The month-long encampment in the Townhomes courtyard by residents and supporters was one of the watershed moments in the fight. Connecting the Past with the Present, Building Community, Creating a Legacy. 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. So that is worth fighting for. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990. Not long ago, dilapidated warehouses, abandoned . 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. In the 1970s, these investors sought to differentiate the area from the rest of South Philadelphia by renaming it Queen Village.. This "process" is very dangerous as it has a notorious reputation of displacing old residents and creating terrible living situations for those it has not displaced. He mentions the Pennovation Center, housed in an old DuPontowned paint factory. The plot of land used to house the Transition to Independent Living Center, which formerly provided affordable assisted living for aging adults with belowaverage incomes, before it burned down six years ago and has since laid vacant. The University bought the land and the building and now uses it as an incubator for local startups and student research. The Preservation Alliance for Greater Philadelphia, under President Paul Steinke, often crosses paths with Penn and Drexel. Studies have linked gentrification to a number of health problems for longterm neighborhood residents. West Philly gentrification means upheaval for these longtime residents. May 10, 2017. This image from 1973 shows the house while the interior was still under construction. Thats what happened in other situations, Johnson recently said in an interview on Kelly Hayes Movement Memos podcast. By the early 2000s, it boasted scores of infill projects and row-house rehabilitations. 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. Phyllis Jones Carter owns a business in West Philadelphia and is a longtime . Days after the protest at Penn, a large group of residents, organizers, and protesters caught the Building Industry Association of Philadelphia (BIA) by surprise. Who has it, who doesnt, and where its spent. The concept of gentrification is a muddled one. Smith, Neil. Follow The Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia on Instagram But neither was it entirely unwelcome. Urban Renewal & Gentrification Marker. A hallmark of gentrification in Philadelphia are modest, older homes in the shadow of often modern condo complexes. The gentrification of Queen Village and Society Hill were exceptions in a region that continued to suffer the effects of deindustrialization and decline. As a result of these secular changes, more formerly depressed neighborhoods saw increased investment. Even though it was not subject to the physical destruction seen in Society Hill, this neighborhood experienced a similar degree of social disruption. Some residents burned trash inside their apartments for heat, or left it inside broken elevator shafts or outside the apartment buildings. In 1960, the black and white shares were 52.4% and 47.2%, respectively. Across the Delaware River, Camden, New Jersey, still awaited significant revitalization. This article was originally published at Prism. Earning a national reputation during the mid-century era of urban renewal, he was featured in Time and Life magazines and was appointed by President Lyndon Johnson to the White House's Conference on Recreation and Natural Beauty. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1991. (Photograph by Donald D. Groff for the Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia.). . A neighborhood group in Philadelphia is asking opponents of a proposed apartment building to mail in poop samples as part of a study on how gentrification impacts cancer rates. Waging a struggle against the rights of property owners seems like an uphill fight in a capitalist society, but it is not the first time that some of the organizers have been involved in such a pitched battle. The building of bridges across the Schuylkill River further promoted development, including that of hospitals and other benevolent institutions. As anticipated, property values soared, rising nearly 250 percent during the 1960s. One afternoon in 2017, a friend sent me a picture of New Light Beulah Baptist Church being demolished. To assist working-class residents near Southwark who could not afford the increased costs of living in the newly gentrified neighborhood, the Philadelphia Housing Authority in the late 1960s built three apartment buildings, named the Southwark Plaza, along Washington Avenue between Third and Fifth Streets. One 1978 study estimated that real estate taxes in Queen Village had increased almost 300 percent since the start of the decade. 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. The signs of gentrification can be spotted throughout Philadelphia neighborhoods like Brewerytown, Kensington and West Philadelphia, among others. Its a tradition that continues to this day. Neighborhood shoppers were not drawn to the modern building design and its variety of restaurants and specialty shops. In a few short years, the once-conservative immigrant neighborhood had become a hotbed of hip nightlife. Its not just homes. He envisioned a redevelopment of the citys waterfronts, a midway closed to automobiles on Chestnut Street, and a tram that would take visitors over the Schuylkill River into Fairmount Park, site of the successful 1876 Centennial. 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. Typical buzzwords but the employees seem to demand that ownership be transferred to said queer BIPOC employees because of gentrification, reparations, and harm reduction, etc. For many Philadelphians, the 60s and 70s made evident Penns active role in spreading gentrification outward from campus. In doing so, it prompted the mass displacement of the neighborhoods poorer residents. West Philadelphia's population shifted from majority-white to majority-black between 1950 and 1960. Its one of the few places where folks who are on public housing vouchers can still access things like public transportation, a public library, medical care, markets, local stores, and other essential amenities with relative ease, said Davids. In describing why the residents have fought so vigorously to defend their homes, UC Townhomes resident Sheldon Davids offered the following remarks at a recent Ruth Wilson Gilmore book talk at the Philadelphia Public Library. Philadelphia did not become the international stage as Bacon had hoped. After those initial displacements, the UC Townhomes were built on real estate that at the time was not desirable to middle and upper-class white residents. Eastwick is, as he says, super residential, replete with rowhomes and momandpop shops. In the same period, tax credits helped spur commercial revivals in other historic neighborhoods. Universities also continued to play an outsized role in the transformation of their surrounding neighborhoods. Phil Tedros (C 20) lived in the Southwest Philly neighborhood of Eastwick prior to coming to Penn. As part of the renewal project for Society Hill that began in 1957, three 30-story residential buildings, the Society Hill Towers, were the tallest of the construction projects and provided 720 apartments designed to attract middle-class residents. Gillette, Howard. Its exhausting work. Housing activists and residents fight gentrification in West Philadelphia. However, due to political and financial disagreements, Bacons vision was never realized. What these struggles make plain is the violence that is fundamentally intertwined with private property rights and the shadowy public-private partnerships often involved. 