How This Philadelphia Neighborhood is Gentrifying Without Displacement Announcing our newest Solutions of the Year special issue magazine. Dr. Palmers family was evicted from their home in 1969. Using an income-based definition of gentrification, only 15 of Philadelphia's 372 residential census tracts were found to have gentrified from 2000 to 2014. The name University City is the result of a University of Pennsylvania-supported marketing campaign. When students go out and work in West Philly, he sees it as lacking a longlasting partnership., In his estimation, ABCS courses send some untrained, rich, and wealthy students who are not from here out into West Philadelphia, who act like they really understand the neighborhood and know what theyre doing. Throughout the post-World War II period, Philadelphia struggled valiantly to entice the middle class back from the suburbs. Ethnic businesseskosher wine merchants, haberdasheries, and furrierswere reincarnated as vegetarian restaurants, feminist bookstores, and hip clothing boutiques. Business owners constructed warehouses along Dock Creek in the late 1600s so ships could unload food, materials, and other products efficiently. That demonstrated to other residents that fighting back could be effective. By 2010, only about 5 percent of Queen Village residents were African American. Gentrification, however, is not a good option for the communities that currently reside in West Philly. View Full Report Card. " Focusing on Philadelphia, Lin reviewed over a century of census data on U.S. metropolitan areas, tracking decade-by-decade shifts in a neighborhood's average household income relative to the other neighborhoods in the city. Developed alongside people on the frontlines of injustice, Prism will help deepen your understanding on the most pressing issues of our time. Since 2000, developers have responded to a growing demand for offcampus housing, building apartment buildings like Domus and The Radian. I can't see how that would be positive.. From the Feds press release: the losses were especially acute in University City. Ira, explains it as, West Philadelphia experiences [loss of affordable housing] to a much greater extent because home values appreciate so much faster than income.. The Black Bottom is a historically Black community . By 1960, the surrounding suburbs were more populous than Philadelphia itself. It succeeded in upgrading real estate values but also faced criticism from long-established residents. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania - On Sept. 29, just minutes into freshman convocation, Liz Magill's first major speech as University of Pennsylvania president was disrupted by about 100 protesters. But for many students residing in the Penn Bubble, community issues take a backseat. Heller, Gregory L.Ed Bacon: Planning, Politics, and the Building of Modern Philadelphia. The city filled in Dock Creek in 1784 and paved the new land with stones, creating Dock Street. There is also gentrification in other parts of West Philadelphia. Urban renewal since 1949 Neighborhood improvement in Philadelphia has been the result of two factors: formal government projects and informal redevelopment in the form of gentrification. At 78.5 percent African American in 1990, the neighborhood was less than one-third Black by 2014. In the 1970s, these investors sought to differentiate the area from the rest of South Philadelphia by renaming it Queen Village.. Architect I.M. In the Old City area just north of Society Hill, those tax incentives encouraged developers to convert abandoned workshops into stylish loft apartments. Leon Tyer has lived at Penn Wynn House in the Wynnefield neighborhood of West Philadelphia for six years with the help of a federal voucher program that helps low-income people living with HIV/AIDS pay rent. But in reality theyre just untrained, typically nonchalant kids.. Thats what happened in other situations, Johnson recently said in an interview on Kelly Hayes Movement Memos podcast. In a plan for a safer, vibrant 52nd Street, worried West Philly neighbors see gentrification looming Angst is roiling minority neighborhoods as they struggle to balance the opportunities and the threats created by gentrification. West Philadelphia has been called many names over the years. Longtime residents complained about loud parties and unkempt rental properties. It remained to be seen if the city could enjoy the fruits of revival without obliterating its legacy of diverse and vibrant neighborhoods. So that is worth fighting for. Restrictions created by the Old Philadelphia Development Corporation prevented new homeowners in Society Hill from drastically altering their historic homes, but regulations for new construction were more lenient. Or does it help low-income communities? Residents resisted these displacement efforts as well, although ultimately the universitiesPenn, Drexel, and University of the Sciences, which is now part of Saint Josephs Universitywon out with the federal governments backing, and thousands of Black residents were dispersed to other