Philadelphia is too often in crisis mode, which does nothing to stop future crises

If we care about people hundreds of miles away, we ought to care about people hundreds of years away.

It’s a simple idea that can have an outsized influence on how we set and shape policy. Many Philadelphians confront life-threatening challenges — gun violence, poverty, housing, addiction — that need to be addressed urgently. Yet lasting change is a generations-long project. The most effective way to balance this is to radically extend the timeline on which we debate and implement priorities.

In other cities and countries, this message is coming across clearly. Wales, for instance, adopted the Well-being of Future Generations Act in 2015, which forces lawmakers to consider the long-term impact of their decisions.

Long-term thinking is about balance. Our city’s big problems easily attract crisis thinking, in which city leaders (both public and private) often respond reactively. As a consequence, we remain mired in “servicing poverty” — or barely addressing basic needs without addressing the root causes.

Long-term thinking is about balance.

We need to adopt a new approach, and no more painful example exists than our response to gun violence. The city’s stagnant paradigm treats violence as a series of episodic events. The privileged among us overlook most murders as just another grim statistic, with the occasional news conference, new program, or promise of accountability. But in the communities hardest hit by gun violence, the trauma compounds and spreads through multiple generations. Gun violence is serviced, but never truly addressed.

Policymakers looking to tackle gun violence should approach the problem differently, with a timeline of 150 years. Violence is an outcome of interrelated factors — of infrastructure and education, of economic policy and culture. If our leaders ignore this complex history, they have already failed. In contrast, longtermism intertwines seemingly decades-long projects such as community health, education reform, and job readiness into combating gun violence. Gradual progress compounds over generations.

Crises necessitate response but without long-term thinking, we’ll never end this crisis loop. Take any crisis — high rates of addiction and incarceration, low rates of education performance or entrepreneurship — and pair it with long-term vision and adjoining investments. When viewed over 150 years, responding to the crisis without long-term vision isn’t a response at all.

Nowhere is long-term thinking more important than when it comes to climate resiliency. According to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), despite our relatively moderate climate and access to food production, Philadelphia remains at high risk for climate impact because our poorer communities are especially at risk of river flooding and extreme heat. If we plan for floods this fall but not rising water levels next century, we’ll lose entire neighborhoods.

Philadelphia already knows how to think long term. Consider Philadelphia250, a yearslong campaign to coordinate efforts for the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution in 2026. The year will be headlined by Philadelphia hosting the World Cup and the MLB All-Star Game.

» READ MORE: Three ‘Leave a Legacy’ finalists named to honor country’s 250th birthday in 2026

But what if we look 150 years further out to 2176, when Philadelphia will celebrate the 400th anniversary of the American Revolution. What work should we be doing now to make that celebration even better?

When considering the importance of longtermism, we think about the Haudenosaunee, or Iroquois, people, who are credited with the seventh generation principle, which states that today’s decisions should benefit descendants seven generations from now. Or the artisan living hundreds of years ago, who laid down the first stone of a grand medieval structure, knowing they would never live to see its completion.

Imagine something we hope for seven generations from now. Imagine we’re starting a cathedral.

Urgency is vital, but frantic responses to crises are unproductive. One day, we will be somebody’s ancestor, and they’ll tell stories about us. What do we want them to say?

Christopher Wink leads the news organization Technical.ly. Michael O’Bryan is the founder of Humanature. They recently collaborated on a yearlong reporting project called “Thriving,” which followed Philadelphians for a year, resulting in an audio documentary released Sept. 21.