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There's definitely been an increase in crime and quality of life issues in Mayfair ... not to mention a culture clash. And the majority of the problems are being brought with the new residents, directly from the ghetto.
Well, thank you for getting me/us up to speed on that.
What else do you call the area around Temple? Whenever a neighborhood gets better instead of worse there's always some rationalization "oh it was never that bad there, oh its next to such and such neighborhood so its not that bad really". The sky is falling when crime goes up in one area, and when another area starts coming back you make excuses for why its not really that big a deal and how the sky is still falling regardless. C'mon man. Would you prefer people didn't want to move into Fishtown or adjacent parts of Kensington? Because you know, if that fits more with your whole "Philadelphia is going to hell" world-view than I and many others like me can leave so you'll feel better.
I don't on the whole believe "Philadelphia is going to hell", I don't however have blinders on and believe there are serious issues that need to be addressed. Those yupsters aren't going to stick around once they have kids except for a few select established areas. The NE residents are multi-generational taxpayers and homeowners who are the glue of their communites.
You would think wanting safer streets, lower taxes and better schools would be a winner with most people. I guess denial is easier.
I don't on the whole believe "Philadelphia is going to hell", I don't however have blinders on and believe there are serious issues that need to be addressed. Those yupsters aren't going to stick around once they have kids except for a few select established areas. The NE residents are multi-generational taxpayers and homeowners who are the glue of their communites.
You would think wanting safer streets, lower taxes and better schools would be a winner with most people. I guess denial is easier.
More college educated people are sending their children to school in Philadelphia than ever before. Ever. It keeps being said but some choose to ignore it. Your premise does not make sense because you say that they will only stick around and send their kids to school in a few established areas... how then are there more "established areas" where this practice is acceptable today than 15 years ago?
These schools are not poor one day and then flush with cash and the children of college grads the next. Somewhere along the line there were parents who sent their kids to an unestablished school and pushed and fought and fundraised that school to respectability to point that others around them felt good enough to stick around and send their kids there too.
It wasn't long ago that mccall had a population of students that almost entirely came from poverty. Today it's a fine option to send a kid to and the parents of some of these new privileged students are making sizable donations to start extracurricular programs, classes, build a new playground etc. to make the school even better. Just a few years ago Kearney wasn't considered a reasonable option. Today it is. In a few years it will likely be reaching the level of mccall or meredith.
So in short you're wrong. A lot of these yupsters will move out once they have kids. But an increasing number of them are sticking in the city, whether they are in an established area or not.
Besides even if your premise held true, it's not like there isn't a new crop of young college grads every semester. Even if some move out to the suburbs to have kids even more newly minted yupsters will replace them. Bottom line there has been a sea change, Philadelphia has always had a great bunch of universities, they could just never hang onto those kids once they graduated. That has changed. The core neighborhoods of the city will continue to improve at significant clip. The schools will continue to improve. The amount of people of means sending their children to them will increase.
I feel like even the most optimistic of Philly boosters will readily admit that there are certainly significant problems still existing within the city that need to be solved and there are definitely some rapidly declining nabes that where solidly middle class just a decade or so ago that have gotten much worse. It's sort of just a situation where looking at the big picture though it's definitely a situation that on the whole seems to be getting better and the positives outweigh the negatives.
Those who trash the city though seem unwilling to admit that anything positive is occurring.
As someone who currently lives in NE Philadelphia, perhaps I could chime in on the overall state of the area.
Mayfair is still a good place to live. A vast majority of the residents take care of their property and have pride in their neighborhood (unlike some other areas). There's no doubt that in the last 10-15 years, it has declined (like the whole NE), but still a good area.
If you want a place that has really turned into a dump in the last 10 years, then it's Oxford Circle. I'm in that area a lot, and it's a place you don't want to move to for sure.
Rhawnhurst is my neighborhood. No doubt it has declined, but I definitely feel safe walking around alone at night here. There are some shady apartment buildings, but, aside from that, the area is very nice.
The neighborhoods you really would want to avoid at the moment are Oxford Circle, Frankford, and possibly even some parts of Holmesburg. Places that are fairly good areas include (but not limited to) Mayfair, Rhawnhurst, Castor Gardens (north of Magee), Fox Chase, Burholme, Northwood, and Lawndale.
As someone who currently lives in NE Philadelphia, perhaps I could chime in on the overall state of the area.
Mayfair is still a good place to live. A vast majority of the residents take care of their property and have pride in their neighborhood (unlike some other areas). There's no doubt that in the last 10-15 years, it has declined (like the whole NE), but still a good area.
If you want a place that has really turned into a dump in the last 10 years, then it's Oxford Circle. I'm in that area a lot, and it's a place you don't want to move to for sure.
Rhawnhurst is my neighborhood. No doubt it has declined, but I definitely feel safe walking around alone at night here. There are some shady apartment buildings, but, aside from that, the area is very nice.
The neighborhoods you really would want to avoid at the moment are Oxford Circle, Frankford, and possibly even some parts of Holmesburg. Places that are fairly good areas include (but not limited to) Mayfair, Rhawnhurst, Castor Gardens (north of Magee), Fox Chase, Burholme, Northwood, and Lawndale.
