Even as Philadelphia experienced deindustrialization and decline in the 1970s, a handful of neighborhoods began to experience a phenomenon known as gentrificationa process where affluent individuals settled in lower-income areas. At this point, organizers and residents both speak to a goal of preserving the Townhomes as housing for low-income residents. Context: IBID Associates, the owner of the 70-unit complex at 3990 Market St., didn't renew its affordable housing contract with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, which expires July 2022. Philadelphia did not become the international stage as Bacon had hoped. The Philadelphia Housing Authoritys waiting list peaked in 2014 at around 78,000. The protesters, including students, chanted Save UC Townhomes and stop Penn-trification. After sitting briefly, Magill attempted to continue, making the disrespectful suggestion to the protesters, among whom were local residents facing eviction, that Democracy cannot work unless people can live together, learn from one another and, paradoxically, disagree. Amid continuous chants, Magill was unable to finish her remarks. Yet even in the midst of this apparent nadir, there were glimmers of hope. I live near 40th Lancaster Avenue. Penn, unbeknownst to renters, created the blight it needed, Dr. Palmer explained. The city filled in Dock Creek in 1784 and paved the new land with stones, creating Dock Street. By 1960, the surrounding suburbs were more populous than Philadelphia itself. Does it push long-time residents out in favor of the highest bidder? 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. This move brought with it an influx of capital and incentives for real-estate developers to create housing for well-endowed students. It was joined by the Greater Philadelphia Movement (GPM), a nonprofit organization founded in 1948 by area businessmen. Students started another encampment at Penn, demanding the university divest from fossil fuels, stop the eviction of Townhomes residents, and make payments in lieu of taxes (PILOTS) to the school district. Gentrification & Moving People Concluding Remarks References Philadelphia continues to have some of the highest rates of poverty in the United States. Penn still plans to continue building north of Market and west of 43rd. Spring Gardenwith its attractive housing stock and proximity to Center Citybegan to experience gentrification by the mid-1970s. Penn has just recently begun to acknowledge the history of urban upheaval its caused. In 2013, there were still 4,000 buildings and over 10,000 lots sitting empty in Lower Northeast Philadelphia. Smith, Neil. The candy making there gave way to residential development. Smith said the development he has seen around Mill Creek and deeper into West Philadelphia are converting apartments into low-income housing. (Author information current at time of publication.). The student solidarity work has drawn disciplinary proceedings by the administration. Beginning in the 1950s and 1960s the University of Pennsylvania and Drexel started on a pattern of. 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. In Philadelphia, various neighborhoods, each with a characteristic class and ethnic makeup, are being shaken as newcomers move in. Who has it, who doesnt, and where its spent. One by one, local associations, congregations, and ultimately whole communities fell prey to the vicissitudes of the real estate market. In recent years, a number of Philadelphia neighborhoods have undergone significant transformation, with higher-income residents moving in, real estate prices rising, new businesses . The poverty rate in Philadelphia as of 2019 was 23.3%, 13 percentage points above the U.S. national rate of 10.5%. As would become common in subsequent renewal projects, a coalition of public organizations, local and federal governments, and private investors worked together to remake Society Hill. In the 2010s, Philadelphia tried to strike an equilibrium between development and stasis, renewal and disruption, gentrification and decay. 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. Speculative developers rushed to build housing for Temples expanding off-campus student population in a poverty-stricken African American district west of Broad Street. "The West Philadelphia Problem" asks listeners to problematize concepts like "safety" and "crime," and to interrogate the role academia has had in legitimizing these terms. Wilbur & Sons, a chocolate company established in 1884, was once a setting for the mixing and molding of chocolate candies. 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. For every new town house built in Graduate Hospital or Queen Village, scores of crumbling row houses were demolished in Nicetown and Kensington. Johnson notes that these actions started out small but were continuous and built up over time. The rapid influx of wealthier homebuyers triggered alarming demographic changes. Each of the next five decennial censuses (1970, 1980, 1990, 2000, 2010) would show the steadily increasing, dominant share of West Philadelphia's population represented by blacks. It all comes down, in the end, to money. Notice that many of the suburban and industrial areas were ineligible to gentrify because they had too few people or were too wealthy. 2. 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 of 2010, the neighborhood is majority-white for the first time since 1970, a stunning reversal . (Photograph by Donald D. Groff for the Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia.). Penn professors benefit from Penns Home Ownership Services, which helps Penn faculty and staff apply for closing cost assistance for home purchasing and funds towards home improvement. This incentivizes university affiliates to buy property in the area, and to send their kids to school in the district. In 1960, the black and white shares were 52.4% and 47.2%, respectively. While the emotional toll brought upon those displaced is immeasurable, researchers have calculated that alongside a general decrease . This house on the corner of Second and Lombard Streets used building materials typically used in adjacent row houses, such as brick and concrete, but applied a modernist design to give the building its distinctive look. This building became a commercial property in the 1980s and later a pharmacy for Society Hill residents. So, too, did a greater police presence, designed to enforce the newly genteel social order. These areas initially had at least 500 residents as well as below-average income and home values.. By the 2010s, Greater Philadelphia was grappling with issues familiar to all urban areas in the midst of gentrification. Alexander notes that even if some residents end up leaving, she and other resident council members want to ensure the Townhomes remain for future generations of low-income families. Much of Spring Gardens Puerto Rican community decamped for neighborhoods farther north and east of Center City after their demands for affordable housing went unmet. While LOOP promised some relief for homeowners, maintaining the diversity of revitalizing neighborhoods remained a challenge. 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. 