parts of the city. Churches and synagogues, relics of the neighborhoods immigrant past, were converted to market-rate lofts. March 29, 2021 / in Liberation Radio / by Liberation Center Staff. This was a rare type of coalition: cross-class and multiracial, gentrifiers allied with the existing population to reject the destruction of modernist city planning. (Photograph by Donald D. Groff for the Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia.). The encampment also had symbolic importance according to Johnson: The tents were a projection of the real byproductshomelessnessof mass evictions of poor residents. In order to combat the likelihood of gentrification increasing socioeconomic and racial segregation within cities, the authors note the need for policies like Philadelphia's recently implemented . May 10, 2017. In buying up properties in the Black Bottom en masse and then having landlords evict longtime residents, they made space for the nowprimarily commercial development on Market Street. Speculative developers rushed to build housing for Temples expanding off-campus student population in a poverty-stricken African American district west of Broad Street. In July 2021, the owner, IBID Associates LP, announced they would allow their contract with HUD to expire and their intent to sell the property. Johnson attended the meeting along with his collaborator Wiley Cunningham, folks from Police Free Penn, a police abolitionist student organization from the University of Pennsylvania, and members of Penn Housing 4 All. The signs of gentrification can be spotted throughout Philadelphia neighborhoods like Brewerytown, Kensington and West Philadelphia, among others. Attendees said that groups of residents are trying to fend off gentrification in West Philadelphia. Gentrification could not occur without the initial separation of Greater Philadelphias residents by class, race, and country of origin. In 1970, the neighborhood was nearly 50 percent Black. Nobody had gotten vouchers; nobody was really able to get in contact with the relocation specialist. Restoring the citys historic housing stock, Bacon reasoned, would encourage upper-income residents to move back to the citythereby stabilizing its dwindling tax base and upgrading real estate values. One afternoon in 2017, a friend sent me a picture of New Light Beulah Baptist Church being demolished. Beginning in the mid-1950s, Philadelphiaunder the aegis of City Planning Commission Executive Director Edmund Bacon (1910-2005)attempted to reimagine and revive Center City as an attractive residential zone. Further from the booming downtown, neighborhoods continued to suffer from abandonment and decay. With the passage of the 1981 Economic Recovery Tax Act, developers could enjoy up to a 25 percent tax credit on the cost of rehabilitating certified historic structures. Meanwhile, the percentage of college-educated adults in the neighborhood shot up from under four percent in 1950 to 64 percent by 1980. Streetwise: Race, Class, and Change in an Urban Community. Census data, when adjusted for inflation, indicates a massive jump in Philadelphia property valuesan average increase 213% since 2000. Phyllis Jones Carter owns a business in West Philadelphia and is a longtime . Real estate prices soon reflected this surge in demand. It all comes down, in the end, to money. Study: Philly's gentrifying neighborhoods are resegregating. (Author information current at time of publication.). Get 34th Street's newsletter, The Toast, delivered to your inbox every Sunday morning. To achieve the transformation of the area, the City Planning Commission called for the elimination of blighted late nineteenth-century buildings and retail establishments. This was the childhood church of Marian Anderson, a world-famous Black singer from South Philadelphia. By spurring renovation and elevating housing values, gentrification broadened the citys tax base. Ed Datz, Executive Director of Real Estate at Penn Facilities and Real Estate Services (FRES), noted that his office is always looking at whats happening in the surrounding neighborhoods and at residential opportunities.. Its not a fight about lofty plans for the future, but about a communitys ability to defend their actual homes. Revitalization efforts across the city included redeveloping older factories for new purposes. The neighborhood shifted from the scholarly-oriented confines of the University City, unfolding into the vast scape of West Philadelphia. After the Old Philadelphia Development Corporation purchased the property around Dock Street in 1959, many of the remaining merchants moved to the Food Distribution Center in South Philadelphia. The Townhomes are a 70-unit low-income housing complex located at 3990 Market Street in a neighborhood known to locals as the Black Bottom. Rents rise, and residents like Clare Finn, who grew up in West Philly and lives there now as an adult, are priced out of their own neighborhoods.. By May 20, 2016. The students have been moved into a new building at 4901 Chestnut. At mid-century, the area remained a bastion