO 12-11, chapter 21-2500Footnote ⁸ of the Philadelphia Code and Home Rule Charter requires that the Managing Director of the TAC produce and submit an annual information technology strategic plan to city council. According to the ordinance, the plan must “summarize and evaluate the current state of the City’s telecommunications and information technology infrastructure and detail and analyze the costs and benefits of the City’s plans for the acquisition, management, and use of telecommunications and information technology over the next five fiscal years” (Philadelphia Home Rule Charter § 21-2502).

On April 26, 2012, Mayor Nutter signed EO 1-12, which introduced five main goals for the City of Philadelphia concerning data use and transparency: the formation of an open data working group, the governance of data by an advisory board, an open government plan, an open data policy, and a social media policy. These five sections created policies and positions for administrators to do work involving data that has subsequently shaped Philadelphia’s data policies and plans over the last several years, including the SmartCityPHL Roadmap, which we discuss below. Notably, EO 1-12 established the Chief Data Officer (CDO), who is responsible for spearheading the open data initiative for the city.

EO 1-12 established an Open Data Policy in Philadelphia. The policy has eight main components, including the establishment of an Open Government Portal for sharing information related to the Executive Order, the establishment of an Open Data Catalog where each department in the city is required to catalog their data to determine if it needs to be shared in the Open Government Portal. The order also made clear the need for city departments to announce a timeline for the release of their data, the desire for public feedback as a mechanism for citizens to request data or share input about what information should be published, the identification of high-value datasets, and a six-month evaluation of the city’s progress toward fulfilling the open data initiative laid out in the Executive Order.

EO 1-12 directly led to the publishing of various governance documents articulating the city’s position on data collection and use as well as recommendations for how departments can share data either with each other or with the public. For example, as a result of EO 1-12, the City of Philadelphia published an Open Government Plan (GitHub 2013), which included themes of transparency, public participation, and collaboration.

The CIO and the CDO also published the Open Data Guidebook for city agencies. It describes best practices for preparing and sharing data across city departments and with the general public. The guidebook includes requirements for data structure to be compatible with the city’s metadata catalog, which is a repository for descriptive information concerning published datasets. The guidebook also supplies a methodology and reasoning for why publishing data is helpful for a city government:

EO 1-12 also led to collaboration with OpenDataPhilly, which is a private initiative managed by software firm Azavea. OpenDataPhilly is an online portal where people can request or publish datasets. The Open Data Guidebook specifies OpenDataPhilly as a place for city data to be published, after release by the CDO.

The Data Services Team within OIT provides a citywide data inventory online that describes every dataset that exists within city government and provides a mechanism for citizens to provide comments on whether the dataset should be released.

Not all datasets are released. Those that are released comply with standards set out in the Open Data Guidebook, which include anonymizing data, conducting a review, adding descriptive metadata, and ensuring data accuracy. As shown in the figures from the city’s metadata catalog website, many have been released on a range of different subjects (Figure 5.1).

Figure 5.1.

City of Philadelphia Metadata Catalog website

EO 12-11 and EO 1-12 stayed as the guiding force of Smart City initiatives in Philadelphia until February 4, 2019, when Mayor Kenney signed EO 2-19, The SmartCityPHL Initiative. That order formally established the SmartCityPHL initiative under the auspices of OIT, subject to the guidance of an advisory committee whose goal is to “guide and support the implementation of the key actions outlined in the SmartCityPHL Roadmap” (Kenney 2019, 2). OIT is responsible for maintaining the city’s open dataFootnote ⁹ programs and managing the SmartCityPHL initiative.

Pragmatism Reflected in Procurement and Departmental Operations

Apart from the agenda and actions of the Mayor’s Office, various city departments procure and deploy smart tech as needed in their day-to-day operations. The types of technology run the gamut, but generally include basic ICTs. Many departments have their own IT experts and make independent planning, procurement, and deployment decisions. We have not canvassed all departments and their activities,Footnote ¹⁰ but many interviewees emphasized how, in the 2010–2015 timeframe, different city departments approached data and technology independently, in a piecemeal, siloed, and trial-and-error manner. The primary considerations were pragmatic, focused on existing needs, available budget, and compliance with general procurement rules.

The procurement process for the City of Philadelphia is outlined in Philadelphia Code § 17-100. These procurement rules concretely define how bidders submit proposals to the City of Philadelphia to obtain contracts for work with the city. As the city has increased procurement of smart technology, it has adapted procurement rules to ensure that technology-based projects meet standards set by the various Executive Orders discussed earlier. For example, the city requires that bidders meet data standards that comply with the city’s Application Programming Interface (API) standards, the ability to integrate data into the city’s data store, and the ability to provide the data to the city in a non proprietary format. The city also maintains licensing terms and metadata requirements for publishing and maintaining data for the city’s use or for release to the public, which complies with the OpenDataPhilly project standards. According to one interviewee, with respect to data, “the default in city contracts is that the city owns it. And a sort of policy default is that whatever we can eventually make public we do” (Hecht 2021a). Generally, if there is concern or uncertainty over whether a certain field in a dataset can be made public, the law department, which has a data privacy review board, is consulted (Carolan 2021). Some datasets have been withheld from the public to prevent reidentification.

