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As a newcomer (almost 9 weeks), it is the poverty that has struck me, too, and with all of the discussion about new shops, restaurants, buildings etc., in the retail thread, I think it's been well established that the trickle down theory doesn't work, so I can't see how any of that is going to positively affect the people in my building or zip code (19139). Even the West Lofts project across the street has stopped work (at least temporarily https://philly.curbed.com/2018/1/16/...laints-no-heat).
So I will continue to pick up the garbage that people throw on the ground when there is an empty dumpster a foot away and hope for the best.
PS I love my apt and building. Isaac Asimov lived here; maybe I'll finally write my novel .
I'm assuming that there are parts of the city you have not been to yet since Phila. is 3 times the size of San Francisco.
I have found it to be disturbing that people were irate that AC Moore was going into a center city location. It's a good, solid, local retailer, that provides employment & attracts a wide spectrum of customers.
I totally agree with you about trickle down. It hasn't worked yet.
They haven't done much to enhance that space unfortunately. It was a cheap conversion, imo, where they simply brought in inventory and put it on shelving. They do have a really good greeting card selection! That impressed me. I'm very old school about sending people cards.
Yes and that 40% TimeEd32 mentioned earlier get left behind .
Poorest parts are in sections of West and North Philly. There are several places in the NE Philly that are fine and have some of the highest concentrations of immigrants in the city. There's some great and amazing food there. The NW section has wonderful neighborhoods: Manayunk, East Falls, East and West Mt Airy, Chestnut Hill and parts of Germantown.
I'm assuming that there are parts of the city you have not been to yet since Phila. is 3 times the size of San Francisco.
Not sure how this relates to my post. I am not criticizing my neighborhood or Philadelphia. I was only pointing out my particular neighborhood doesn't seem to get a lot of love when it comes to development. The people I've met are doing the best they can with what they've got (been there!) and I suspect the littering is done by people who don't actually live in the building.
As you pointed out earlier, it is a tale of two cities and I live in the one with the #21 bus line which takes me everywhere (with transfers) .
Location: The place where the road & the sky collide
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Quote:
Originally Posted by kyb01
They haven't done much to enhance that space unfortunately. It was a cheap conversion, imo, where they simply brought in inventory and put it on shelving. They do have a really good greeting card selection! That impressed me. I'm very old school about sending people cards.
They also have all of the supplies to make your own cards. That's what's good about them. They are there for the families, the art students, the professionals, & anybody else who wants what they sell. They also have rooms for people to take classes & to host children's parties. They sell to businesses as well as individuals.
If someone wants to pick up extra money by making & selling something they can go there instead of traipsing out to the suburbs.
It's good for the residents & the city. It's keeping sales tax in the city.
That is true. Most people don't care about the site to begin with, they just don't like development, change, developers, Toll Brothers, etc. etc.
I think you're selling some of the preservationists short.
In the case of organizations like the Preservation Alliance for Greater Philadelphia (full disclosure: I've been friends with its executive director since he ran the University City District, before he became general manager of the Reading Terminal Market), they're not so much anti-change or anti-development as they are pro-history. The passage of time itself confers value on buildings and streetscapes, in this view, and altering them destroys that value.
It's quite likely that 50 years after the Toll tower is complete, people will act as though it's always been there. But I for one also see how it would radically alter the streetscape of the historic heart of Jewelers Row, down which I now walk twice daily. I can think of a few sites nearby, including some on which buildings sit, where a tower of that type could go easily - the most prominent one the empty lot between the building housing Le Pain Quotidien at 8th and Walnut and the Walnut Street Theater. The presence of two medical towers immediately to its south would probably discourage its development as a high-rise residential building, but it can be developed without disrupting a historic streetscape.
BTW, regarding old buildings, I recently spoke with one builder who noted that about the only economically sensible way to produce new affordable housing was by rehabbing old houses.
But if I can address the design of the proposed tower, while I appreciate the architects' attempt to make its upper stories disappear, I also think it's really pretty uninspired. And if you believe this is a function of the cost of building in Philadelphia, then I refer you to the tower below.
