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 Philadelphia Redevelopment Authority, a city agency, spearheaded the project. For the city and real estate developers, it served as a hopeful model for neighborhood revitalization. They lost their safety, their support systems.. Its a tradition that continues to this day. Real estate prices skyrocketed, too; an abandoned row house that might have sold for $300 in the 1960s now commanded up to $30,000. DuBois seminal 1899 work of urban sociology, The Philadelphia Negro, catalogued the lives and labors of those living in the predominantly African-American Seventh Warda narrow rectangular strip that spanned the southern edge of Center City Philadelphia, from the Schuylkill River on the west to Sixth Street on the east. By the late 1960s, middle-class newcomers joined their fight. Gentrification Takes Off: 1990s and 2000s. There has been a huge uptick in gentrification since 2000. Both Alexander and Johnson attest that constant meetings and forcing the owner to extend the HUD contract multiple times has been stressful on the residents. 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. 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. Black Citymakers: How The Philadelphia Negro Changed Urban America. In the following decades, it encouraged professors to invest in the neighborhood by providing mortgage incentives and funds for building rehabilitations. By August 4, 2016. "West Philly is the new Africa," one resident warned at a community meeting. For every new town house built in Graduate Hospital or Queen Village, scores of crumbling row houses were demolished in Nicetown and Kensington. 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. Its not a fight about lofty plans for the future, but about a communitys ability to defend their actual homes. And no one can question the rapidity with which its occurring. Yet even in the midst of this apparent nadir, there were glimmers of hope. Long-term residents are forced to move away from jobs and social networks. 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. 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. "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. Further from the booming downtown, neighborhoods continued to suffer from abandonment and decay. The area around Temple University in North Philadelphia also witnessed rapid changes. Indeed, the effect of these localized neighborhood transformations could not stem the continued exodus from the city. Many hundreds of enterprising individuals did just that. By the 2010s, Greater Philadelphia was grappling with issues familiar to all urban areas in the midst of gentrification. West Philly gentrification means upheaval for these longtime residents. The student solidarity work has drawn disciplinary proceedings by the administration. Others were lured by the citys development incentives, which in the late 1990s included a ten-year tax abatement for new construction and large-scale rehabilitations. National faith leader Bishop William J. Barber II led an interfaith rally at the Townhomes days later, offering to move into the Townhomes to put more pressure on the owner and the city if necessary. As industrial jobs evaporated, Greater Philadelphias institutional service sector expanded. Galvanized around a struggle to defend the University City Townhomes, a 70-unit housing complex that has operated under a Section 8 project-based subsidy program for the last 40 years. What good are HBCUs if they mirror the anti-Blackness of the US? At the same time, other historical features were sacrificed in the name of development. 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 the most part, Penn is now a good steward of the neighborhoods it inhabits, he explains. Like many Philadelphia neighborhoods that experienced a middle-class influx, rising rents and tax assessments made life increasingly difficult for poorer residents. Residential gentrification soon followed the growth in commercial activity. Urban Renewal & Gentrification Marker. There were also cultural conflicts between old-timers and newcomers. In recent years, a number of Philadelphia neighborhoods have undergone significant transformation, with higher-income residents moving in, real estate prices rising, new businesses . Penns Civic House sponsored an urban studies class (URBS 178) on universitycommunity relations that addresses the schools difficult history with its surroundings. 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. Creating its first maps of gentrification in 2013, Portland was one of the first U.S. cities to use data visualizations in order to better understand neighborhood change and displacement. These areas initially had at least 500 residents as well as below-average income and home values.. The disruptions of convocation and the BIA meeting and Bishop Barbers gathering all led to a response from a university representative deflecting and downplaying Penns involvement in the sale. Gentrification is nothing new, Fed economist Jeffrey Lin suggests in his paper, " Understanding Gentrification's Causes. This map shows what the gentrification measure we created looks like in Philadelphia between 1990-2000 and 2000- 2010. Smith, Neil. These land seizures, coupled with the 1963 construction of the University City Science Center, fractured the community. The University bought the land and the building and now uses it as an incubator for local startups and student research. The city filled in Dock Creek in 1784 and paved the new land with stones, creating Dock Street. In their wake, others moved to the newly-dubbed neighborhood for reasons that were cultural as much as financial. 