One example of departmental independence with respect to smart technology is the police department’s use of facial recognition technology. Since 2012 (Lipp Reference Lipp2015), the department has used JNET facial recognition software, which relies on a database of photos pulled from specific, official sources (such as drivers’ licenses).Footnote ¹¹ Without any public oversight, the police department had run its own trials of the controversial facial recognition software, Clearview AI, which draws photos from a wider range of sources, including surveillance and security videos, social media sites, and the statewide criminal database. In March 2020, the Philadelphia City Council passed a resolution calling for the Philadelphia Police Department as well as state and federal law enforcement officials to “establish clear boundaries and issue transparent policies regarding the use of facial recognition technology to ensure that this technology does not lead to racial biases in policing practices and outcomes or infringe on individuals’ civil liberties” (Jones Jr 2020, 2). While nonbinding, the City Council resolution reflects public concerns about the exacerbation of existing biases in law enforcement practices by using facial recognition software and recent studies showing the disparity in the accuracy of facial recognition technology when used on women and people of color (Buolamwini and Tinnit Reference Buolamwini and Timnit2018: Grother, Ngan, and Hanaoka Reference Grother, Ngan and Hanaoka2019; Grother, Quinn, and Phillips Reference Grother, Quinn and Phillips2011).

Smart City/Tech Planning and Governance Dilemmas

Our study revealed three major dilemmas in Philadelphia’s approach to smart tech planning and governance in the 2010–15 timeframe.

First, community members began to recognize and reject smart city/tech rhetoric plagued by hype, unrealistic expectations and promises, and a failure to be grounded in realities of Philadelphia communities.

Second, and related to the first, there was a disconnect between the smart tech planners and users (mostly government actors but also vendors and consultants, such as IBM in the DOR story) and smart tech beneficiaries, including residents, businesses, and visitors. As one interviewee put it, to cut “through the hype … you need to know the people who are actually going to have to use that technology in city government and the people who are going to be most impacted by that kind of change … engaging them in the conversation, understanding what their current condition is, what they’ve tried in the past, and then also what they would like to address moving forward.”

Third, while the independent, pragmatic approach taken by many city departments was understandable and laudable, it also created redundancies and inefficiencies. Interviewees described departments as “siloed” and emphasized the need for better interdepartmental communication and coordination. One interviewee suggested that an obstacle to better coordination was simply political, as different administrations have different agendas. A similar observation was made regarding political differences across departments. Finally, interviewees suggested that “red tape” and bureaucracy impeded smart tech deployment.

Awareness of these three dilemmas began to surface and manifest demand for a new approach to smart tech planning and governance, which is reflected in the SmartCityPHL Roadmap.

Smart City Foundations: Governance Structure, Policies, and Master Strategy

According to the SmartCityPHL Roadmap, “[a] strong governance structure is arguably the most important foundational element to smart city success” (City of Philadelphia 2019, 8). The roadmap establishes the following model: Executive leadership, which sets “vision and direction,” a Smart City director, who “collaborates and partners to inform and implement activities,” an Internal Working Group, which “collaborates and partners to inform and implement activities,” and an External Advisory Committee, which “provides advisory services, research, funding, solutions, and workforce capacity” (City of Philadelphia 2019, 8). In addition, according to Emily Yates (2021), the current Smart City director, “We are working to establish a task force, a third-party validation of sorts, so it will not be comprised of people in the Smart City advisory committee, it will be comprised of academics … to ensure that we are thinking of all community members.”

This structure, shown in Figure 5.3, aims to “drive … collaboration and standardization … [and to] solidify the City’s decision-making process, reporting structures, and roles and responsibilities of participating members.” While, at first glance, this new structure may seem to centralize decision-making and other governance powers within OIT, it does not go that far. Rather, it provides a central “hub” within city government for strategic development, coordination, communications, policy development and evaluation, and expertise regarding data, IT, and other related components of smart tech. Departments continue to have their own IT staff and make their own procurement, deployment, and other decisions regarding data and smart tech. The Smart City director and staff facilitate collaboration and function, at times, as consultants for other departments. During interviews, this role stood out for the city’s many different datasets (and also, to some extent, for network infrastructure, which we do not cover in this study).Footnote ¹³

Figure 5.3.

