In the Spring of 1998, eighth-grade students at Sulzberger Middle School, working with graduate students in the course Power of Place, explored the history and future of Mill Creek.

Penn students designed outdoor classrooms for water play, study, and storm water detention on vacant lots around the school and over the old creek. The eighth graders decided to do the same, and this book is the result: visions of an extraordinary group of Sulzberger students for the future of their neighborhood.

A Framework for Action outlines a set of strategies for landscape improvements and establishes a framework for the diverse groups who shape West Philadelphia -- individuals, local organizations, corporations, and public agencies -- to work within.

The scope of the plan is more comprehensive than what are commonly known as “greening” projects, for the landscape of West Philadelphia is more than parks, gardens, and street trees; it includes the streets, sidewalks, and public utilities which structure the city, as well as playgrounds, parking lots, plazas, private yards, and vacant lots that fit within the larger framework. Major transportation and stream corridors provide a neighborhood-wide structure serving the needs of local residents and the larger region, a framework within smaller projects may be tailored to suit the people who make them happen.

This garden is a town, we have everything but a penal colony,” said Hayward Ford, President of Aspen Farm Community Garden. Ford’s statement reflects a basic idea which guided our work: community gardens are a model for neighborhood-based planning. They are microcosms of community that contain many lessons for designing neighborhoods and cities A community garden is often a first step in community development and an important training ground for future leaders.

Dozens of community gardens were designed and built between 1987- 1991 as part of the West Philadelphia Landscape Plan and Greening Project, including three of those described below.

The report highlights eight community gardens, selected for their diversity in terms of how they were formed, how they operate, and how they look, to provide a glimpse of what different places such gardens can be. The gardens range from a tiny, intricate garden to a huge, amorphous one, from ones tended by one or two individuals to others where over fifty people garden. Community gardens embody the values of those who plant and end them, thereby creating a variety of physical forms and organizational structures; yet certain elements and motivations are common to all.

Vacant Land: A Resource for Reshaping Urban Neighborhoods describes different types of vacant urban land (“missing teeth,” corner lots, “swiss cheese,” multiple vacant blocks), how they fit into the dynamics of larger natural and social systems, and how they might be reclaimed for a variety of uses to fit the needs of particular people and places. The report also shows how vacant land and subsiding streets and buildings in West Philadelphia correlate with buried streams and filled-in floodplains and proposes solutions that address regional problems of combined sewer overflow. Vacant urban land may be a blighting influence, but it also affords a rare opportunity to reshape neighborhoods and cities.

The Models of Success report describes a range of successful landscape improvement projects and identifies key factors that contribute to success or failure. These models represent different types of potential landscape projects identified by the West Philadelphia Landscape Plan (from community gardens to parks as infrastructure corridors) and the kinds of sponsors who might implement and maintain them (from individuals to public agencies). Models of Success features the Aspen Farms Community Garden, where members of the Mill Creek community have come together to provide a valuable resource and gathering space for their community.

Many of these models of success have inspired spinoff projects; they include a variety of social programs, such as education, job training, employment, and neighborhood organizing.