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. Meanwhile, the percentage of college-educated adults in the neighborhood shot up from under four percent in 1950 to 64 percent by 1980. 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. For years, the extant Black, Polish, and Jewish communities had mobilized to thwart the plan. Protect Squirrel Hill, a coalition of neighbors in the Squirrel Hill area of West Philadelphia, rallied April 3 against a proposed luxury apartment building. This move brought with it an influx of capital and incentives for real-estate developers to create housing for well-endowed students. Eastwick is, as he says, super residential, replete with rowhomes and momandpop shops. How do students pop this proverbial bubble? 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. Its stated aim was to make Penn reasonable, alive, and healthy once again. 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. The Plans effects were keenly felt in the Black Bottom, a primarily black and disadvantaged neighborhood that earned its name from its place at the bottom of West Philadelphia (from 32nd Street to 40th Street between Lancaster Ave and University Ave). The struggle to preserve the UC Townhomes had humble beginnings. It garnered media attention, brought the community into the fight, and helped residents build greater connection with activists, students, and organized labor in the city. The movement that disrupted this event has become one of the most dynamic forces in Philadelphia in recent months. The rapid influx of wealthier homebuyers triggered alarming demographic changes. During the 1980s, demand for these apartments exploded, and developers scrambled to meet it. 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 . [citation needed] Nicetown-Tioga saw a brief spurt of urban gentrification in the early to mid-2000s. Streetwise: Race, Class, and Change in an Urban Community. But as she saw how the situation impacted more vulnerable people in the Townhomes, Alexander decided to get involved. Old Philadelphia funded a national advertising campaign that recast the neighborhood as a desirable historic enclavethe better to attract aesthetically-minded middle-class homebuyers. Anderson, Elijah. What these struggles make plain is the violence that is fundamentally intertwined with private property rights and the shadowy public-private partnerships often involved. The Dock Street Market, the citys principal food market since the late eighteenth century, was razed to make way for three I.M. 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. As the smoke rose from 6221 Osage Avenue, Philadelphia residents watched through their windows or television screens in a state of stunned disbelief. An average row house costing $7,400 in the 1960s sold for over twenty times that amount in 1990. In the 2000s, the effects of gentrification began to spill over into other neighborhoods adjacent to Center City. 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. 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. It also goes by another namethe Master Plan. By the late 1980s, Manayunks Main Street boasted dozens of new shops, bars, and restaurants, many housed in refurbished historic buildings. From 1982 to 1984, Philadelphia led the nation in the number of claims for such tax credits. 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. 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, escalating in the. 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. 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. In academics and activism, gentrification is understood as the displacement of a lower-income community in terms of demographic and economic changes. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2005. In the 1990s, young urban professionals flocked to the area. The protesters, including students, chanted "Save UC Townhomes" and "stop Penn-trification." As more artists and young professional moved into the neighborhood, the Manayunk Development Corporation created a mixture of public programming to cater to the new audience. As in Society Hill and Queen Village, the gentrification of Graduate Hospital triggered striking demographic changes. They, along with others, led a direct action movement with a large group of the citys homeless population that included squatting in vacant homes and multiple large encampments. Philadelphia, in Pews 2017 State of the City study, lacks affordable or subsidized housing options. By 1990, that figure had fallen to 20 percent. Attendees said that groups of residents are trying to fend off gentrification in West Philadelphia. 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. It succeeded in upgrading real estate values but also faced criticism from long-established residents. The gentrification taking place in West Philadelphia is often referred to as Penntrification. The gentrification has caused the displacement of some low-income residents and people of color. Universities and hospitals, which could not move their operations out of the city, fueled this growth. Dylan Gottlieb is a Ph.D. student at Princeton University, where he works on recent American urban history. Buoyed by the success of Society Hill, other Philadelphia neighborhoods began to experience revitalization during the 1970s. There have been spectacular moments, but also low points: While Johnson says he always believed it could be done, he acknowledged that in the beginning of July, it didnt seem like people were going to pay attention, but thats why there was the encampment.. In Philadelphia, various neighborhoods, each with a characteristic class and ethnic makeup, are being shaken as newcomers move in. 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