City of Philadelphia SmartCityPHL Roadmap (p. 8), Governance Structure

Hank Garie (2021), the city’s geographic information officer, explained that various programmatic or departmental datasets had been “messy” both for “historical” reasons and because IT professionals in different departments had been comfortable working in multiple databases without coordinating with one another.Footnote ¹⁴ This resulted in a lack of consistency in data standards. Other interviewees discussed the example of the water, streets, and fire departments possessing separate databases: “It makes it really difficult to figure out how to deploy services … you have electricity, and then you have a cable company, and … some … are public companies, and some … are private companies, and they’re all dealing with the same property but nobody can talk about the same property.” (We discuss this example further in the meso-level action arena section.)

Efforts by the OIT CityGeo team to address these types of concerns resulted in the creation of DataBridge, an integrated data warehouse and platform for geospatial and select non-geospatial data. DataBridge enables data sharing and provides city-wide infrastructure for analytics and applications.Footnote ¹⁵ OIT maintains the infrastructure, consisting of various pooled resources including technical know-how, software, and deployment managers. In alignment with the city’s general commitments to open data, transparency, and providing useful smart tech applications to the public, DataBridge aims to enable appropriate data flow to the city’s open data applications. Data flow enabled by DataBridge is shown in Figure 5.4.

Figure 5.4.

City of Philadelphia DataBridge

As seen in the figure, DataBridge enables different communities to publish and access data, and it also serves as the backbone for department-specific applications. DataBridge thus serves the administration, city departments, vendors, and partners that use the service to publish data, and it also serves the broader community that uses applications, such as OpenDataPhilly, OpenMaps, and CityAtlas.

Over the past ten years, the geographic information system (GIS) management team mostly focused on sharing data for “mapping, analysis, and city services.” In recent years, this department has focused on developing a secure and reliable foundation to coordinate, organize, and share city data internally and with the public. One interviewee suggested that the recent shift in the dialogue surrounding smart technology and data over the past two years has led departments to be “less skittish” about releasing data; it has become a “habit” for departments to publish their data. The interviewee explained that growth in literacy surrounding data publishing and the existence of mutual trust among stakeholders are catalysts in this culture change.

Coordination among stakeholders is critical to successful data sharing. For example, Kistine Carolan (2021) of OIT created a spreadsheet of all stakeholders to be informed and “kept in the loop” prior to the publication of any datasets. “[W]e’ve got a spreadsheet [of] all the stakeholders. And [it indicates] here’s the place in the process where we need to plug these people in, so that we make sure that when that data set hits the streets nobody’s caught by surprise.” At times, OIT may resolve conflicts among stakeholders. Hank Garie (2021) described a disagreement among the police department, the Mayor’s Office, and the press office about whether to share/publish crime data.

The regularly updated crime incident dataset is hosted on OpenDataPhilly alongside several visualizations for viewing and understanding the dataset. The dataset contains crime data from 2006 through to the present; each reported crime is categorized along with the block number where the incident occurred.

The SmartCityPHL Roadmap also recognizes that privacy and security policies are fundamental. The city has had privacy and security policies in place, as well as data-sharing agreements among departments, and the roadmap states high-level commitments to continue revising and updating those policies in light of changing circumstances and to “better understand the concerns of community members and privacy advocates when initiating smart city projects” (City of Philadelphia 2019, 9).

In addition, the roadmap calls for the development of a “formal master data strategy,” which, among other things, would include creating a formal inventory; establishing governance standards and technology specifications, and requirements for procurement, upgrades, and vendors; and workforce training. The master strategy would be guided by the following questions:

• What are we trying to understand?

• How will we manage sensor data?

• Who owns and manages the data?

• How will we secure the data?

• How will we analyze and operationalize the data?

Throughout our interviews, we heard that OIT has been and still is working on these policies and the master data strategy. Some interviewees noted that the pandemic had caused a shift in attention and priority and, as a result, progress on these issues had been delayed. (We do not delve further but note that this is another action arena ripe for further GKC-focused study.)

Community Challenges and Engagement

Beyond structure, policies, and strategy, the roadmap grounds the city’s approach to smart technology in pragmatism, which had been present and rising in prominence in prior years (as previously discussed). According to the roadmap, “it is important that any smart city project the City pursues is grounded in a challenge or problem that aligns with its broader mission and purpose.” To ensure such grounding and alignment, the roadmap outlines, as seen in Figure 5.5, a process for selecting and evaluating “appropriate and feasible smart city projects.”

Figure 5.5.

City of Philadelphia SmartCityPHL Roadmap (p. 16), decision-making process

The roadmap effectively outlines an applied version of comparative institutional analysis. “The first step is to establish a problem statement that conveys a challenge we are facing or trying to solve” (City of Philadelphia 2019, 17) and then “solution paths need to be identified” (City of Philadelphia 2019, 17). This step entails compiling a comprehensive list of ideas and potential solutions, drawing on internal and external sources. “Once we gather a long list of solutions, we will evaluate and prioritize them through criteria based on [a series of] questions” (City of Philadelphia 2019, 17). This approach highlights issues present in the city, and directly works to target initiatives toward solving the identified issues, seeking to achieve tangible improvements in the actual lives of community members.

