Jon Geeting

Passyunk Ave manages to have much shorter opening times for restaurants, with many many more opening by-right. While I haven't been down there in a few months, I'm pretty sure it's not hell on Earth

I put the study results on this mini site I built with Claude Code, with a full analysis of 2007-2025 permits on multiple Philly commercial corridors, and an interactive map. All source data linked so you can check my work ncaoverlaystudy.netlify.app

How Not to Plan A Neighborhood The controversy over a planned Fishtown restaurant is another instance of Neighborhood Commercial Areas making it hard for small businesses

Food and beverage businesses spend anywhere from $3,000-15,000 dollars on this process, and have to wait an extra 7.5 months on average. By one estimate, this has transferred nearly $2M from restaurant entrepreneurs to zoning lawyers since 2007 thephiladelphiacitizen.org/neighborhood...

I wrote about my white whale, the Neighborhood Commercial Overlay in Fishtown and Northern Liberties, which doubles the amount of time it takes to open a restaurant. The ZBA approves 97% of these cases, making it more like a toll booth than a gate

Eye-popping margins in the Pennsylvania special elections today:

—Democrats won HD94 by 63 points.
(Harris won it by 30 in 2024.)

—Democrats won HD42 by 35 points.
(Harris won it by 17 in 2024.)

[The 2024 numbers are via the essential @the-downballot.com].

I personally know two separate people who just won neighborhood races By Applying. Both were relatively shocked

Dig into the ward politics of your neighborhood and get access to all the tools you need to win at 5th Square’s CP elections hub mini site 5thsq-ward-elections-hub.netlify.app

Committeeperson Elections, By the Numbers Committeeperson may be the lowest elected office in Philly, but they're vital to civic engagement. And if you run...chances are, you’ll win

thephiladelphiacitizen.org/committeeper...

I wrote for @thephilacitizen.bsky.social about how uncompetitive the Philly committee person elections really are. Don’t be afraid to just go for it!

Trump: "I can do anything I want to do to them ... I'm allowed to destroy the country."

Running for a committee person seat in Philly, or thinking about it? I’ve been making some cool Philly CP election tools for 5th Square with Claude. Sign up on their CP interest form to get access docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

We gotta reform the PHC's exterior scope to permanant facade elements only

A thing that annoys me about the Axios newsletter is that the tone is consistently “I am one of the top experts on this thing I learned about five minutes ago.” Also that they have 280 sources in the White House but their only source on the left is Rep. Capitulate Middle (D).

Palantir CEO Dr. Alex Karp: "You need a higher purpose, and I think you often need a lower purpose. @andrewrsorkin: "What's your lower purpose?" Karp: "I love the idea of getting a drone and having light fentanyl-laced urine spraying on analysts that tried to screw us."

Dude is quickly climbing the ranks of Most Dangerous Man Alive

Subscribers will also get access to weekly digests with new housing permits and ZBA cases; upcoming public meeting agenda summaries; and the new BPN Property Intelligence dashboard (developed by our friend Brandon Cohen) Stay tuned!

This is the first official BPN News piece, a new reported newsletter covering city gov’t meetings on housing and transportation. We’ll soon have two Substack membership tiers where we’ll be asking our readers to support paying writers for meeting coverage

Read @ninthhostage.bsky.social on last Friday’s Philadelphia Historical Commission meeting, where the Commission decided a designation case for a 1920’s movie theater in Frankford, among other things open.substack.com/pub/buildphi...

Example interurban/intercity cases will include: Fast, rapid electric service linking Chicago-Milwaukee-Madison; Chicago-Springfield-St. Louis; Chicago-Kalamazoo-Ann Arbor-Detroit; Philadelphia-Reading; Philadelphia-Bethlehem; NY-Scranton.

Our goals:
- Create a positive vision of what investing in transit can deliver for Jersey, Philly and Chicagoland, delivering much faster commutes and much improved connectivity
- Illustrate how it opens the door for modern interurban service that extend beyond the megalopolises to nearby cities

Very excited to say that the stars have aligned and NYU Marron/Transit Costs Project have landed a grant that will fund a second edition of Momentum, which will apply the high-throughput framework to major regional rail networks beyond the NY area.

Our three big new cases:
- NJT
- SEPTA
- METRA

This stat (below) really goes to show that 👏🏼traffic 👏🏼deaths 👏🏼are 👏🏼preventable 👏🏼

People who live in Philadelphia are now almost 3Xs more likely to be killed in traffic than those who live in NYC (where real progress has been made to Vision Zero goals)

www.axios.com/local/philad...

Washington, DC's City Council is hearing its single-stair building now. You can find written testimony and a link to the Zoom feed here. The Department of Buildings' testimony is *very* positive. I'll be testifying at some point as well lims.dccouncil.gov/Hearings/hea...

After practicing in Chicago for 12 years (and in very urban settings in New Jersey before that), three things really strike me about Philadelphia.

1) I see many more people with bullets in them
2) I see many more pedestrians struck by cars
3) I see many more cyclists struck by cars

After rocky start, Bari Weiss to cut staff, add commentators at CBS News CBS News Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss came in with a mandate to reshape coverage. She is set to announce plans for newsroom cuts and the hiring of many new commentators.

"Weiss is planning to tell her newsroom Tuesday that she intends to hire approximately 18 paid commentators and that she only wants top-flight performers committed to her approach to stick around. Weiss is also expected to make significant cuts to the newsroom." www.npr.org/2026/01/27/n...

Signs about the history of slavery in the U.S. and the 9 people George Washington enslaved are being removed right now at the President’s House Site in Philadelphia, across from Independence Hall, months after the Trump administration threatend to do so.

How far we have not come in 250 years.

YouTube video by About Here North America's Elevator Problem

The United States has the fewest elevators in the rich world, with Canada only a bit ahead. We teamed up with @uytaelee.bsky.social of About Here Videos to investigate why, exactly, North America sucks at elevators.

I count 10 cities in 2025 that are on track to have the fewest murders since at least 1970. Newark is on pace to have the fewest murders since 1956 (though only have data through Oct this year) and San Francisco is on pace to have the fewest murders since 1942.

super disappointing and kinda unforeseen. Did not think those were her politics before this

Philly should follow this rule and empower the Planning Commission to grant all needed special exceptions short of complete variances @jongeeting.bsky.social