These were just some of the headlines that dominated Philadelphia politics in 2024.
So, what does 2025 hold for the city?
I’m a politics professor at Drexel University and in 2023 I published a short book, “Reforming Philadelphia, 1682-2022,” that traced the city’s political development with an eye toward the future of its policy and politics.
Here are six key storylines that will shape Philly’s political landscape in 2025.
1. Partisan shifts
Philadelphia enters 2025 notably more politically diverse than five years ago.
Partisanship in Philadelphia is not so much captured by a Democratic-Republican split as it is by what local journalist Larry Platt once called “reformer vs. progressive,” referring to the division between more conservative Democrats on the one hand and more liberal Democrats and progressive third parties on the other.
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Progressive candidates have had minor surges in recent years. Seven of the 17 members of the Philadelphia City Council are elected at large, but no party is allowed to nominate more than five members to run for these seats in the general election. This has meant that, as long as anyone can remember, there have been five Democratic and two Republican at-large council members.
Then, in 2019, Working Families Party candidate Kendra Brooks won one of the two at-large seats previously held by Republicans. One year later, two Democratic Socialists who ran as Democrats, Nikil Saval and Rick Krajewski, were elected to the state Senate and state House, respectively. And in 2023 another Working Families Party member, Nicolas O’Rourke, won the second at-large City Council seat reserved for minor parties, thereby completely replacing Republicans in those positions.
At the same time, the mayor elected in 2023, Cherelle Parker, is a reasonably conservative Democrat – at least in the sense that her focus has not been on social justice issues but rather the classic municipal issues of cleanliness and public safety.
The most recent surge favoring Republicans would ostensibly threaten the two at-large Working Families Party members of the City Council, who are most vulnerable to electoral challenges that would bring back at-large Republicans. However, they’re safe until 2027, by which time another Democratic surge in Philadelphia is likely, as many voters will have most likely soured on the Trump administration by that time.
Kendra Brooks of the Working Families Party was elected to the Philadelphia City Council in 2019. Lisa Lake/Getty Images for MoveOn
2. Will Krasner stay or go?
In 2025, the most high-profile city election will be for district attorney, and that does seem potentially ripe for change.
The incumbent is Larry Krasner, first elected in 2017 as part of the post-Trump progressive wave. He won again decisively in 2021, against a challenger in the Democratic primary whose main support was from the Fraternal Order of Police.
Yet as Parker’s election as mayor – and Trump’s as president – suggests, Krasner may face an electorate ready for a more law-and-order message in May 2025. The DA’s office in Philadelphia has historically been a bastion for conservative Democrats and even Republicans. Krasner may face more significant challengers this time around, especially in the primary.
Parker has also focused in particular on the Kensington neighborhood and its notorious open-air drug markets. This is important, not least because Kensington has been a large contributor to the city’s unfortunate status of being a leader in drug overdose deaths.
The drug trade was also holding down development and property values – and therefore property tax revenues – in a neighborhood on the path of gentrification. From my perspective, cleaning up Kensington promises to be some of the best return on investment in the city.
Police lock down part of Kensington Avenue during the clearing of a homeless encampment in May 2024. Spencer Platt/Getty Images
4. Parker vs. Trump administration
Of course, another new thing that the city will have to grapple with in 2025 is the incoming Trump administration.
The previous Trump administration got into a fight with then-Mayor Jim Kenney in 2016 over the city’s sanctuary policy with respect to federal immigration enforcement. Basically, the Kenney administration won and got back federal grant money that had been withheld.
Parker may be in a tough spot if she plans to maintain some sort of sanctuary status for the city. The Trump administration – no friend of Philadelphia under the best of circumstances – will likely face less resistance and some acquiescence, as we’re seeing in Chicago, where some aldermen have suggested getting rid of that city’s sanctuary status.
The incoming president has also signaled repeatedly his willingness to use the military for mass deportations, thereby sidestepping necessary cooperation from local law enforcement. This is a critical issue because immigration is a key economic asset for Philadelphia. As the Pew Charitable Trusts have found, immigrants in Philadelphia tend to be younger, more likely to participate in the workforce, and more likely to start a business than native Philadelphians.
Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker speaks ahead of a campaign rally for Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris in Philly in November 2024. Matthew Hatcher/AFP via Getty Images
5. Market East in limbo
And then there was the proposed downtown 76ers arena, approved by the City Council in a 12-5 vote in December 2024 and then entirely scrapped in early January 2025. Was this entire project simply some sort of bargaining chip used by Sixers owners and management to get a better deal in South Philadelphia from Comcast Spectacor, the owner of the teams’ current home at the Wells Fargo Center?
Whatever the case, the entire project no doubt leaves a bad taste in the mouths of the Chinatown businesses and other interest groups who opposed the new stadium and felt sold out by the mayor and City Council. But with the next City Council and mayoral elections not happening until 2027, it seems likely that the entire thing will be forgotten by the time any elected official might be punished at the polls.