Notably, the pragmatic process envisioned in the roadmap is a statement of strategy and does not constitute a binding rule and, to our knowledge, has not yet become a widely followed norm. Throughout the city, departments choosing to pursue smart tech projects need not follow these steps precisely. It remains to be seen whether/how the strategy and process become internalized.

The practical orientation to evaluating projects is further developed in the so-called Pitch + Pilot Program, usefully summarized in Figure 5.6 (from the roadmap).

Figure 5.6

City of Philadelphia SmartCityPHL Roadmap (p. 18), Pitch + Pilot

Pitch and Pilot, according to Emily Yates (2021, 13:40:48), is “[in] its very essence, a mechanism that was developed via the roadmap to create a more transparent way for the city to engage with the private sector to solve municipal challenges through tech and data.” It is a work in progress with a very limited budget, intended to be experimental and incremental. To date, the program has supported a handful of projects, summarized in Table 5.2.

Finally, we note that the SmartCityPHL Roadmap places emphasis on engaging the community, through efforts such as forming subcommittees like the Citizens and Communities Subcommittee, which is “comprised of community-facing departments” and will be dedicated to “shaping and leading community engagement strategies and ensuring that solutions and projects will improve the lives of residents” (City of Philadelphia 2019, 8). In the second step of the governance process, identifying solution paths, the city will not only internally generate solutions, it will also “engage with a broader community to identify interesting and potentially impactful smart city solutions” (City of Philadelphia 2019, 16). Also among the factors utilized to evaluate and prioritize potential projects is community impact (City of Philadelphia 2019, 16). The criterion will ask whether “the program tangibly improves the experiences and outcomes of the community” (City of Philadelphia 2019, 16). Aspects of the roadmap such as these highlight the emphasis placed on community needs and involvement. Yet during our interviews, when we asked about how members of the broader community (beyond government) were actually involved in planning and decision-making processes, there was very little to report. Some interviewees acknowledged that there was less community engagement than promised or intended. The pandemic, we were told, made community outreach and engagement much more difficult. But, we were also told, it remains a pillar of the roadmap and the strategic plan, and it would be a priority going forward.Footnote ¹⁶

History and Context

Like many other American cities, Philadelphia experienced significant population growth in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (Biggest US Cities n.d.), bringing exponential growth in commercial and residential properties. As noted by Schilling and Hodgson (Reference Schilling and Hodgson2013, 7), “Known as the ‘workshop of the world,’ Philadelphia was home to a growing manufacturing economy that spurred population growth, which in turn sparked private investment in the housing market and municipal services.” In the latter half of the twentieth century, concurrent phenomena brought about the vacant property crisis. First, technological evolution and globalization resulted in deindustrialization of urban neighborhoods nationwide. As a result, inner city factories closed, and many jobs were lost. For example, in Philadelphia, “In 1880, 52% of city jobs were in manufacturing, falling to 30% in 1950, 10% in 2000 and 3.5% today” (Center City District & Central Philadelphia Development Corporation 2017, 3).

A second factor driving the increase of vacant properties in American cities was the growth of suburbs. The interstate highway and improved public transit allowed workers whose jobs remained in the city to live in the suburbs and easily commute. Coupled with the “white flight” phenomenon in some cities, suburban growth may have led to abandonment of many inner-city residential units and a significant population loss. From 1960 to 2021 Philadelphia’s total white population fell by more than 62 percent or more than 900,000 residents and white persons changed from approximately 73 percent of the city’s population in 1960 to approximately 35 percent in 2021 (US Census Bureau 1966, 2021).

The migration of white residents from the city to surrounding suburbs drastically impacted northeast Philadelphia as the percentage of white residents fell from 92 percent in 1990 to 58.3 percent in 2010 (Pew Charitable Trusts 2011). Suburban growth, as well as other social and economic changes, led to significant overall population loss in Philadelphia. For example, at the height of its population in 1950, Philadelphia had approximately 2.071 million people (US Census Bureau 1950, 38-15). The population declined more than 23 percent to approximately 1.584 million by 2019 (US Census Bureau 2019). For comparison, the population of select Philadelphia suburban counties grew by 334 percent (Bucks County), 230 percent (Chester County), and 135 percent (Montgomery County) over the same period (US Census Bureau 1950, 38-15; US Census Bureau 2019).

A third factor in vacant land in some cities was the federal redevelopment policies of the 1950s to 1970s, especially the Urban Renewal Program. This program was enacted in 1949 to remove “blight” in American cities. Nationwide, “renewal funded proposals to raze and redevelop 363,637 acres of land – that’s roughly 568 square miles” and more than 300,000 people were relocated (University of Richmond 2021). As noted by the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy:

By the end of 1965, Philadelphia had reserved $209 million in federal funding for urban renewal, second only to New York (Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia n.d.). Under the “Philadelphia Approach,” renewal emphasized “small scale, minimal displacement, citizen engagement, the preservation of neighborhood institutions, focus on urban design, and historic preservation” (Ryberg Reference Ryberg2013, 194). Despite these efforts, the University of Richmond’s Digital Scholarship Lab estimates that urban renewal in Philadelphia displaced more than 13,000 families (University of Richmond 2021). Philadelphia conducted more than sixty Urban Renewal Projects, in areas such as Society Hill, Independence Mall, Nicetown, University City, Eastwick, and near Temple University (University of Richmond 2021).