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. 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. Connecting the Past with the Present, Building Community, Creating a Legacy, TheEncyclopedia New York: Routledge, 1996. How do students pop this proverbial bubble? For every new town house built in Graduate Hospital or Queen Village, scores of crumbling row houses were demolished in Nicetown and Kensington. Annabelle Williams is a sophomore in Wharton from Chester Springs, PA, studying Management and Marketing. (Author information current at time of publication.). The area of the Dock Street Market in Society Hill was a place of commerce for more than two centuries before it was demolished in 1959 to allow construction of the residential Society Hill Towers. Wilbur & Sons, a chocolate company established in 1884, was once a setting for the mixing and molding of chocolate candies. 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. Rasheda Alexander, a resident council member at the development, remembers seeing a few organizers tabling near the parking lot on weekends in the winter. Gentrification is generally good. You can see large areas gentrifying in Center City and University City. That doesnt happen a lot. "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. 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. Penn encourages students and faculty to explore off campus. Housing activists and UC Townhomes residents fight gentrification in West Philadelphia Housing activists, university students, and residents have staged protests and encampments to defend low-income housing in UC Townhomes by Jared Ware October 7th, 2022 During the 1980s, demand for these apartments exploded, and developers scrambled to meet it. At mid-century, the area remained a bastion of Black life, teeming with blues and jazz clubs, barrooms, and Black-owned businesses. I was deeply saddened. In rapidly changing neighborhoods like Old City, minority residents often suffered the brunt of such measures. As the Bicentennial approached, Bacon proposed that Philadelphia host a worlds fair to coincide with the 1976 celebration. However, gentrification and racialized displacement have intensified in recent years as Penn has continued targeted investments. Even during that mid-century nadir, however, there were stirrings of renewal. Green Gentrification in South Philly. The Philadelphia City Council, however, failed to pass a similar measure. To direct the neighborhoods ground-level renewal, Greater Philadelphia in turn spawned another interest group, the Old Philadelphia Development Corporation (OPDC), to coordinate the actions of bankers, finance capital, and homeowners. But, Dr. Palmer says, the people went everywhere. The gentrification of drug blocks specifically, as opposed to all gentrifying blocks in Philadelphia, accounted for roughly 2,400 additional shootings during the 10 years of his study. Sign up for Prisms newsletter to get first access to news and analysis that makes you thinkand act. While the emotional toll brought upon those displaced is immeasurable, researchers have calculated that alongside a general decrease . It also goes by another namethe Master Plan. According to his attorney, Gray died a week later in the hospital from a severe spinal cord injury he received while in police custody. The University City Townhomes has provided affordable housing for nearly 40 years. This new fourstory building will have 21 apartment units, and Penn Family Medicine University City will move into the first floor office space from its building a few doors down at 4623 Spruce St. Sterling Johnson, an organizer with Philadelphia Housing Action, recalls a small meeting last fall with Gerald Sid Bolling from the Black Bottom Tribe that included some residents. The neighborhood shifted from the scholarly-oriented confines of the University City, unfolding into the vast scape of West Philadelphia. As the 2000s wore on, the revitalization of residential neighborhoods became the cornerstone of Philadelphias revivaleven as the city struggled to temper gentrifications most harmful consequences. 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. Unable to meet the costs of renovation, long-term residentsmany African Americanwere forced to sell their historic properties. In 2014, Philadelphia City Council enacted the Longtime Owner Occupants Program (LOOP). Smith said the development he has seen around Mill Creek and deeper into West Philadelphia are converting apartments into low-income housing. States must preserve public housing on the urban core, invest deeply in . 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. By August 4, 2016. ofGreaterPhiladelphia. The encampment also had symbolic importance according to Johnson: The tents were a projection of the real byproductshomelessnessof mass evictions of poor residents. CamdenAftertheFall: Decline and Renewal in a Post-Industrial City. As these anchor institutions continued to attract thousands of young, highly-educated residents to Philadelphia, previously disinvested neighborhoodsfrom Spruce Hill, near the University of Pennsylvania,and Washington Square West, which adjoined Jefferson and Pennsylvania Hospitalssaw increases in population and property values. That said, the research request raised ethical red flags for some including Councilmember. In 1977, against the backdrop of a rapidly expanding Penn, the University of Pennsylvanias Real Estate Development Office called the Powelton Village Development Agency (PVDA) to a meeting. The New Urban Frontier: Gentrification and the Revanchist City. View Full Report Card. Real estate prices soon reflected this surge in demand. From the Feds press release: the losses were especially acute in University City. 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