The fall of the downtown stadium deal throws open the future of the Market Street East corridor. The proposed arena was part of a reimagining of the Fashion District, a redevelopment project by the Pennsylvania Real Estate Investment Trust that opened in 2019. The pandemic and higher interest rates led to store closures and financial problems, and PREIT has since filed twice for bankruptcy. Add to that the fact that Macy’s, an anchor tenant on the corridor, announced it is closing its store in the historic Wanamaker Building next to City Hall.
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Market East – essentially the front door of the city – doesn’t look so good for the 2026 celebrations planned as part of the 250th anniversary of the founding of the country. Indeed, the Constitution was drafted at Independence Hall, which is part of the Market East corridor. The chances that things will look much better in 2025 seem pretty dim, although there are plans to convert the space to apartments and smaller stores.
Other major infrastructure projects will likely work in the mayor’s favor, most notably a new park covering part of I-95 that will reconnect the Delaware riverfront to the Society Hill and Old City neighborhoods. This is set to be completed during Parker’s first term.
Philadelphia is in the midst of a building boom, but affordable housing remains a concern for many residents. Jeff Fusco for The Conversation U.S., CC BY-NC-SA
Yet the city has to a certain extent inadvertently lucked out. As 2021 was the last year that developers could take full advantage of the city’s 10-year tax abatement for new construction, a record number of building permits were granted that year.
In 2022, the number of building permits plummeted to 2013 levels. Nevertheless, the permits from 2021 have led to a building boom, especially in residential construction, which may be keeping housing prices lower than they would otherwise be. We can expect this trend to continue into 2025, even if the volume of new permits drops even more.
‘I’ll have a coke – no, not Coca-Cola, Sprite.’
Justin Sullivan/Getty ImagesValerie M. Fridland, University of Nevada, Reno
With burgers sizzling and classic rock thumping, many Americans revel in summer cookouts – at least until that wayward cousin asks for a “pop” in soda country, or even worse, a “coke” when they actually want a Sprite.
Few American linguistic debates have bubbled quite as long and effervescently as the one over whether a generic soft drink should be called a soda, pop or coke.
The word you use generally boils down to where you’re from: Midwesterners enjoy a good pop, while soda is tops in the North and far West. Southerners, long the cultural mavericks, don’t bat an eyelash asking for coke – lowercase – before homing in on exactly the type they want: Perhaps a root beer or a Coke, uppercase.
As a linguist who studies American dialects, I’m less interested in this regional divide and far more fascinated by the unexpected history behind how a fizzy “health” drink from the early 1800s spawned the modern soft drink’s many names and iterations.
Bubbles, anyone?
Foods and drinks with wellness benefits might seem like a modern phenomenon, but the urge to create drinks with medicinal properties inspired what might be called a soda revolution in the 1800s.
An 1878 engraving of a soda fountain.Smith Collection/Gado via Getty Images
The process of carbonating water was first discovered in the late 1700s. By the early 1800s, this carbonated water had become popular as a health drink and was often referred to as “soda water.” The word “soda” likely came from “sodium,” since these drinks often contained salts, which were then believed to have healing properties.
Given its alleged curative effects for health issues such as indigestion, pharmacists sold soda water at soda fountains, innovative devices that created carbonated water to be sold by the glass. A chemistry professor, Benjamin Stillman, set up the first such device in a drugstore in New Haven, Connecticut, in 1806. Its eventual success inspired a boom of soda fountains in drugstores and health spas.
By the mid-1800s, pharmacists were creating unique root-, fruit- and herb-infused concoctions, such as sassafras-based root beer, at their soda fountains, often marketing them as cures for everything from fatigue to foul moods.
These flavored, sweetened versions gave rise to the linking of the word “soda” with a sweetened carbonated beverage, as opposed to simple, carbonated water.
Seltzer – today’s popular term for such sparkling water – was around, too. But it was used only for the naturally carbonated mineral water from the German town Nieder-Selters. Unlike Perrier, sourced similarly from a specific spring in France, seltzer made the leap to becoming a generic term for fizzy water.
Many late-19th-century and early 20th-century drugstores contained soda fountains – a nod to the original belief that the sugary, bubbly drink possessed medicinal qualities.Hall of Electrical History Foundation/Corbis via Getty Images
Regional naming patterns
So how did “soda” come to be called so many different things in different places?
It all stems from a mix of economic enterprise and linguistic ingenuity.
The popularity of “soda” in the Northeast likely reflects the soda fountain’s longer history in the region. Since a lot of Americans living in the Northeast migrated to California in the mid-to-late 1800s, the name likely traveled west with them.