Inga is in a good mood today. She is quite fond of the new Alexander Building (I love it too), and the Franklin Tower looks so much better than before. I hope these towers and future projects expand CC North!
I remember the original rendering for the Boyd theator tower looked similar to the Alexander, I wish that iteration was still in the running.
If you saw my report on The Alexander, you might note my comments on the building's architect, Robert A.M. Stern Associates (RAMSA). Stern is perhaps the global starchitect who's been most active hereabouts, and one of the interesting things about his firm is that it can produce both striking modern buildings (the original Comcast Center) and handsome throwbacks (Penn's McNeil Center for Early American Studies). Lately, he seems to be getting picked for projects around here because of his skill on that latter front - the Museum of the American Revolution, which seems to me oversized for its style, and this, which I agree is a very handsome tower indeed, inside and out.
Just wanted to chime in quickly re: the conversation about the "State of the City" and the apparent stubborn poverty rate.
This requires a bit of data "nerdiness," of which I am guilty a lot, but it's important to note that, if you "read between the lines" of the mountains of Census data, Philadelphians are definitely making progress on increasing their wealth/standard-of-living overall. I'll try to keep it short:
"Poverty" in particular can confusing and a pretty imprecise measure. The most obvious caveat in the measure of poverty is that the Census does not "adjust" poverty thresholds by geography, which as you can imagine is fairly meaningless if the same threshold of income is used to determine whether an individual is considered "in poverty," whether they live in Manhattan, New York or Manhattan, Kansas.
The other point on poverty is that it will include off-campus students who, in most cases, earn very little money during the course of their studies: https://www.census.gov/topics/income...-measures.html. Again, this is going to skew the data in a city that's as student-heavy as Philadelphia.
In terms of only "earnings" from a standard full-time, year-round job (which the Census measures distinctly different from "income" and excludes things like government benefits, interest from investments, etc.), this is where Philadelphians are beginning to excel, which I find very encouraging: https://factfinder.census.gov/faces/...prodType=table
Based on the table I linked above, over the past 5 years for which data is available (2011-2016), the percentage of Philadelphians working in full-time, year-round jobs making at least 65K annually in earnings (a pretty solid middle-class salary) increased from 20.7% of Philadelphians to 25.7%. That's also with an increasing full-time, year-round worker pool, so, doing a little math, it translates to about 40,000 more residents making solid middle class salaries since 2011. The 5% raw increase in the proportion of the population making at least 65K annually is also greater than the US increase during that period (4.2%, from 26.2% to 30.4%).
Again, didn't want to get too much into the weeds, and I completely understand that poverty is still very much one of Philly's most glaring and pressing issues, but there are positive underlying trends that should not get lost in the conversation.
Just wanted to chime in quickly re: the conversation about the "State of the City" and the apparent stubborn poverty rate.
This requires a bit of data "nerdiness," of which I am guilty a lot, but it's important to note that, if you "read between the lines" of the mountains of Census data, Philadelphians are definitely making progress on increasing their wealth/standard-of-living overall. I'll try to keep it short:
"Poverty" in particular can confusing and a pretty imprecise measure. The most obvious caveat in the measure of poverty is that the Census does not "adjust" poverty thresholds by geography, which as you can imagine is fairly meaningless if the same threshold of income is used to determine whether an individual is considered "in poverty," whether they live in Manhattan, New York or Manhattan, Kansas.
The other point on poverty is that it will include off-campus students who, in most cases, earn very little money during the course of their studies: https://www.census.gov/topics/income...-measures.html. Again, this is going to skew the data in a city that's as student-heavy as Philadelphia.
