Green Stimulus Projects in the Philly metro area

Once again, Philly, the USA's 5th largest Metropolitan Statistical Area, gets Rodney Dangerfield treatment.

The United States General Services Administration (GSA) has posted its spending plan as to

how GSA will expend the $5.55 billion authorized by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act ("Recovery Act"), including measures necessary to convert Federal buildings into high-performance green buildings, renovate and construct Federal buildings and courthouses, and renovate and construct land ports of entry (LPOE).

Here's the list of projects in the Philly MSA that will get a portion of the $5.5B:

- Wilmington, DE: The J. Caleb Boggs Courthouse Federal Building will get $1,700,000 for "High Performance Green Building Limited Scope (Including Energy Projects)."

- Philadelphia, PA: The U.S. Custom House will get $29,970,000 for "High Performance Green Building Limited Scope (Including Energy Projects)." (I wonder what an unlimited scope would cost.)

- Philadelphia, PA: The Veterans Administration Center will get $7,124,000 for "High Performance Green Building Limited Scope (Including Energy Projects)."

 - Philadelphia, PA: The Byrne-Green Federal Court House complex will get $16,274,000 for "High Performance Green Building Limited Scope (Including Energy Projects)."

West Jersey gets bupkis.

It's great to have the money: all told, the Philly MSA gets $55,068,000; or about $9.50 per person.

But I couldn't help notice that, meanwhile, Aroostook County, Penobscot County, and Washington County, Maine -- dear to my heart (i.e., home to my mom and dad and scads of my father's and my mother's ancestors), but currently home to about 250,000 people in the aggregate --  get a total of $99,597,000¹; or about $398 per person.

It seems likely that this result simply reflects the political reality of what it took to get Republican senators Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins to vote for the stimulus package. And I'm all in favor of appropriate investment in the Pine Tree State: but 40 times the per capita investment in the 5th largest metro area in the US? Doesn't make sense to me.

¹ The Margaret Chase Smith U.S. Post Office Courthouse in Bangor will get $52,820,000 in "full & partial building modernizations;" the U.S. Land Port of Entry in Calais, Maine (which, as Douglas Kennedy points out in his most recent work of fiction, Leaving the World, is pronounced like something that might grow on your toe), gets $6,300,000; a new U.S. Land Port of Entry for Van Buren, Maine, to replace the one washed away by this April 2008 flood of the Saint John River gets $39,727,000; and the U.S. Land Port of Entry for Madawaska gets $750,000.