Last month, my neighborhood helped to make Philadelphia the largest city in the country with a legally-sanctioned casino. SugarHouse Casino opened in mid-September, as scheduled. The six-year battle to bring casinos to Philadelphia is not one I want to remark much on. If you want to hear argue for or against the existence of casinos [...]

A few times a month, I go out to civic and town watch meetings in a variety of neighborhoods. Yes, I actually find most of them to be fun — local politics on the smallest of scale. Since moving to Fishtown, I’ve begun going to monthly Fishtown Action and Fishtown Neighbors Meetings and filing reports [...]

Pick up a copy of today’s Metro Philadelphia, in which I have a story. Unfortunately, it’s currently not online. Metro, the international newspaper group with a successful outlet in Philadelphia, recently dropped AP content. Though they still use Reuters and other wire services, losing the largest means perhaps more opportunity for interested freelancers. So I [...]

Written for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review HARRISBURG — The cost of the planned North Shore casino continues to rise and owner Don Barden still does not have enough money in place to finish construction, his spokesman said this morning. Barden said he’s “not worried” about getting the money when he spoke to members of the state [...]