As for the Midwestern preference for “pop” – well, the earliest American use of the term to refer to a sparkling beverage appeared in the 1840s in the name of a flavored version called “ginger pop.” Such ginger-flavored pop, though, was around in Britain by 1816, since a Newcastle songbook is where you can first see it used in text. The “pop” seems to be onomatopoeic for the noise made when the cork was released from the bottle before drinking.
A jingle for Faygo touts the company’s ‘red pop.’
Linguists don’t fully know why “pop” became so popular in the Midwest. But one theory links it to a Michigan bottling company, Feigenson Brothers Bottling Works – today known as Faygo Beverages – that used “pop” in the name of the sodas they marketed and sold. Another theory suggests that because bottles were more common in the region, soda drinkers were more likely to hear the “pop” sound than in the Northeast, where soda fountains reigned.
As for using coke generically, the first Coca-Cola was served in 1886 by Dr. John Pemberton, a pharmacist at Jacobs’ Pharmacy in Atlanta and the founder of the company. In the 1900s, the Coca-Cola company tried to stamp out the use of “Coke” for “Coca-Cola.” But that ship had already sailed. Since Coca-Cola originated and was overwhelmingly popular in the South, its generic use grew out of the fact that people almost always asked for “Coke.”
No alcohol means not ‘hard’ but ‘soft.’Nostalgic Collections/eBay
As with Jell-O, Kleenex, Band-Aids and seltzer, it became a generic term.
What’s soft about it?
Speaking of soft drinks, what’s up with that term?
It was originally used to distinguish all nonalcoholic drinks from “hard drinks,” or beverages containing spirits.
Interestingly, the original Coca-Cola formula included wine – resembling a type of alcoholic “health” drink popular overseas, Vin Mariani. But Pemberton went on to develop a “soft” version a few years later to be sold as a medicinal drink.
Due to the growing popularity of soda water concoctions, eventually “soft drink” came to mean only such sweetened carbonated beverages, a linguistic testament to America’s enduring love affair with sugar and bubbles.
With the average American guzzling almost 40 gallons per year, you can call it whatever you what. Just don’t call it healthy.Valerie M. Fridland, Professor of Linguistics, University of Nevada, Reno
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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(Family Features) For those who have served in the U.S. armed forces, transitioning back to civilian life can be a challenge. However, community support can help make the transition easier for many veterans and provide those who offer that support – particularly young people – with rewarding opportunities and insight.
Take, for example, Daniel Finney, who started volunteering at a local Department of Veterans Affairs hospital where his mother worked when he was 13 years old. At first, his mother simply wanted him to learn from the veterans and their experiences, but volunteering changed the trajectory of Finney’s life.
He volunteered almost daily for the next 10 years, even inviting his friends to join him at the hospital. From that experience, Finney built valuable skills and chose to pursue a career as a physician’s assistant.
“I chose to volunteer at the hospital not only because it was a great opportunity, but because I wanted to give back to our nation’s heroes who I felt were too often overlooked,” Finney said. “In addition, volunteering with dedicated health care professionals allowed me to discover the actual purpose for my current career path.”
Not only did Finney reap personal rewards from volunteering and make a real difference in the lives of veterans, he also received tens of thousands of dollars in college scholarship money from DAV (Disabled American Veterans). The organization annually offers $110,000 in scholarships to student volunteers to be used toward accredited higher learning, including universities, colleges, community colleges and vocational schools.
“I look at this scholarship as another door opening up,” Finney said. “This has allowed me to do so many things. One of them is to pay for college. I want to continue to be a civil servant wherever I go. I want to continue to help veterans, whether that’s a part of my job or whether I’m still volunteering. It can be working at a hospital or helping with a food drive for the homeless veteran community. It can be anything. I now have that desire ingrained in me to continue to serve our veterans.”
These scholarships are open to students age 21 or younger who have contributed a minimum of 100 cumulative volunteer hours credited through DAV or DAV Auxiliary. Students can be nominated or may apply with the inclusion of an essay on what volunteering for veterans means to them. Learn more at DAVScholarships.org.
For students, or anyone interested in giving back, consider a few other ideas for supporting the nation’s veterans.
Express Your Gratitude
Simply saying “thank you” can go a long way in expressing gratitude to veterans. Whether it’s through a handwritten note, a heartfelt conversation or a public acknowledgment at a community event, showing appreciation can help veterans feel valued and recognized for their service.
Raise Awareness for Veterans’ Needs
Learning about the challenges veterans face, such as service-related health issues, homelessness and underemployment, then advocating for supportive legislation and programming can go a long way toward improving their situations.
For example, Amelia Marcum, another DAV scholarship recipient, developed a Native American veterans resource guide designed to provide veterans with key information about federal, state, community and tribal-based programs. She worked closely with Vietnam veteran and North Dakota state Sen. Richard Marcellais to bring the guide, which is now used by five tribal veterans resource service centers, to fruition.
