COLUMN: Our own urban enclave

From Binyamin Appelbaum's, "Carving Marble," Fall '00 From Binyamin Appelbaum's, "Carving Marble," Fall '00Philadelphia began, like all cities, as a mutual assistance organization. The city charged its citizens for the services it provided; the citizens, at least in theory, were free to live elsewhere if they did not want to pay. That model worked for nearly 300 years, from Philadelphia's founding in 1681 until just after the Second World War. Back in the 1950s, when Philadelphia was just beginning to fall apart, the Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania met to consider the available options: Stay in Philadelphia or move to Valley Forge. They decided to stay put. But not just to stay put. To build a city within a city. To create a self-sustaining reality in one small corner of the City of Philadelphia. There have been false starts along the way, the failure of urban renewal and the attempt to build walls around the campus most prominent among them. Now, Penn has a new plan to save University City from the broader failure of the city around it: Decide what reality needs to be, let the City of Philadelphia do what it can and then pay for the rest. And so, the Philadelphia Police patrol the streets of University City. But the Penn Police make sure this part of Philadelphia is safer than any other. The city's sanitation department picks up trash. And the University City District makes sure they don't miss any. The city provides what funding it can for area public schools. And Penn has promised to provide land and supplemental funding for a new elementary school and magnet high school. There are more lights on the streets because Penn puts them there. There are more trees because Penn plants them. And there are more public buses because Penn pays for them. The theory behind all of this is simple: University City cannot attract residents who are capable of paying for an adequate level of service if it does not provide those services in advance of their arrival. For cities, which have no source of income other than taxes, this means building attractions that will bring suburban dollars into the city, things like Liberty Place, the First Union Center and Penn's Landing. For Penn, it just means plowing tuition and endowment dollars into University City. Many people are quick to criticize Penn -- and Philadelphia -- for providing better than "necessary" services and attractions while some parts of the city remain poverty-stricken. The problem is, if you're stuck in the desert with five friends and one canteen, the only way any of you will survive is if one of you drinks all of the water. Take the University of Pennsylvania Police Department, spread its officers equally among Philadelphia's 23 patrol districts and you've made a very small splash in a very large bucket. To be precise, you've increased the total number of Philadelphia Police officers by 1.7 percent. Focus the efforts of those 104 officers on University City and you've got a declining crime rate, an increasingly affluent community and a vibrant retail and entertainment district. Take Penn's investment in University City's public schools and spread it around Philadelphia and again you've done nothing. But focus it on the University City area and you stand a chance of getting people with children and a choice of places of residence to live here. And so, for now and for the foreseeable future, Welcome to University City. On behalf of Mayor Judith Rodin, I hope you enjoy your stay.