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.. That demonstrated to other residents that fighting back could be effective. From 1960 to 1970, the neighborhoods percentage of nonwhite residents fell from 20 percent to 7 percent. 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. 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. Sandy Smith She admits that initially she and most other residents were not involved. But neither was it entirely unwelcome. 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. 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. 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). 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. By 2010, only about 5 percent of Queen Village residents were African American. Ethnic businesseskosher wine merchants, haberdasheries, and furrierswere reincarnated as vegetarian restaurants, feminist bookstores, and hip clothing boutiques. Philadelphia Neighborhood Map: Center City East: sketchy greyhound station , Washington Square West: Panhandlers and art students, Rittenhouse: Philly's Manhattan, Chinatown: all that and dim sum, Logan Square: Not a square at all, but a circle, Callowhill: Club Kids Vomiting, Hawthorne: Public housing and rich people, Spring Garden: My windows won't open but still nice, Old City: Where . Yet by the turn of the twenty-first century, things were changing rapidly in DuBois Seventh Ward. Philip Gentry, a Lea School parent and member of the West Philly Coalition for Neighborhood Schools, said that he has seen some signs of potential gentrification occurring as a result of the funding granted to the Lea School. Architect I.M. New York: Oxford University Press, 2013. W.E.B. 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. The concept of gentrification is a muddled one. After decades of slow economic decline from the loss of industrial mills and manufacturing plants, Philadelphia officials offered tax incentives to small businesses and property owners in Manayunk during the 1980s to spur redevelopment and bring more middle-class residents into the area. Hundreds of crumbling row houses were renovatedfirst by urban homesteaders, then by enterprising developers. The worlds fair idea was scrapped and on the national level, individual celebrations across the country were encouraged. During the 1980s, new federal tax credits helped fund the redevelopment of other overlooked neighborhoods. 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. Housing activists and residents fight gentrification in West Philadelphia. The black population in West Philly has decreased by 29% from 2000 to 2012. May 10, 2017. Many native West Philadelphians declare, often on bumper stickers: This is West Philly. As in Society Hill and Queen Village, the gentrification of Graduate Hospital triggered striking demographic changes. Fighting Gentrification in West Philadelphia. As in Society Hill, Queen Villages African Americans were the most dramatically affected by gentrification. Eastwick is, as he says, super residential, replete with rowhomes and momandpop shops. At the same time, other historical features were sacrificed in the name of development. Follow The Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia on Instagram An average row house costing $7,400 in the 1960s sold for over twenty times that amount in 1990. This image from 1973 shows the house while the interior was still under construction. But for existing communities facing the gentrification of their neighborhood, those dreams of revival were dampened by fears of displacement. Gentrification Takes Off: 1990s and 2000s. About 75 people took part in the event, held four days before a critical vote at a Zoning Board of Adjustments hearing. West Philly Residents Fight Gentrification with Their Own Shit, Literally, and Win in Court Neighbors are battling against a developer, and the weapon they're using fecal matter has just helped them win a legal battle to block the new construction on the grounds of environmental justice The encampment also had symbolic importance according to Johnson: The tents were a projection of the real byproductshomelessnessof mass evictions of poor residents. He described how he was able to find his way as a young immigrant from Jamaica decades ago thanks to the ease of access, and painted a picture of the organic security. Townhomes residents have been able to provide for the communitys children. Longtime residents complained about loud parties and unkempt rental properties. These arrivistes chose to live inand work to renewa historic and diverse part of the city. Penns status as the largest employer in Philadelphia, its large endowment and the socioeconomic position of its students and staff complicates its existence in West Philadelphia. Three weeks after the encampment was dismantled came the disruption of Penns freshman convocation, bringing even more Penn students into the movement. On South Street, the Theatre of the Living Arts put on avant-garde works under artistic director Andre Gregory. 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. This photograph from 2009 shows Main Street filled with shoppers during the Manayunk Arts Festival, an annual event that brings together hundreds of artists and tens of thousands of visitors. As the smoke rose from 6221 Osage Avenue, Philadelphia residents watched through their windows or television screens in a state of stunned disbelief. The neighborhood shifted from the scholarly-oriented confines of the University City, unfolding into the vast scape of West Philadelphia. Gentrification, by definition, is the process of renovating and improving a house or district to appeal to the middle class. The city had the power to seize land under eminent domainwhich allowed them to dice the community with the aim of making West Philly a satisfactory residential community and helping it to fulfill its potential as a center of private research.. It also goes by another namethe Master Plan. Ella is critical of her former school, and how she thinks it serves the University and its facultys families more than unaffiliated West Philly residents. Penn Alexander receives operating contribution of $1330 per student from the university, in addition to staffing and teaching assistance from Penns Graduate School of Education. Artists, too, moved into vacant row houses and commercial spaces, which offered them ample space to pursue their craft. San Francisco, it seems, is in a later stage of its gentrification timeline than Philadelphia. The building of bridges across the Schuylkill River further promoted development, including that of hospitals and other benevolent institutions. Instead, research from West Virginia University economist Zachary Porreca shows that when one urban WVU economist Zachary Porreca compared data on property values and shootings in Philadelphia and found that when one block gentrifies, drug crime migrates to neighboring blocks, escalati Dr. Palmers family was evicted from their home in 1969. 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. 1. Penn encourages students and faculty to explore off campus. 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