of Black life, teeming with blues and jazz clubs, barrooms, and Black-owned businesses. This resurgence was fueled by a demographic upheaval which found baby boomers, new immigrants, and young college graduates choosing cities over suburbs. The student solidarity work has drawn disciplinary proceedings by the administration. Unable to meet the costs of renovation, long-term residentsmany African Americanwere forced to sell their historic properties. You can get a sandwich and a bag of chips for three dollars.. She is the Highbrow Editor for 34th Street. While Temples administration tried to encourage better relations between students and residents, it did little to discourage the spread of private development around its campus. In a few short years, the once-conservative immigrant neighborhood had become a hotbed of hip nightlife. A 2016 study by the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia found that the city has lost roughly 20,000 lowcost rental units (rent and utilities under $750) since 2000. Factors that had once driven people away from citiestheir density, their older housing stock, the presence of ethnic and racial minoritiesnow drew them back to the urban core. The area where the UC Townhomes sit used to be known as Black Bottom, a neighborhood of largely working class and working poor African American residents, who were displaced through eminent domain to create UCSC and University City High School, as John L. Puckett, professor emeritus of education at the University of Pennsylvania, writes. In the 2000s, the effects of gentrification began to spill over into other neighborhoods adjacent to Center City. Rising housing costs in gentrifying neighborhoods exact real costs in the lives of Philadelphia families. These land seizures, coupled with the 1963 construction of the University City Science Center, fractured the community. In a few short years, Southwark saw a dramatic decline in its working-class population along with the conversion of its mixed-use streetscapes into expensive residential-only corridors. Fighting Gentrification in West Philadelphia. Simon, Roger D. and Brian Alnutt, Philadelphia, 1982-2007: Toward the Postindustrial City. Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 131 (Oct. 2007), 395-444. Others were more mercenary, buying and renovating abandoned shells for profit. Census data, when adjusted for inflation, indicates a massive jump in Philadelphia property valuesan average increase 213% since 2000. Many residents wonder if this is an example of gentrification, with a shiny development pushing out a community institution, or if the center fulfills an actual community need not currently met. Gentrifying tracts experienced the second highest average violent crime rate between 2014 and 2019 at 13.4 per 100 residents, while non-gentrifiable tractsmostly middle- to upper-income and predominantly whitehad the lowest average violent crime rate over the six-year period at 6.7 per 100 residents. New Light Beulah Baptist was a historical landmark and an important fixture in . In rapidly changing neighborhoods like Old City, minority residents often suffered the brunt of such measures. The Netter Center offers ABCS (Academically Based Community Service) courses in which students can interact with the surrounding community. Callowhill, a former manufacturing district just north of Chinatown and east of Spring Garden, blossomed into the citys loft district. Members of the creative classgraphic designers, software developers, theatre performerswere drawn by its affordability, its edgy post-industrial aesthetic, and its location close to Center City. About 75 people took part in the event, held four days before a critical vote at a Zoning Board of Adjustments hearing. After spending six years studying the gentrification of Philadelphia neighborhoods, a West Philadelphian has discovered a rare trend: Neighborhoods are not necessarily gentrifying in the way people think they arethey're resegregating. The land finally came under redevelopment after the Toll Brothers purchased the land in 2013 to construct condominiums. Ella Comberg, a longtime West Philadelphia resident, describes the university as a kind of silent but huge presence in [her] life.. The Philadelphia Housing Authoritys waiting list peaked in 2014 at around 78,000. This building became a commercial property in the 1980s and later a pharmacy for Society Hill residents. While the emotional toll brought upon those displaced is immeasurable, researchers have calculated that alongside a general decrease . As industrial jobs evaporated, Greater Philadelphias institutional service sector expanded. As in Society Hill, Queen Villages African Americans were the most dramatically affected by gentrification. Even though Black residents fought gentrificationforming an anti-displacement group that demanded low-income housing optionstheir efforts were largely unsuccessful. In the 2010s, Philadelphia tried to strike an equilibrium between development and stasis, renewal and disruption, gentrification and decay. New groups and institutions