Ed Schwartz: Civic Idealist

by Bruce Schimmel

As president of the Institute for the Study of Civic Values, what Ed Schwartz does is so unique that it's tough to understand. Although, at age 60, Schwartz says he's being driven by the same values he had as a teenager.

"I was a student activist, a neighborhood activist, and now I'm a former city councilman at-large", says Schwartz, referring to his brief stint in Philadelphia government.

Schwartz established the Institute in 1973. He admits that "it hasn't been easy being out of government. You have more resources available to you when you're in government." But he finds it easier to make government responsive by working from the outside. One of his current projects is to connect citizens to city services through the city's website.

Schwartz is speaking from his Chestnut Street office, which he describes as "a large, unmade bed without sheets."

His office may look a mess and he acknowledges looking "like an absent-minded professor", but his colleagues at the Institute are "passionate, focused and effective."

Among other projects, Schwartz recently sponsored a conference on the FCC changes in media ownership. But the bulk of the Institute's work is helping neighborhood leaders work together. What he does is help forge "social contracts" -- playbooks for community action, which get everyone, literally, on the same page.

These neighborhood game plans deal with concrete problems -- like crime, sanitation and schooling -- but they are based on abstract principles. These are the civic ideals enumerated in the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, and Schwartz uses central concepts like liberty, the pursuit of happiness, equality and justice to solve everyday problems.

For Schwartz, first among those values is equality. Equality is why there is government.

"We are endowed with inalienable rights, we are all equal," says Schwartz, "and government is created to preserve those rights."

That diverse people should have equal rights, he says, should also be true for diverse neighborhoods. "All neighborhoods," says Schwartz, "should at least be clean and safe."

Schwartz says more of his community organizing is now taking place in cyberspace through various online discussion groups.

Building modern solutions on ancient ideals, Ed Schwartz says he now spends much of his time broadcasting to the world.

Hear what Ed Schwartz says is Philadelphia's biggest single hurdle to good neighborhood plus advice on growing older gracefully, and what Schwartz says he has in common with filmmaker Michael Moore by visiting http://schimmel.com/schwartz_ed.mp3.