Despite some efforts to do things differently in Philadelphia, approximately 40,000 vacant properties remain scattered throughout Philadelphia (City of Philadelphia Reference Kenney2020). Of these, 74 percent or approximately 30,000 properties are privately owned (City of Philadelphia Reference Kenney2020), with the balance taken into public ownership by the city through tax foreclosure, surplus city properties, and other mechanisms. In addition, 1.7 percent of properties in the city are “zombies” – properties where an owner abandons the home, but the lender has not undertaken foreclosure (Dickerson Reference Dickerson2020). Regardless of occupancy status, private owners are required by city ordinance to maintain the property, including litter removal and securing the property (City of Philadelphia Reference Kenney2020, § PM-4). Vacant property in Philadelphia is not evenly spread across all city neighborhoods. Pearsall, Lucas, and Lenhardt (Reference Pearsall, Lucas and Lenhardt2013, 167) explain that:

Historically, seven Philadelphia city or quasi-public agencies have played a significant role in managing or selling the publicly owned or managed vacant properties. These include:

• The Philadelphia Housing Development Corporation (PHDC), a quasi-public entity funded by the city which manages the city’s land bank. The land bank was created by the City Council in 2013 under bill number 130156-A02 (City of Philadelphia 2013). The land bank conducts four key tasks: “Consolidate surplus City property … Acquire tax delinquent property at Sheriff’s sale … Dispose of surplus publicly-owned property ... Provide temporary access to property held by the Land Bank” (Philadelphia Land Bank 2019). The lots may be sold to individuals, developers, or nonprofit organizations (Philadelphia Housing Development Corporation 2022). Properties are sold at market rate, although discounts are available for properties that will be sold to nonprofits for public use or to neighbors for side yards (Philadelphia Land Bank 2020). These properties were acquired either from tax-delinquent sheriff’s sales or consolidated from existing properties already held by city agencies.

• Philadelphia Redevelopment Authority, now a part of PHDC.

• The city’s Department of Public Property, which manages and maintains properties where city staff work (City of Philadelphia Department of Public Property 2021). PHDC now serves as the operational arm for DPP vacant property sales.

• The city’s Vacant Property Review Committee (VPRC), a board comprised of fourteen people with a chairperson appointed by the city council president. In recent years, VPRC was accused of mismanagement of assets under its control, including “political meddling” in disposition of properties (Briggs Reference Briggs2019). In 2019, there was City Council legislation to fold the work of VPRC into the land bank (D’Onofrio Reference D’Onofrio2019).

• The Philadelphia Industrial Development Corporation (PIDC), which sells and leases industrial and commercial properties (City of Philadelphia 2 Reference Hecht2021).

• The Philadelphia County Sheriff, which hosts public auctions of properties taken due to foreclosure or tax delinquency (City of Philadelphia, Office of the Sheriff 2021).

• Philadelphia Housing Authority (PHA), which owns and manages affordable housing; with federal approval, it can sell homes and lots it owns (Philadelphia Housing Authority 2009).

The Department of Records,Footnote ¹⁸ the Department of Licenses and Inspections,Footnote ¹⁹ the Department of Planning and Development,Footnote ²⁰ the Department of Revenue,Footnote ²¹ and the Office of Property AssessmentFootnote ²² also have roles in addressing the issues created by vacant properties. Furthermore, the Philadelphia Fire Department, the Police Department, the Water Department, and the local electric utility PECO each need information about vacant properties to provide public services and undertake their respective responsibilities.

Stakeholders

Numerous stakeholders face knowledge problems. We identify three main categories. Local community organizations and residents have a vested interest in the acquisition and productive reuse of vacant properties in their neighborhoods. These organizations may be concerned about which vacant properties are available for purchase and about how, when, to whom, and for what purpose the properties will be sold. Smart technologies that manage, track, estimate value, and communicate knowledge about the sales process can benefit these community organizations and residents.

These tools would also be useful to private developers and lenders, who need this data to make informed investment decisions. The goals of these private entities might conflict with the neighborhood groups, but the same technology could aid both.

Numerous city departments need information about where vacant properties are located and the condition/status of those sites. Understanding the number, locations, and types of vacant properties is central to PHDC’s redevelopment mission. During our interview, Professor Allison Lassiter provided a few additional examples of the city’s knowledge-sharing needs. Before running into the building, for example, firefighters need to know whether it is believed to be occupied and what types of hazards may be present. When leaks occur, the city’s water department must understand whether the line serves a vacant structure. Smart technologies such as jointly accessible tracking databases, public reporting systems, and sensors could serve as tools to aid in the provision of these and other city services. The following sections describe how Philadelphia has deployed smart technology in aid of key stakeholders.