inundate an area and push out those who lived there before. Alexander also describes the struggle, and the encampment specifically, as having generated more unity, even providing space for the children in the Townhomes to have a movie night outside, paint, dance, learn to skateboard, and become more directly involved in defending the Townhomes. Gentrification doesn't erase drug crime and gun violence. In Philadelphia, you can see many neighborhoods experienced gentrification, the map shows. Dr. Walter Palmer, a native of the Black Bottom and lecturer at the Penn Graduate School of Social Policy and Practice, went away to law school in the late 1960s. 1. One example was Fishtown, an enclave of working-class whites bordering Northern Liberties. At this point, organizers and residents both speak to a goal of preserving the Townhomes as housing for low-income residents. In effect, Penn undermined its own efforts to serve its proximate community, by replacing residents with more of their own. In the 1990s, young urban professionals flocked to the area. After a city-funded refurbishment effort, its Main Street began to draw young artists and boutique owners in search of a quaint, pedestrian-oriented corridor. A 2014 study by the Philadelphia Federal Reserve neighborhood change also cites an approximately 20% drop in affordable housing in Philadelphia from 20002014. By the end of the millennium, the transformation of Queen Village was complete; the languishing ethnic enclave had been entirely remade into a middle-class haven. The rapid influx of wealthier homebuyers triggered alarming demographic changes. The apartments had modern amenities and views unavailable to people who purchased a historic row house in Society Hill. Dennis witnessed one of the earliest unveilings of Penns Landscape Development Plan of 1977. Economic Insights While gentrification's effects are widely studied and debated, less attention is paid to what drives gentrification itself. Galleries and restaurants followed the arriving middle class. The gentrification of Queen Village and Society Hill were exceptions in a region that continued to suffer the effects of deindustrialization and decline. In East Mount Airy there are a lot of bars, coffee shops, and parks. Housing activists and residents fight gentrification in West Philadelphia. After World War II, suburbanization exploded. In Philadelphia, various neighborhoods, each with a characteristic class and ethnic makeup, are being shaken as newcomers move in. Even during that mid-century nadir, however, there were stirrings of renewal. For example, when the university partnered with the school district to fund Penn Alexander Elementary in 2001, 57% of the students in its catchment area were African American; as of 2021, Black students represented less than 17% of the student body. From 1970 to 1990, Philadelphia lost over 18 percent of its remaining residents, its population falling to nearly a half a million people below its postwar peak. The building was used sparingly in the 1990s as new owners attempted to find a market, but the building remained largely unoccupied and the whole complex was demolished in 2002. He mentions the Pennovation Center, housed in an old DuPontowned paint factory. By the late 1980s, Manayunks Main Street boasted dozens of new shops, bars, and restaurants, many housed in refurbished historic buildings. While LOOP promised some relief for homeowners, maintaining the diversity of revitalizing neighborhoods remained a challenge. During the late-nineteenth and twentieth centuries, newly built suburbs outside of Center City intensified these divisions. Datz mentioned the newlyopened Pennovation Center, which opened last year across the river in Grays Ferry. The blocks surrounding Dock Street continued to be popular in the nineteenth century, as hundreds of merchants established distribution warehouses and sidewalk storefronts to sell a variety of food to other Philadelphia businesses and individuals. Many uprooted residents resettled elsewhere in the citysome moving to adjoining neighborhoods still awaiting rehabilitation, some following cheaper rents to inner-ring suburbs. Living in East Mount Airy offers residents an urban suburban mix feel and most residents own their homes. Where is gentrification happening the most? A hallmark of gentrification in Philadelphia are modest, older homes in the shadow of often modern condo complexes. In 2014, Philadelphia City Council enacted the Longtime Owner Occupants Program (LOOP). But tensions rose as young, mostly white, suburban-raised Temple students began to move in. Gentrification & Moving People Concluding Remarks References Philadelphia continues to have some of the highest rates of poverty in the United States. There is a stereotype that gentrification refers to low-income African Americans being pushed out by rich whites, but this is not the case in many of the areas in Philly where gentrification is occurring. And gentrification is only now beginning to take root north of Girard Avenue, in some of the most heavily disinvested and