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Select Phila.? They won't

The Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce's new initiative, Select Philadelphia, involves 103 large businesses working together to attract new employers to the region. It plans to recruit companies looking to expand and relocate, and facilitate the site selection and "incentives process."

Despite the name – and several beautiful photographs of Philadelphia landmarks on Select Philadelphia's Web site – if history repeats itself, most of the companies attracted to Pennsylvania by this campaign will not locate in the city, but build new facilities in Chester, Montgomery, Delaware and Bucks Counties.

These new, large employers would attract more residents, retail business and traffic. They would force expensive new infrastructure, such as wider highways or sewers, and higher taxes for township, county and school budget expansion. While this happened, the City of Philadelphia's high taxes would encourage its residents and businesses to leave, abandoning billions of dollars of existing infrastructure. This familiar scenario has played out for the last 40 years.

Before we invest more of our tax dollars to keep going in this direction, we should all ask, "Is this really what we want?" It depends on who "we" is.

Do we need more jobs in our suburban counties? The unemployment rate is, and has been, very low. Currently it ranges from 3.4 percent in Chester County to 5 percent in Delaware County – below national and state averages. This means that almost anyone who wants work can find it.

The largest bloc of investors in Select Philadelphia consists of businesses making money from real estate development, finance and construction. This small group must be the "we" who need more jobs.

Unless policies change, Select Philadelphia's campaign is potentially counterproductive to what the majority of average citizens want. Ironically, rank-and-file chamber members could end up competing with new businesses to fill vacant jobs, and their property and income taxes would rise due to continued sprawl.

In every election cycle in Chester, Montgomery and Bucks Counties, townships have asked voters whether they wanted to raise their taxes to save farms, preserve the environment, and stop sprawl. Almost all of these ballot questions have been approved, frequently by large margins. Voters overwhelmingly approved countywide open-space bond issues in Chester and Montgomery Counties, and in May voters approved a similar $650 million bond issue proposed by the state. Political leaders note: The margin of error of these polls is zero.

While it's pretty clear what a large majority of voters want in Philadelphia's suburbs, we are saddled with a mess of confusing, contradictory and wasteful government policies.

Farmers – businesspeople who wear overalls instead of suits – rarely are included in "economic development" initiatives. Instead, millions of taxpayer dollars go to grants, loans and tax credits – and new highways, water and sewer infrastructure – so their fields can be turned into office parks and shopping centers.

The Commonwealth also has spent millions to revitalize old towns, boroughs and cities while at the same time subsidizing bypasses and big-box stores that kill business districts on old Main Streets. There are many more examples.

Voters and rank-and-file members of the Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce must work together to end these conflicting, wasteful policies. Here are two important first steps:

The Greater Philadelphia Chamber should be a vocal and active supporter of efforts to reduce Philadelphia's onerous wage and business taxes. Lower taxes would encourage companies to seriously consider locating in the city.

The governor and legislature must change the criteria used by the Department of Community and Economic Development and other agencies. Business grants, loans, tax breaks and infrastructure subsidies (see: www.inventpa.com) should go only to revitalize Pennsylvania's small cities and boroughs, and target only counties with high unemployment rates.

Let's stop wasting our tax dollars paying for results that we oppose. Let's start supporting what we really want.

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Linda Morrison of Downingtown is a public-policy consultant and Sandy Moser of Downingtown is president of Pennsylvania Republicans for Environmental Protection (www.rep.org).