Staff Editorial: Something to grow in

Philadelphia does not have too much trouble attracting students.

The city and its suburbs are home to an extraordinary collection of colleges and universities that educate hundreds of thousands every year, and urban schools like Penn are becoming increasingly attractive to prospective students.

But Philadelphia has for years struggled to keep these students here after graduation. And it looks as though the city is constantly losing the battle, its recent college graduates finding work in New York, Washington, Boston and San Francisco, among others.

At the same time that the city has tried to cast itself as a center for high technology -- and the jobs that come with such status -- the University has sought to remake West Philadelphia in an effort to draw the very same jobs and the very same people to this side of the Schuylkill.

Programs such as the Penn2B incubator and the University City Science Center have certainly done their part, encouraging high-tech companies and entrepreneurial minds to make West Philadelphia their home. And the new "biotechnology greenhouse" that will soon join them should make the neighborhood that much more attractive to one of the most important and cutting-edge fields in current science and business.

Designed to both educate people and encourage growth in the sector, the "greenhouse" will serve as a much-needed central hub for innovation, research and grants, pooling the resources of many of the city's strongest biology, bioengineering and medical institutions. The presence of such a center should prove a powerful incentive to keeping Philadelphia's brightest in the region, rather than losing them to other biotech hotspots.

We applaud this new initiative and hope its promise for the University, community and city are fully realized.

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