Nagging Your Way to Relevance

College is expensive, especially design school. And architecture school? Forget it. But my favorite little clique of chronic complainers have found a loop hole in all of that. Apparently in Philadelphia, if you want to be a professional in anything - let's say urban planning - all you need is a website, 30 fans on Facebook, and the incessant ability to nag.

Well, Mary Tracy and her cohorts at SCRUB have outnagged themselves this time. In addition to being the thorn in Market East's multiple attempts to reinvent itself, SCRUB has self-assigned itself an expert in urban planning and outdoor marketing, publishing the "Accessory Signage Handbook".

These anti-blight activists, who have done little if anything to address this city's definable examples of "urban blight", organized a workshop in Lower Moyamensing on responsible and legal signage. That's funny, because the only signage SCRUB has been attacking is the legal signage along Interstate 95, small posters on news stands, and the attempted use of The Gallery's blank walls.

Meanwhile vacant buildings in our poorest neighborhoods continue to be shrouded in illegally applied signage that isn't just ugly, but also dangerous, and Market East remains a desolate strip of mid-century architecture, concrete, and trash filled surface lots.

I can't wait to hear what these self-professed professional urban planners have to say about City Target's possible arrival at The Disney Hole.