Knowledge Problems and Smart Tech Solutions

Given the significant impact of vacant properties and the needs of varied stakeholders, there are several knowledge questions that cities must answer. The following are representative:

• Location: Where are vacant properties located?

  • ◦ Are the properties clustered in specific neighborhoods?

  • ◦ What has been the impact of these vacant sites on the surrounding community?

• Ownership: Who has title to the vacant properties?

  • ◦ Are these owners in arrears on property taxes?

  • ◦ Which properties are owned by the city and which by private entities?

  • ◦ When and where should the city begin the tax foreclosure process?

  • ◦ Where and when should the city condemn and take the vacant property for repeated code violations?

• Status of the vacant site: Are vacant property owners maintaining the site, as required by Philadelphia law?

  • ◦ Are there crimes or safety hazards at the site?

  • ◦ What is the status of utilities, including water and electrical, at the property?

• Disposition: Which properties are for sale by the city?

  • ◦ What is the city’s plan for property reuse (commercial, multi-family residential, homeownership, side yard, community park, urban agriculture, etc.)?

  • ◦ Who and what are involved in the property disposition process?

  • ◦ How will upcoming property sales be communicated to the public, nonprofit community organizations, and developers?

There are many opportunities to use data, information and communications technologies, and smart technology to address these and related questions. In accordance with the macro-level strategy (discussed previously), the city has focused mostly on using the internet to provide usable open data as shared infrastructure for all stakeholders as well as mapping and visualization tools that leverage open datasets.

Smart tech deployment and governance in this action arena follows a familiar logic. The city has made a significant effort over the last several years to adopt technology policies that allow for more transparent government and enable open pipelines of data for everyone to use. Broadly speaking, the city sends data collected through various programs to DataBridge. Aggregated data is then published to a data repository, like the Philadelphia metadata catalog or a website like OpenDataPhilly. Once the data is published, it is available publicly for access and manipulation by anyone with an interest. The City of Philadelphia maintains a tool called Atlas for people to explore some of the published datasets.

The Vacant Properties Indicators Model (VPIM) dataset, owned and maintained by OIT, is an illustrative example of how data is published and utilized in the city. The dataset is hosted on OpenDataPhilly. Anyone can download it. The dataset is updated regularly by the city to ensure that the data present is the newest and most useful available. The city maintains two visualization applications that utilize the VPIM dataset: the Vacancy Viewer application and the Atlas application. Both are accessible either by direct link or through the OpenDataPhilly page for the VPIM dataset. On one hand, the Vacancy Viewer application is specifically tailored to the VPIM dataset. It serves to provide an easily navigable map-based visualization system for identifying and ranking vacant property according to the model created in the dataset. The Atlas application, on the other hand, serves a more general purpose. It helps visualize over fifty datasets. The Atlas application allows users to access information about properties across the city and allows users to learn about: property assessments, deeds, licenses and inspections, zoning, voting, and nearby 311 calls, crime incidents, zoning appeals, and vacant property. Atlas is an attempt by the city to unify visualization of geographically relevant datasets. The Atlas application contains a generalized visualization of the VPIM dataset to provide an entry point into viewing Philadelphia-centric data.

One of the stated goals for the DataBridge tool was to provide a streamlined methodology and process for publishing and viewing data. The Atlas application is an example of that streamlined process. However, as the Vacancy Viewer application shows, more specialized tools and visualizations can be created. One clear benefit of open data is innovation and creativity in the manipulation and viewing of the dataset. The City of Philadelphia has done a lot of work to create a platform and tools that can be used to observe and interact with the data they have published.

There are, in fact, many smart technology tools used to assess and manage vacant properties in Philadelphia. A sample of these tools are described in Table 5.3, sorted by the knowledge question each technology primarily addresses:

SmartCity PHL Roadmap and Knowledge-Smart Tech Gaps

The SmartCity PHL Roadmap includes vacant property management as an area of interest. In fact, the Departments of Licenses and Inspections, Planning and Development, the Waste and Litter Cabinet, the Philadelphia Water Department, the Philadelphia Fire Department, PECO, and the Department of Public Property – all of which have a role in addressing Philadelphia’s vacant properties – are members of the working group supporting development and implementation of the SmartCity plan (City of Philadelphia 2019, 2). Interestingly, none of the other key public agency vacant property owners, including the Philadelphia Housing Authority, the Sheriff’s Office, or the Philadelphia Housing Development Corporation, are listed in the SmartPHL Roadmap as members of this group (City of Philadelphia 2019, 2).

