Connect in Your Community
Southeastern Pennsylvania First Suburbs Project
The Southeastern Pennsylvania First Suburbs Project is a collaboration of community leaders from the older, developed "first suburbs" of Bucks, Chester, Delaware and Montgomery Counties who have come together to address common challenges that hinder the competitiveness and prosperity of their communities and the region. Those challenges include:
On Saturday, May 31, please join us for the SEPA First Suburbs Project Issues Convention, where we'll explore the four issue areas, set a prioritized agenda for the future, and launch strategic campaigns to harness our collective power for regional change.
When the votes cast at the issues convention on May 31 were counted, leaders from the first suburbs overwhelmingly identified Pennsylvania's broken and ineffective system of funding public education as the primary culprit for the weakening of their communities, noting that the system encourages sprawl, discourages investment in older communities, increases demographic tensions, and fails to provide a quality education for too many of the region's students. Read a summary of the convention.
UPDATE: On Sunday, September 28, more than 500 community leaders from the First Suburbs Project gathered at St. Patrick's Roman Catholic Church in Norristown to meet with a dozen state legislators, local elected officials and Gov. Ed Rendell to roll out their agenda for change. Read more about the public forum in the October edition of our E-Update.