In terms of only "earnings" from a standard full-time, year-round job (which the Census measures distinctly different from "income" and excludes things like government benefits, interest from investments, etc.), this is where Philadelphians are beginning to excel, which I find very encouraging: https://factfinder.census.gov/faces/...prodType=table
Based on the table I linked above, over the past 5 years for which data is available (2011-2016), the percentage of Philadelphians working in full-time, year-round jobs making at least 65K annually in earnings (a pretty solid middle-class salary) increased from 20.7% of Philadelphians to 25.7%. That's also with an increasing full-time, year-round worker pool, so, doing a little math, it translates to about 40,000 more residents making solid middle class salaries since 2011. The 5% raw increase in the proportion of the population making at least 65K annually is also greater than the US increase during that period (4.2%, from 26.2% to 30.4%).
Again, didn't want to get too much into the weeds, and I completely understand that poverty is still very much one of Philly's most glaring and pressing issues, but there are positive underlying trends that should not get lost in the conversation.
Great post, I think most of us on here are aware that Philadelphia has been stabilizing/ getting wealthier, and poverty is not as clear and simple as posting a percentage, however your average Joe only see 26% poverty, so unless that number falls, Philadelphia will always have that stigma about being poor.
I think you're selling some of the preservationists short.
In the case of organizations like the Preservation Alliance for Greater Philadelphia (full disclosure: I've been friends with its executive director since he ran the University City District, before he became general manager of the Reading Terminal Market), they're not so much anti-change or anti-development as they are pro-history. The passage of time itself confers value on buildings and streetscapes, in this view, and altering them destroys that value.
It's quite likely that 50 years after the Toll tower is complete, people will act as though it's always been there. But I for one also see how it would radically alter the streetscape of the historic heart of Jewelers Row, down which I now walk twice daily. I can think of a few sites nearby, including some on which buildings sit, where a tower of that type could go easily - the most prominent one the empty lot between the building housing Le Pain Quotidien at 8th and Walnut and the Walnut Street Theater. The presence of two medical towers immediately to its south would probably discourage its development as a high-rise residential building, but it can be developed without disrupting a historic streetscape.
BTW, regarding old buildings, I recently spoke with one builder who noted that about the only economically sensible way to produce new affordable housing was by rehabbing old houses.
But if I can address the design of the proposed tower, while I appreciate the architects' attempt to make its upper stories disappear, I also think it's really pretty uninspired. And if you believe this is a function of the cost of building in Philadelphia, then I refer you to the tower below.
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I don't think I was. I know there are many people in Philadelphia who truely care about design, aesthetics and the historical context of a building or neighborhood. However, there are (as of late) a lot of bandwaggoners who hate developers, hate Toll Brothers and hate change with no basis as to why or an alternative for the project.
"I remember when I was 10 years old going to Jewelers Row with my mom in 1960, how could they do this" - perfect example of my point.
Yes I know there will always be push-back no matter what the project is, but the push-back in Philadelphia has become quite severe, almost every major project I read about (even if its filling a vacant lot) is receiving so much negativity with no logical argument behind it.
Another peeve of mine is that the "Philadelphia solution" is to build away as long as its under 5 stories... I don't even have to explain that one...
This particular Toll project has been a tough one for me, I work in construction and with developers, so I generally supported the project, my biggest concern is the addition of a 23 story glass slab not the fact that a few old structures will be lost.
Also, yes I saw your write-up on the Alexander, I always love your real estate write-ups, especially when you have an early walk-through of a project, and when you showcase elegant homes on the Main Line.
Based on the table I linked above, over the past 5 years for which data is available (2011-2016), the percentage of Philadelphians working in full-time, year-round jobs making at least 65K annually in earnings (a pretty solid middle-class salary) increased from 20.7% of Philadelphians to 25.7%. That's also with an increasing full-time, year-round worker pool, so, doing a little math, it translates to about 40,000 more residents making solid middle class salaries since 2011. The 5% raw increase in the proportion of the population making at least 65K annually is also greater than the US increase during that period (4.2%, from 26.2% to 30.4%).
Are those inflation adjusted dollars? Otherwise, even with no change in real income, you would expect the percentage of folks earning any fixed salary to increase over a 5 year period (There was ~ 6.7% inflation in 2011-2016, so you need to compare the number of people making 65k in 2016 to the number of people making ~ 60k in 2011)
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