The newly inaugurated Mayor of Philadelphia Cherelle Parker immediately declared a public safety emergency on her first day in office and vowed to dramatically increase police numbers and economic opportunity in the historic city.
At her inauguration, Mayor Parker vowed to make Philadelphia the “safest, cleanest, greenest big city” in the country and outlined her 100-day plan to do so. In addition to hiring more police officers to tackle rising crime and drug abuse, Mayor Parker’s 100-day plan declared that the “Police Commissioner will deliver plans for those crises and for crimes—like car theft, shoplifting, and illegal ATV use—that diminish the quality of life in our city.”
The plan additionally promises to launch “a new approach to addressing quality-of-life issues, like illegal short-dumping, cleaning up litter and graffiti, fixing potholes, and removing abandoned cars—starting by focusing on the hardest hit neighborhoods.”
Mayor Parker addressed the need to improve “environmental justice” by establishing “green” city-wide initiatives.
The new mayor also plans to order a “top-to-bottom” review of the city’s Land Bank to aid in developing “a vision of ‘affordable luxury’ —affordable homes with high-quality fixtures and finishes for homeowners and renters; preserve and build more affordable housing; and provide more support for small landlords.”
Following her inauguration, the mayor signed three executive orders, the first, declaring a public safety emergency, the second concerned making local government more “visible, responsive, and effective in how it delivers services to citizens,” and the final regarding “Expanding economic opportunity by removing barriers to city employment.”
Philadelphia has become a hotbed of crime in recent years, and the historic city is currently ranked as the fourteenth most dangerous metropolis in the U.S. The city has become notorious for drug abuse, as the needle exchange program intended to prevent disease spread among addicts simply incentivized higher usage.
The city has earned an international reputation for rampant open-air drug use that Mexico used footage taken on the streets of Philadelphia to include in a public “don’t do drugs” campaign.