“Volunteering to serve the veteran community has been immensely transformative for me,” said Marcum, a direct descendent of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians. “I discovered a profound sense of purpose in elevating support systems for Native veterans, a community that serves at the highest rates among ethnic groups yet often faces significant challenges in accessing the benefits they rightfully deserve.”
Support Veteran-Owned Businesses
Many veterans transition into entrepreneurship after their military careers, and your patronage not only helps their businesses thrive, but also puts money back into the local community. Look for veteran-owned businesses or use online directories to find veteran entrepreneurs when searching for specific goods and services.
SOURCE:DAV
(Family Features) Play is a universal language spoken by people of all ages. Through play, children learn to forge connections with others, build a wide range of leadership skills, develop resilience, conquer fears and navigate relationships and social challenges.
For babies and toddlers, play is about far more than just having fun; it’s about learning and building important skills, from cognitive and physical to emotional and social abilities. As children get older, play helps reduce stress levels, process difficult emotions, promote problem-solving and build confidence – skills they need to thrive in a rapidly changing world.
Despite its importance, play is often undervalued and overlooked due to busy schedules, lack of resources or misconceptions about its benefits. Approximately 4 in 10 children ages 2-4 do not get enough responsive interaction or stimulation at home, based on estimates from UNICEF, and roughly 1 in 8 children under age 5 don’t have toys or playthings at home.
To overcome these barriers, it’s essential for parents and caregivers to recognize the value of both structured and unstructured play. Simple, everyday items – like kitchen utensils, cardboard boxes, leaves and stones – can be tools for imaginative play. Setting aside dedicated time for play, even in short intervals, can make a difference.
In honor of International Day of Play, consider these ideas to turn everyday activities into playful learning opportunities from UNICEF, which recognizes play as an important means to help children by providing access to evidence-based parenting programs and working with governments to prioritize play-based teaching and learning practices in schools and other learning environments.
Turn a grocery shopping trip into a scavenger hunt to teach kids about different foods, counting and categorization.
Role play or act out different scenarios you read in books or see in movies to help develop social skills and emotional understanding.
Make important language connections when getting dressed, such as identifying different articles of clothing and teaching colors.
Use bathtime to explore buoyancy and water with floating toys.
Play “I spy” while driving in the car or going for a walk around your neighborhood to help kids identify different animals, shapes, colors and elements of nature like trees, clouds and more.
Explore the kitchen through tasks such as choosing ingredients, measuring them and keeping time while cooking.
Use puzzles and building blocks to help develop problem-solving skills and hand-eye coordination.
Stimulate senses and promote fine motor skills through play with materials like sand, water or crafting dough.
Make sorting laundry educational by asking children to match socks by color or size, reinforcing their understanding of sorting and categorization.
Take turns doing the feeding at snack or mealtimes to build hand-eye coordination.
Find more ways to engage your children in fun, engaging play at unicefusa.org/play.
SOURCE:UNICEF
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Valerie M. Fridland, Professor of Linguistics, University of Nevada, Reno
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
“I look at this scholarship as another door opening up,” Finney said. “This has allowed me to do so many things. One of them is to pay for college. I want to continue to be a civil servant wherever I go. I want to continue to help veterans, whether that’s a part of my job or whether I’m still volunteering. It can be working at a hospital or helping with a food drive for the homeless veteran community. It can be anything. I now have that desire ingrained in me to continue to serve our veterans.”
These scholarships are open to students age 21 or younger who have contributed a minimum of 100 cumulative volunteer hours credited through DAV or DAV Auxiliary. Students can be nominated or may apply with the inclusion of an essay on what volunteering for veterans means to them. Learn more at 
(Family Features) Play is a universal language spoken by people of all ages. Through play, children learn to forge connections with others, build a wide range of leadership skills, develop resilience, conquer fears and navigate relationships and social challenges.
For babies and toddlers, play is about far more than just having fun; it’s about learning and building important skills, from cognitive and physical to emotional and social abilities. As children get older, play helps reduce stress levels, process difficult emotions, promote problem-solving and build confidence – skills they need to thrive in a rapidly changing world.
Despite its importance, play is often undervalued and overlooked due to busy schedules, lack of resources or misconceptions about its benefits. Approximately 4 in 10 children ages 2-4 do not get enough responsive interaction or stimulation at home, based on estimates from UNICEF, and roughly 1 in 8 children under age 5 don’t have toys or playthings at home.
To overcome these barriers, it’s essential for parents and caregivers to recognize the value of both structured and unstructured play. Simple, everyday items – like kitchen utensils, cardboard boxes, leaves and stones – can be tools for imaginative play. Setting aside dedicated time for play, even in short intervals, can make a difference.
In honor of 
