Grid Magazine

2026 Cliveden House Tour Season

Cliveden invites and gathers the community, educates students, teachers and public visitors and in a safe space, convenes vital conversations about history, race, culture, class, gender, civics and ...
Grid Magazine

How recycling lost its way in Philadelphia and what can be done to get it back on track

In July 2020, after spending several months of the pandemic wondering whether her trash and recycling would be picked up, Sarah Ausprich was frustrated. When it was collected, Ausprich, a resident of ...
Grid Magazine

At former PES refinery, pollution concerns persist under the surface

In the 340 years since Philadelphia’s founding, the city’s landscape has constantly shifted, as waves of development and redevelopment shipped out with the old and in with the new. Unfortunately, on ...
Grid Magazine

Since 2012, Philadelphia has been installing green roofs and rain gardens to solve a massive sewage problem. With rising costs and implementation setbacks, it may be more ...

Our Water Matters is an ongoing series produced through an editorial collaboration of the Chestnut Hill Local, Delaware Currents and Grid Magazine. Ever since the Philadelphia Water Department (PWD) ...
Grid Magazine

The city’s illegal dumping problem persists despite decades of efforts to curb it

To the south of 86th Street in Southwest Philadelphia’s Eastwick neighborhood you can’t drive more than a few yards on the cross streets before you run into concrete barriers. “We had them put up the ...
Grid Magazine

Philly is spending $2B+ to fix its sewage problem. But is Green City, Clean Waters working?

In the early 1700s, botanist John Bartram surveyed his farmland abutting the banks of the Schuylkill River in what is now Southwest Philadelphia and had an idea: build a garden for his beloved plants.
Grid Magazine

Fixing the chronic flooding in Northwest Philadelphia will be a major undertaking. In the meantime, residents live with the danger and expense

Carla Robinson is the editor of the Chestnut Hill Local. This story was produced in partnership with the Chestnut Hill Local. Kyle Bagenstose contributed to this report. Rev. Chester Williams has been ...
Grid Magazine

In 2018, the City passed an ordinance designed to stem the tide of illegal tire dumping. Five years on, the problem has only gotten worse

Slavet is exaggerating — but only slightly. As the executive director of the Tookany/Tacony-Frankford Watershed Partnership, part of her job is to help improve Tacony Creek Park, a 300-acre preserve ...
Grid Magazine

SEPTA’s efforts are continuing with planned deployment of hydrogen- and electric-powered buses. Industry and government turbulence could disrupt them again

Nearly two decades ago, in 2006, SEPTA bought its very first hybrid bus with hopes of eventually transitioning the region’s public transit system to clean energy. The agency attempted to go ...
Grid Magazine

Mariposa Food Co-op in West Philadelphia was founded in the 1970s as a democratic alternative to top-down corporate grocery stores. Today, some workers and member-owners say it ...

Myriam Siftar cried tears of joy. It was March 2012, and she was at the grand opening of Mariposa Food Co-op’s new home, a Greek-revival style former bank building on Baltimore Avenue in West ...
Grid Magazine

Philly-area environmental justice groups are finding resilience in the wake of federal funding cuts

It was going to be transformational. A place for neighbors to shelter during extreme heat or cold. To receive relief and support after natural disasters. To learn about large forces like climate ...