The problem just stems from the dynamics of the neighborhood. When not enough young people are moving into your neighborhood there are going to be problems. Parts of the NE that are still attracting families and are remaining active will do much better than the areas where most of the younger generation moved on. In that kind of environment you'll get a vulnerable neighborhood, because if you can't get responsible people to move in you'll end up with irresponsible low life types. There's pressure for people to sell a property or a deceased relatives house and nobody waiting to take care of it, you'll have some problems. As the neighborhood greys it also becomes more vacant: less children, families bringing elderly parents out of the neighborhood to homes, and houses are becoming underutilized and undervalued since there's no influx of young home owners. This is where "investors" from New York buy properties on the cheap and rent them out or use them as Section 8 farms. This is what attracts residents fleeing from North Philly. Within that group you'll have families just trying to find a better environment for their children and are glad to have the opportunity to live in a better neighborhood, but when you're dealing with the North Philly demographic you're bound to have problems. This is how problem residents, and their children, start to filter in to formerly good neighborhoods. It's how every good neighborhood in Philadelphia went down: it lost its appeal to the young generation who moved out, and so it went to the lowest bidder, so to speak. Right now that's what happening in the lower NE. Unfortunately, the things that made the NE so appealing thirty or forty years ago aren't appealing to the generations buying houses right now. The same way the old downtown neighborhoods weren't appealing thirty of forty years ago. If you want to save the NE, change that. Find a way to make it appealing to young people. Like it or not, the yupsters are going to be a major factor in saving this city. None of us, separately, can really make it work. When older residents are willing to work with newer residents for common goals in improving their neighborhood than everyone benefits. The best neighborhoods in the city right now are ones where older residents have welcomed the newer into helping keep their blocks healthy and dynamic.
/\ South and West Philly will turn around faster than the NE will. If I want to live in the City, then I'm going to live in the city, if you know what I mean. The NE was built to be something of a suburb in the city and unfortunetly most people don't want that. They want easy commutes and happening nabes if they're going to put up with City life. Taking some slow... 14/58/66/20 bus to the slow... El is not my idea of an easy commute.
Last edited by FindingZen; 02-19-2012 at 05:24 PM..
Reason: watch the language
The problem just stems from the dynamics of the neighborhood. When not enough young people are moving into your neighborhood there are going to be problems. Parts of the NE that are still attracting families and are remaining active will do much better than the areas where most of the younger generation moved on. In that kind of environment you'll get a vulnerable neighborhood, because if you can't get responsible people to move in you'll end up with irresponsible low life types. There's pressure for people to sell a property or a deceased relatives house and nobody waiting to take care of it, you'll have some problems. As the neighborhood greys it also becomes more vacant: less children, families bringing elderly parents out of the neighborhood to homes, and houses are becoming underutilized and undervalued since there's no influx of young home owners. This is where "investors" from New York buy properties on the cheap and rent them out or use them as Section 8 farms. This is what attracts residents fleeing from North Philly. Within that group you'll have families just trying to find a better environment for their children and are glad to have the opportunity to live in a better neighborhood, but when you're dealing with the North Philly demographic you're bound to have problems. This is how problem residents, and their children, start to filter in to formerly good neighborhoods. It's how every good neighborhood in Philadelphia went down: it lost its appeal to the young generation who moved out, and so it went to the lowest bidder, so to speak. Right now that's what happening in the lower NE. Unfortunately, the things that made the NE so appealing thirty or forty years ago aren't appealing to the generations buying houses right now. The same way the old downtown neighborhoods weren't appealing thirty of forty years ago. If you want to save the NE, change that. Find a way to make it appealing to young people. Like it or not, the yupsters are going to be a major factor in saving this city. None of us, separately, can really make it work. When older residents are willing to work with newer residents for common goals in improving their neighborhood than everyone benefits. The best neighborhoods in the city right now are ones where older residents have welcomed the newer into helping keep their blocks healthy and dynamic.
I agree with a lot of what you said. I do not have the statistics on hand, but it does seem like there are a lot of older people residing in the NE. As far as yuppies, I really doubt you will see any in the NE for a long time. This area has never been attractive to that group.
The gentrifrication that is happening in Fishtown, parts of Kensington, parts of North Philly, and other neighborhoods close to center city is overall good for Philly but bad for the NE. The people who made the formerly-bad neighborhoods bad aren't just disappearing. Most people from those bad areas are just trying to survive, but, of course, there are some troublemakers.
The NE is not close enough to the city to make it attractive to the yuppies and not surburan enough to cater to young families who want a suburban lifestyle.
I remember as a kid in the NE, almost everyone I went to school with hated the NE. Thought it was too boring and bland. In a way, it's true because it's mostly just residental streets and the nightlife is mostly confined to corner bars.
My hope for the NE is that it can stay fairly nice for several decades and then maybe gentrification will take place when the current hip areas become too expensive. Areas like Fishtown and Port Richmond never became ghettos and now they seem to be on the up.
The gentrifrication that is happening in Fishtown, parts of Kensington, parts of North Philly, and other neighborhoods close to center city is overall good for Philly but bad for the NE. The people who made the formerly-bad neighborhoods bad aren't just disappearing. Most people from those bad areas are just trying to survive, but, of course, there are some troublemakers.
I think some of it has already arrived. There's a lot of fairly new construction around Torresdale. Home prices are pretty stable or climbing around there as well. I think it has a lot to do with the idea of connectivity. You're close the Trenton Line and I-95 and people like that you can come to a quiet neighborhood with decent local businesses and have a convenient commute downtown. Other parts of the NE don't have that. They were made to be bedroom communities for local industries that don't exist anymore, which is a severe drawback.
It's all about demand. How do you make the NE into an area that's in high demand again? Short of bringing back industry. It's a tough question that wants a creative answer.
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