Did Mayor Parker’s plan to clean every block work?

Mayor Cherelle L. Parker said her administration would clean every residential block in Philadelphia over 13 weeks this summer, part of her pledge to clean the city and end its long-held and much-maligned “Filthadelphia” nickname.

It was a big promise for a brand-new administration, which said the effort was the largest ever in city history to address quality-of-life issues. By the time the initiative wrapped in late August, crews blanketed the city, block-by-block, removing litter, towing abandoned cars, scrubbing graffiti, sealing abandoned buildings, and cleaning overgrown lots.

Critics said Parker’s program was a short-term fix for a long-term problem. Administration officials said they knew it was not a cure-all, and announced in September that they plan to make the program a twice-yearly effort. That means every block will be cleaned the same way again, starting as early as this fall.

The question is: What impact did the first go-around really have?

The Inquirer fanned out across the city and visited neighborhood blocks before they were cleaned, then returned a month later to see what changed – and if it lasted.

Here are three examples of what we found:

Carlton Williams, the city’s director of clean and green initiatives, said the Parker administration “knew that one single cleanup wasn’t going to address years and years of blight and neglect.”

“It was important for us to show everyone what a clean block could look like,” he said, “so that we can make this a normal culture, as opposed to something that was just done sporadically.”

Williams said his office, in conjunction with a dozen city agencies, used new software to track the work performed on every block. At the end of the 13 weeks, the city had:

• Cleaned 18,123 blocks

• Cleared 5,554 vacant lots

• Towed 2,135 abandoned vehicles

• Removed 2,078 instances of graffiti

The program allowed city agencies to see which blocks required follow-up visits to tackle larger problems like abandoned buildings, overgrown lots, or nuisance businesses.

That means, Williams said, some of the work is still ongoing.

Let’s check out another example in a different part of the city.

This block showed the challenges associated with keeping a densely populated area clean. The area saw changes, such as the scrubbing of graffiti, but maintaining trash-free lots requires more attention.

Edward Robinson, who lives near the intersection, said he noticed when the cleaning crews came through and that it made a difference – but “only for a couple days.”

“You can’t just have trash trucks,” said Robinson, 65. “It was a good program, but overall, people need to change themselves.”

Parker has made a similar point. The mayor said last month that maintenance following the summer program would be, in part, up to residents.

“When you see our team come through your block,” Parker said, “I hope you are inspired to connect with your neighbors to say, ‘Well, how can we keep going with what the city of Philadelphia did?’”

Let’s go to one more example.

In a way, this block, with its halting progress, is emblematic of many across the city. Efie Mechikas, who has lived in the neighborhood for 50 years, said her block has been more “dirty and disgusting” over the last several years than ever before. She didn’t notice it had been cleaned a few weeks earlier.

She said the city used to ask residents to move their cars before crews cleaned the street, but that doesn’t happen anymore. Still, she said she’s glad the city is making an effort, saying of the mayor: “I think she tries more than the others before her.”

Williams, from the Parker administration, said asking people to move their cars “would have been logistically impossible” given the short timeline.

He said the administration is implementing companion programs, such as expanded trash can locations, a twice-weekly trash collection pilot, and residential cleaning crews permanently assigned to each of the city’s 10 geographically based Council districts.

“This cleanup,” Williams said, “was just the start.”