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Earlier this month, Harvard’s Graduate School of Design hosted “The Philadelphia Story: Planning, Politics and Reality,” a panel discussion led by Loeb fellow and Philadelphia Inquirer <\/em>architecture critic Inga Saffron. The Philadelphia Water Department’s Glen Abrams, Manager of Policy and Strategic Initiatives, joined Mayor Michael Nutter and others to examine Philadelphia’s planning achievements and challenges in recent years. Among the positive developments highlighted were, of course, the Green City, Clean Waters<\/a> plan to manage stormwater runoff. Saffron wrote in a blog post<\/a>:<\/p>\n “So many plans have been produced in the last four years that it\u2019s sometimes hard to understand how they fit together. So it was a revelation when Glen Abrams produced a single slide that explained the relationships. It depicted the reports as planets revolving around \u2013 what else? \u2013 the city’s ambitious Greenworks sustainability plan. Together with Parks and Rec, the department also developed another plan, Green2015, to create a green park in every neighborhood \u2013 500 acres all told. Along with greening streets and other hard surfaces, it will help the city to avoid spending $10 billion on a network of pipes, which would be a lot money down the drain.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n