pockmarked North Philadelphia neighborhoods (Sharswood, Brewerytown, Strawberry Mansion, Fairhill.). Philadelphia: Neighborhoods, Division, and Conflict in a Postindustrial City. The first area to undergo this ambitious makeover was the Society Hill neighborhood in southeast Center City. Especially since, as Ella puts it, theres a kind of feedback loop of gentrifiers complain[ing] about gentrification without acknowledging that they're complicit., When asked what Penn owes to the communities it inhabits, Phil talks for a while before pausing to take a deep breath: It just owes them their space.. Southwark, located just south of Society Hill, was transformed into a middle-class district by the efforts of individual homesteaders and, later, real estate developers. In particular, the western stretch of this arearebranded as Graduate Hospitalsaw a dramatic influx of young, white, well-off residents, drawn by its proximity to tony Rittenhouse Square and easy accessibility to the University of Pennsylvania. Initially, newcomers and old-time residents found common cause, coming together to fight the long-planned Cross Town Expressway that would have leveled South Street in an effort to attract suburban commuters back to the city. More than 240,000 households citywide (40% of all households) are forced to spend 30% or more of their income on housing. Refurbished Victorian houses, lofts created from abandoned manufacturing buildings, and newly constructed townhouses provided a variety of living possibilities that reflected Manayunk's history as an industrial outpost of Philadelphia. East Mount Airy is in Philadelphia County. As part of the construction process, thirty-one acres of houses and commercial buildings were razed to provide enough space for the redevelopment project, forcing hundreds of individuals and merchants to relocate. Adams, Carolyn et al. But, Dr. Palmer says, the people went everywhere. For the city and real estate developers, it served as a hopeful model for neighborhood revitalization. Pei designed the towers to incorporate floor-to-ceiling windows along the exterior wall of each apartment, giving occupants expansive views of Philadelphia or the Delaware River. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990. Penn is still displacing people, plain and simple, Casey Lynch (C 18), who has been involved with the Netter Center for four years, said. Special Collections Research Center, Temple University Libraries. In academics and activism, gentrification is understood as the displacement of a lower-income community in terms of demographic and economic changes. The Dock Street market diminished in size after World War II as competition from other markets and changes in distribution forced some merchants to move elsewhere. And resentment towards Penn simmers in the West Philly community. At the same time, other historical features were sacrificed in the name of development. Attracting new residents to Philadelphia seemed like the surest way to grow the citys tax base as manufacturing jobs evaporated and suburbanization continued apace. One by one, local associations, congregations, and ultimately whole communities fell prey to the vicissitudes of the real estate market. Affluent homesteaders also continued to rehabilitate row houses in neighborhoods closer to the urban core. In doing so, it prompted the mass displacement of the neighborhoods poorer residents. As the smoke rose from 6221 Osage Avenue, Philadelphia residents watched through their windows or television screens in a state of stunned disbelief. Inscription. From blocked off construction sites to high-rises and medical centers towering over generations-old brownstones, gentrification can be seen everywhere. On . But back in February, he got a letter from the property managers telling him and other tenants in the 231-unit building they . Beginning in the late 1960s, the neighborhood began to change as some white middle-class pioneers were lured to the area by the promise of affordable housing near Center City. The most comprehensive, authoritative reference source ever created for the Philadelphia region. When a judge ordered the encampment evicted, the sheriff could dismantle the pallet barriers and tents but could not diffuse the energy and momentum the gathering had created. After rallying at City Hall, protesters stormed the BIA networking event at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, confronting developers and public officials. . Ella suggests that gentrifiers in West Philly, including Penn students, have a huge responsibility to really engage with their neighbors, old and new, and to work to make sure the neighborhood isnt pushing more people out.. This suggests that some 8% of Philadelphia's gun violence can be attributed to gentrification destabilizing the city's illicit drug markets. In the West Philadelphia area around Mantua, gentrification is a constant, looming concern. A sprawling suburb, a quiet collegiate enclave, a dangerous part of town, an area of interest for developers. Thats typical for a gentrifying