The roadmap identifies existing smart technologies, including several that are related to vacant properties. These include the city’s Vacant Property Model, DataBridge, Atlas/MapBoard, and its Litter Index (City of Philadelphia Litter Index 2019, 5). According to the roadmap, the Vacant Properties Indicators Model “identifies potentially vacant properties across Philadelphia by combining city datasets, analyzing and scoring them for every property record in the city. This solution has increased data accuracy and operational efficiency across stakeholders that deal with vacancy challenges” (City of Philadelphia 2019, 11).

As the SmartCity PHL Roadmap has been implemented, however, using smart tech to address the vacant property crisis has not been as successful as one might have expected. Managing/selling vacant properties has not been a major area of focus for OIT or the SmartCity working group. For example, the city’s SmartCity coordinator Emily Yates indicated that while there had been a discussion about including vacant properties among the early Pitch and Pilot initiatives, it did not proceed (Yates 2021).

Philadelphia has made progress in making data publicly available and providing various mapping and visualization tools (see previous section). These steps are important and help address some of the knowledge problems that may stifle stakeholder participation and progress in managing vacant property in the city. Yet, as became clear in our interviews, there is only so much that data and these types of smart tech tools can do. On one hand, many knowledge problems remain. The datasets are incomplete. Some datasets are managed separately and not always easily integrated. Conditions change, sometimes much faster than datasets can be updated. On the other hand, and perhaps much more important, some knowledge problems may not be amenable to data-driven, smart tech solutions – at least, the types being deployed. For example, questions concerning city planning and strategic disposition of vacant properties are not answered by data or mapping tools.

This observation raises a broader concern that surfaced in some interviews. Vacant property management is incredibly complicated, in part because it is not always reducible to a data or computational problem; it is often highly political and involves stakeholders with various competing interests. In addition, as noted during our interview with Angel Rodriguez, Executive Director of Philadelphia’s land bank, there are inherent legal and managerial complexities in acquiring and selling real estate. These complexities include ensuring that all buyers of vacant properties are qualified to undertake the long-term financial and maintenance obligations (Rodriguez 2021). Data and smart tech can be helpful, but are no panacea. In the next section, we briefly highlight some of the broader governance challenges that arose during our study.

Governance Challenges Affecting Smart City Implementation

Managing the disposition of vacant properties involves many organizational hurdles. We identify three governance challenges raised by interviewees and publications that may hinder implementation and coordination of smart city technologies to address the vacant property crisis in Philadelphia. These challenges include:

• Political structure;

• Organizational responsibilities; and

• Community group and public engagement.

Politics

Some of Philadelphia’s knowledge-sharing challenges regarding vacant properties are founded upon political processes. According to the city’s charter, Philadelphia cannot convey or acquire land, except by legislation, which requires city council approval. As noted in a report by the Pew Charitable Trusts “For instance, Chapter 8-205 of the City Charter forbids the Department of Public Property – which owns a majority of the city’s vacant land – from selling or exchanging ‘any real estate belonging to the City or grant any license, easement, right of way or other interest over or in such real estate without specific authority from the Council so to do’” (Pew 2015, 3). These requirements apply not only to sales from city agencies but also to sales from the land bank. In addition, one interviewee emphasized the importance of Philadelphia’s practice under its Home Rule that all sales of city-owned property be approved by the individual city councilor for that geographic district (Green 2021). This practice is known as “councilmanic prerogative” (Pew 2015). Councilmanic prerogative can lead to administrative delays and create challenges in implementing a comprehensive redevelopment plan (Green 2021). Councilman Green suggested that the only way to address this gridlock is to amend the city’s Home Rule/Charter. Another interviewee further highlighted the challenges with centralizing the vacant property process under the land bank: “I don’t think the city council ever wanted it to be successful … at the end of the day city council wanted to control what property got disposed of and who got it. And that isn’t the way I would think it should work, because it gives individual council members veto power over what gets developed or not.”

Organizational Responsibilities

The fact that different city agencies are involved in vacant property management and disposition in Philadelphia makes it difficult to organize an effective, coherent approach. In the past, many of these agencies operated as relatively self-contained silos, with little cross-agency data sharing or collaboration. Emily Yates, Philadelphia’s Smart Cities director and Ellen Hwang, the city’s former director and now with the Knight Foundation, indicated in their interviews that one of the first steps in implementing the SmartPHL Roadmap overall was to convince city agency staff that centralized systems and knowledge sharing were worth the effort. Some agencies, such as the Fire and the Water departments have embraced these initiatives and regularly use the Vacant Property Indicators database. Others are less engaged with the initiatives, appear to remain somewhat siloed, and may rely upon their own, internal land-tracking systems and planning processes.

