Philacon Valley: The surging technology communities of Philadelphia, the Delaware Valley

The older streets of Philadelphia with the Center City-skyscraping Liberty Towers peering over.

Wipe clean the rust.

Philadelphia, Pa., the first great and longest-lasting great American city, which fell on long-hard, embarrassing times for much of the second-half of the 20th century, has every reason to take on the future of urban existence — innovation.

I’m using the opportunity to also introduce a new venture, Technically Philly, a blog covering the community of people using technology in Philadelphia.

And that community is growing. If it’s green development or technology, Philadelphia has a thriving underground version of it. Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to Philacon Valley.

Will the Philadelphia Inquirer Harrisburg bureau get trimmed?

The Philadelphia Inquirer and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette are officially sharing content, according to Editor & Publisher.

Inquirer Editor William Marimow and Post-Gazette Editor David Shribman confirmed that they have been swapping daily budgets since Jan. 29, the latest example of the ever-growing trend of newspapers with no common ownership or JOA trading news.

“We exchange budgets and except for the most highly-competitive stories, we will be sharing,” said Marimow. “You will see more Pittsburgh Post-Gazette bylines and photos in the Inquirer.” [Source]

Why don’t Philadelphia police and fire departments sell merchandise?

God, I could get sick if I see someone else with an NYPD hat.

But, Hell, kudos because that is brand development and, I’d bet, some additional revenue for those departments – even if lots of copycats are out there.

I could only imagine the fear is police impersonation, but I have to believe you could limit the design and merchandise to mitigate that fear.

In a city of huge bureaucracy, this could be a department of the city’s police or fire departments that could make some money. As much as those departments are reviled by some, there are those eager to support a big city’s bravest and finest. Let’s monetize that for the city.

Center City Philadelphia at Christmas: how our city and yours can do it better

Photo by Ronald C. Saari. See more at RonSaari.com.

It’s Christmastime in the city.

U.S. center cities of all shapes and sizes can expect a wave of traffic, from the exurbs, the suburbs, the neighborhoods and outside the region. They come for shopping and sightseeing and, really, the setting that your city will create, with lights, decorations, atmosphere, a tree and cheer.

So, on Christmas Eve, why not figure out how we can do it better.

The 10 best Philadelphia images from new Life Magazine Google archive

Photo by Alfred Eisenstaedt

Google announced its hosting of 10 million Time-Life photographs last month.

The Google Life-magazine archive is a sign of more to come, but is pretty cool already. I’ve chosen five of the better images I found by checking “Philadelphia source: Life” in a Google image search. (hat tip to 10,000 words)

Right now, there are more than 200 items for Philadelphia, though the search seems to have some quirks. I couldn’t find items during one search, but if I used the same search terms ten minutes later, it might appear – other times, no Philadelphia images would register at all. Things that will be corrected I will imagine. Whether more items are to be added I don’t know, but for now, the oldest is a painting of a scene from the 1790s and the photos run to the 1980s.

See my ten favorites below, in chronological order.

Philadelphia foods: The ones you know and those you don’t

Philadelphia regional foods packed for overnight shipping by Taste of Philadelphia are displayed in Folcroft, Pa., near Philadelphia, Tuesday, Pa., March 13, 2007. Americans transplanted from their hometowns are scouring the World Wide Web to find the comfort food they crave _ and it's created a cottage industry for entrepreneurs willing to deliver across state lines (AP Photo by Matt Rourke).

I was back in Philadelphia last month before leaving for Europe and inspired me to write a handful of posts, from my humble suggestions for the Philadelphia Inquirer to some lessons from an internship with the Philadelphia Business Journal – and the 10 Philadelphia books you have to read.

Here’s another, my missing the delicious food specialties of the original first city of America,