visitPA and Foursquare send you after badges for Pennsylvania trekking

If you make it out to South Philadelphia’s rapidly redeveloping East Passyunk corridor, Pennsylvania’s tourism board wants to give you  a badge.

Last month, visitPA announced a partnership with location-based social networking juggernaut Foursquare, offering three badges for users who check in at various locations across the Commonwealth.

Visit East Passyunk and a couple others from a list of two dozen stops shops and commercial venues in Pennsylvania and earn the PA Retail Polka badge. Hit up Nat Mechanics on your way to the PA Shooflyer or the Mutter Museum in your quest for the PA 4 Score and 7.

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Shop Talk: The Planning Collective wants to make Philly beautiful

Updated: clarified city’s role

In the city’s never-ending battle between bicyclists, pedestrians and automobiles, The Planning Collective wants to offer a reason for truce.

As Philebrity posted yesterday, The Planning Collective isn’t some official city organization, but a group of seven Penn grads that think the city could make better use of its space, especially vacant lots.

The for-profit company’s latest effort is to make the 12th and Morris intersection with Passyunk avenue into a pedestrian plaza. And they plan on doing it with funding from Pepsi through its Refresh project (vote here).

The Refresh Project is the soft drink company’s campaign to have customers vote on projects that help “refresh their community.” For a proposal to be awarded the cash, it in the top ten of its category at the end of the month. The Planning Collective is gunning to be eligible for the $50,000 grant for May.

“We are committed to changing the way things happen in Philadelphia,” says Clint Randall, one of the company’s co-founders. “We wanted to plan projects that were a little out of the box.”

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