Solutions

We Can Protect the Economy From Pandemics. Why Didn't We? A virologist helped crack an impossible problem: how to insure against the economic fallout from devastating viral outbreaks. The plan was ingenious. Yet we're still in this mess. Evan Ratliff Wired

A virologist helped crack an impossible problem: how to insure against the economic fallout from devastating viral outbreaks. The plan was ingenious. Yet we're still in this mess.

Philadelphia is famous for its many murals that capture the city's history and spirit, like this one by artist Carl Willis Humphrey honoring W.E.B. Du Bois. The image is painted on the wall of a historical African-American firehouse. Du Bois was a founder of the NAACP and was commissioned in 1896 to survey African-Americans living in the city's Seventh Ward as part of a study on race, The Philadelphia Negro. He is depicted with a census in hand. Photo by Shrub75/Flickr

The city is home to more than 40,000 vacant properties. Now neighborhoods are hoping a new public entity can help them bounce back from the post-industrial blues.

yesmagazine.org - by Jake Blumgart - December 27, 2013

Blighted properties drain public coffers, contribute nothing to the tax base, and serve as havens for crime and trash. After years of work . . . activists hope that a bill passed this December will finally provide Philadelphians with a tool to confront this colossal problem: a land bank.