Ideas We Should Steal

  • Super High Speed Rail Throughout the Northeast Corridor

    The Northeast MagLev, which reaches speeds of 317 m.p.h., would go from Philly to New York City in 25 minutes, and DC in 30.

  • Mail In Voting

    In Colorado, where all voting is done by mail, 61 percent of voters sent in a ballot in the midterm—about 25 percent more than the national average.

  • Open Primaries

    Want to have candidates who are more in the middle? Open primaries let everyone—even independents—vote for who will be on the ballot.

  • Universal Broadband

    Wide swaths of the population still don't have access to high speed internet. Colorado is changing that with a small portion of its tax base

  • Fight Gentrification with Storytelling…and Bikes

    Detroit-based Pedal to Porch recruits residents to share stories about their neighborhood to participants traveling by bike from house to house. It is proving that connection between newer and older residents is one way to soften the effects of gentrification in cities.

  • Use Technology to End the Opioid Epidemic

    Communities across the country are joining together to fight the opioid epidemic by sharing data, including maps of overdoses, deaths, naloxone locations and old prescription drop boxes, as well as stories of success.

  • Guaranteed Income

    Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes made $450 million in three years. As he says: There’s something wrong with that. Now, he proposes a $500/month basic income for low-income Americans.

  • Use Art to Keep Kids Out of Prison

    Philadelphia’s Bartram High School won last year’s Aspen Challenge with a 1000-crane origami sculpture to raise awareness of the schools to prison pipeline. Its tagline: Coronation over Incarceration. Now they want to bring their work to create a scholarship for someone previously incarcerated, and to launch an after school program.

  • Use City Data to Give Residents What They Want

    In Kansas City, Mayor Sly James married data to citizen engagement surveys to create city policies—and even got residents to pay for it.

  • Fight gun crime with pocket parks

    In Philadelphia—yes here!—Penn professors and the Horticulture Society made pocket parks out of abandoned lots in North Philly. It reduced crime and improved mental health. Broaden that citywide.

  • Mitigate Gentrification

    Cat Goughnour’s Portland-based Right 2 Root actively involves existing communities in how their neighborhoods develop, as a way to help keep people—particularly underserved populations—in their homes.

  • Make Urban Education Fun

    The founder of Brooklyn’s Ascend Schools started with a “no excuses” disciplinary model in his charters. But he got real results when Ascend pivoted to a relationship-first model that emphasizes joy and curiosity in learning.

  • Celebrate Integrity, Rather Than Just Punishing Corruption

    Integrity Idol, in Nepal and six other developing countries, holds American Idol-like contests to find the most honest and effective civil servant in the country. Bring it here to change the culture of influence and corruption in Philly, too.

  • Teaching Empathy For Racial Reconciliation

    UNDIVIDED, a six-week spiritual journey from Cincinnati’s Crossroads Church, brings people together from different races for conversations and experiences that are healing the racial divide in the city.

  • Give Citizens a Say in How to Spend Money

    Bring participatory budgeting to Philadelphia so residents can help shape their communities.

  • Lead an Effort to Impose Term Limits on City Council

    In Arlington, Texas, a citizen movement put term limits on the ballot—and won

  • Help Grow Businesses in Underserved Communities

    Fight income inequality by supporting entrepreneurs of color

  • Reduce Gun Violence Through a Community-Wide Effort

    Oakland cut its homicide rate in half by using a version of programs Philly abandoned in 2015

  • Empower Public Servants to be Problem-Solvers

    Help city workers provide better customer service to all of us

  • Use Evidence-Based Approach for Poverty Reduction

    New York City lifted 140,000 people out of poverty. Let’s do that here

  • Use Basketball to Keep People Out of Prison

    Taylor Paul’s RVA League for Safer Streets cut homicide in Richmond, Virginia—and has kept young adults out of jail