city. So, too, did a greater police presence, designed to enforce the newly genteel social order. The five decades following the move to West Philadelphia were marked by continuous disenfranchisement and health epidemics including the AIDS crisis and "War on Drugs." Urban renewal and gentrification were strategies that promised to uplift communities but actually further displaced . Eastwick is, as he says, super residential, replete with rowhomes and momandpop shops. The Gothic brick building at 47th Street that used to house West Philadelphia High School has been repurposed into West Lofts, whose marketrate apartments run from $995 for a studio to $2430 for a threebedroom. The owner intends to sell the property. Many native West Philadelphians declare, often on bumper stickers: This is West Philly. On Sept. 29, just minutes into freshman convocation, Liz Magill's first . The worlds fair idea was scrapped and on the national level, individual celebrations across the country were encouraged. The overlay district sits in a West Philadelphia neighborhood that has been subject to gentrification. 2. All of the new housing developments are "student housing" for students attending the University . Real estate prices skyrocketed, too; an abandoned row house that might have sold for $300 in the 1960s now commanded up to $30,000. A NYC cannabis community space is harming their workers and Black-led businesses, Industrialized water containment projects ignore the needs of Indigenous communities, Proudly powered by Newspack by Automattic. We had a lot of senior citizens and a lot of people with disabilities who just dont have anybody to advocate for them, said Alexander. The New Urban Frontier: Gentrification and the Revanchist City. Annabelle Williams is a sophomore in Wharton from Chester Springs, PA, studying Management and Marketing. Restaurants, shops, barstheyve all widened the Penn bubble. "West Philly is the new Africa," one resident warned at a community meeting. That's typical for a gentrifying city. Many of the industrial complexes that dotted Philadelphia emptied in the later twentieth century, leaving hulks of buildings towering over the residences that once housed their workers. As the nearby blocks of Queen Village saw large investments from city organizations to restore houses and raise property values, Southwark Plaza apartment buildings had broken elevators, limited electricity, and a trash-filled landscape. Rasheda Alexander, a resident council member at the development, remembers seeing a few organizers tabling near the parking lot on weekends in the winter. After serving in the United States Navy during WWII, Bacon joined the Philadelphia City Planning Commission and became the executive director of the committee in 1949. Manayunk (/ m n j k / MAN--yunk) is a neighborhood in the section of Lower Northwest Philadelphia in the state of Pennsylvania.Located adjacent to the neighborhoods of Roxborough and Wissahickon and also on the banks of the Schuylkill River, Manayunk contains the first canal begun in the United States (although not the first completed, due to budget problems). The area around Temple University in North Philadelphia also witnessed rapid changes. Soon after, Penn moved westward. With the rapid loss of human and monetary resources in the central city and the expansion of wealthier, primarily white suburbs, the stage had been set for gentrification in Greater Philadelphia. The University City Townhomes has provided affordable housing for nearly 40 years. Connecting the Past with the Present, Building Community, Creating a Legacy. Housing activists, university students, and residents have staged protests and encampments to defend low-income housing in UC Townhomes, PHILADELPHIA, PA - APRIL 30: Protestors march over the death of Freddie Gray on April 30, 2015 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Gentrification has been intruding on low-income Black areas across the country at an alarming rate, and it has been particularly widespread in North Philadelphia during the past 15 years. Specifically, in the case of the UC Townhomes, the struggle exposes the purported and well-defended right of members of an elite property-owning class to make exorbitant profits (some have estimated a sale price of $100 million) from the sale of units that have stood as subsidized housing for 40 years. By the late 1960s, middle-class newcomers joined their fight. Opened in 1973, NewMarket was constructed in the middle of the block bounded by Front, Lombard, Pine, and Second Streets, which left some row houses around the block standing, like the one in the background of this 1978 image of the shopping center. Were converted to market-rate lofts four percent in 1950 to 64 percent by.! By Liberation Center Staff the Black Bottom the name of development Planning Commission for... Neighborhood that has been subject to gentrification values but also faced criticism from long-established.! Convocation, Liz Magill & # x27 ; t erase drug crime and gun violence, apartment. 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