The city has undertaken significant efforts over the past decade to reform its organizational approach to vacant property management. These efforts include consolidating much of the vacant property process under PHDC by establishing the land bank, rolling the Redevelopment Authority into PHDC, and ending the VPRC. To enhance the coordination between city agencies involved in the management of vacant property, Angel Rodriguez (2021), Executive Director of the Philadelphia Land Bank and Senior Vice President in charge of land management, design, and construction for PHDC, indicated in his interview that memorandums of understanding (MOUs) have been a vital aspect of the process. Rodriguez (2021) stated that the PHDC has spent years attempting to reform interagency coordination: “We’ve spent a lot of years ironing that out. [During the] first couple of years, it required me to get a memorandum of understanding with PRA, the Landbank with PRA, PHDC has an MOU with the revenue department, with the school district and an MOU with the commissioner public property.” In addition, Schilling and Hodgson note successes in establishing the office now known as the Office of Property Assessment, which evaluates and shares data on property values; developing a formal city land disposition policy; coordinating meetings across agencies; and improving data systems related to Sheriff’s sales (Schilling and Hodgson Reference Schilling and Hodgson2013, 21).

Community Inclusion

Community groups have voiced concerns about the uses of the properties sold by the city, whether from the land bank or other sources. For example, Beth McConnell, policy director with the Philadelphia Association of Community Development Corporation, “expressed concerns that the original vision for the Land Bank to be financially self-sufficient – to use the revenue generated from the sale of properties to fund its operations – creates a pressure to sell at market rate to developers and is at odds with the interests of current residents of these neighborhoods” (Haas Reference Haas2019). As described earlier, there are several smart technologies that provide easily accessible data and maps on vacant properties to Philadelphia residents and community groups. However, data sharing is not equivalent to community engagement and citizen participation, which imply a two-way discussion on the opportunities for redeveloping vacant properties. A review of the existing SmartPHL technologies indicates that relatively few of these tools directly relate to public engagement. In fact, a few of our interviewees indicated that involving community groups and residents in the overall smart city planning process – including as it relates to vacant property – is an area that requires additional attention. These interviewees indicated that due to the complex organization of Philadelphia’s city agencies and the need for interdepartmental coordination, these public stakeholders needed to be convinced and brought on board (Yates 2021; Hwang 2021). Then, community organizations could be more fully incorporated. These interviewees further indicated that the Covid-19 crisis has slowed these outreach efforts. It is important to note, however, that PHDC staff do regularly meet with and conduct training sessions for community groups.

The Future of Smart Technology and Vacant Properties in Philadelphia

Given constraints and the incredible complexity of the vacant property challenge, it is not surprising that smart city technology has yet to make a significant improvement in the disposition of vacant properties in Philadelphia. “The City owns more than 5,000 parcels of surplus vacant property and has disposed of less than 700 of them in the last five years” (Philadelphia Coalition for Affordable Communities 2021, 2; see also Haas Reference Haas2019: “Steven Jones said it took him 12 years to acquire the side lot he’d been cleaning and gardening for decades”). Yet, according to PHDC, the city’s efforts to reuse vacant property have improved in recent years: “Strategic property acquisitions increased from 21 in FY17 to 312 in FY19. In FY20, 157 properties were acquired; acquisitions in FY 20 were cut short due to the COVID-19 Pandemic. Dispositions have increased as well, from 241 properties in FY18 to 305 in FY19 and 321 in FY20. Dispositions through FY20 have brought in excess of $3 million in revenue” (Philadelphia Housing Development Corporation 2021, 10).

The types of smart city technologies already deployed by the city, as well as others not yet implemented, offer Philadelphia the opportunity to coordinate, communicate, and improve its approach to selling and reusing vacant properties. These technologies can and do assist city staff, commercial organizations, and community residents to locate, manage, and dispose of vacant property and buildings. The technologies assist public agency staff to answer key questions about where, when, and how to deliver city services related to these lots. In addition, the city’s smart technologies help private corporations to identify opportunities for redevelopment, investing much-needed resources into the city. Perhaps most importantly, these systems assist residents to apply for and implement reuse plans resulting in social benefits such as community gardens, affordable housing, or side lots for neighboring owners. Without Philadelphia’s existing smart technology, each of these outcomes would have been difficult – if not impossible – to achieve.

Nevertheless, there remain significant governance challenges to overcome if the promise of smart technology is to be realized in addressing Philadelphia’s tens of thousands of vacant properties. The technology can and does improve information accuracy, enhance communication efforts, and support interagency service provision. However, the promise of these technologies is not yet fully realized in Philadelphia. No smart technology can independently overcome the political and organizational issues and the complex economic trends outlined earlier. This case study serves as an example of the usefulness of smart technology and a stark reminder that it alone cannot solve significant public policy issues. Rather, the implementation of smart technologies must be founded upon effective local efforts to break down city service barriers caused by entrenched political and administrative structures. In addition, equitable, comprehensive, and successful vacant property disposition requires enhanced engagement with residents and community groups. Smart technology can support Philadelphia’s ongoing efforts to address these constraints and put vacant properties back into productive use for its citizens.