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I sort of know what it means. It means bad neighborhoods are bought up cheap by the up and coming professional class and are turned into desirable, upscale neighborhoods. First, where in Philly is this happening? Second, why is it not happening all over? Is there a basic prerequisite before a local is "gentrified"?
Gentrification is the social, economical or physical upgrading of a neighborhood. It can be a change from poor to middle class or working class to wealthy over time. Of course, these are not the only possibilities in the gentrification process, these are just examples.
Gentrification is a longggggg process. It can start a number of ways, whether it is sponsored by the city government like Society Hill was, sponsored by an institution like University City was, in a good location (in the core of the city, near other nice neighborhoods or near good public transit), or started by developers like Fairmount (Art Museum area) and Spring Garden were, or just started by the general population for whatever reason. It can also be a change from industrial to residential like Callowhill, Delaware Waterfront, and most of NoLibs and G-ho.
Some examples:
Society Hill was once a slum, which was redeveloped over several decades and sponsored by the city who gave tax breaks and incentives to developers to build in the area.
Spring Garden and Fairmount were once slums which were redeveloped primarily by developers who thought the area was in a good location close to the museums, Ben Franklin Parkway and Fairmount Park.
University City and adjacent West Philadelphia neighborhoods were once primarily slums where the redevelopment of the area was sponsored mostly by UPenn and to a lesser extent Drexel.
Northern Liberties was once a run down post industrial area redeveloped mostly by the population, at first, young artists and urban pioneers moved into the area, eventually young professionals and singles started moving into the area and now, this day, there are yuppies and the wealthy moving in with $800K+ rowhomes.
It is a long process.
Neighborhoods that are currently being gentrified are:
Fishtown
Delaware Waterfront
Kensington
Olde Kensington
Francisville
Brewerytown
Callowhill/ Loft District
Spring Arts
Templetown
Graduate Hospital
Newbold
Point Breeze
Mantua
Walnut Hill
Areas starting to see early signs of gentrification are:
West Kensington
Gray's Ferry
Dickinson Narrows
Dunlap
Haverford
West Powelton
Sharswood
West Poplar
West and South sections of Hartranft
South and East sections of North Central
Germantown
Areas can also be redeveloped and re-purposed in another way, like The Navy Yard changing from Industrial to a Commercial business district.
Gentrification is what has made it possible for Philadelphia to survive, and possibly thrive, in the coming years. For decades, all that happened is the middle classes moved out and neighborhoods declined (blight, litter, crime, etc). Without gentrification Philadelphia would have 3 good areas: Rittenhouse, Chestnut Hill and Far Northeast. Everything else would either be really bad or else not-yet-bad-but-getting-there.
It's not desirable for the entire city to be gentrified as that would adversely affect affordability for lower/working class people. Most areas should just be well-maintained or improved, not gentrified.
Some people consider gentrification to be a dirty word. They'd have our city be nothing but a repository for the poor and desperate. I think they overlook the fact that in order to fund the services that benefit the poor, you've got to have a reasonable tax base from which to draw. Where are those taxes coming from if not from the people who live, work and play in the gentrified areas?
I think it needs to be brought up that gentrification is NOT an inevitability, and is NOT always a positive thing by any means. It's not just "bad" neighborhoods that are gentrified. Gentrification is also a traumatic process that often destroys neighborhoods and communities.
It's easy, and arguably appropriate, to see gentrification as an overwhelmingly positive thing in a city like Philly that had seen so much disinvestment and decline. But I am always wary of cheering on gentrification, because at some point the worm can turn and suddenly a once-vibrant interesting unique neighborhood can become a sterile generic cultural wasteland as all of the things that gave the place character get priced out.
Not many places in Philly have gotten to that point - yet. But I and many others would take issue with casually calling some of the areas Summersm just mentioned "slums" that were transformed by visionary developers. That does a great disservice to what were some beloved neighborhoods.
Summersm343, I appreciate the history of Philadelphia gentrification that you've detailed here.
I'm always surprised when I hear that Society Hill had to be gentrified. It always struck me as a neighborhood that had always been upscale.
Now that I've been on a pretty thorough apartment search / research jag for about 3 months, I'm continually amazed at how nice the architecture is of many homes in Philly, even in current slums. Example: I see a rental on Craigslist, and even though it's not in the neighborhood in which I'm mostly looking, I'll look into it because there is something about it that catches my eye. I'll notice that the pictures of the place show really unique old architecture, and I'll start to get excited, thinking "We could live in a beautiful place like this that cheaply??" Inevitably, I look at the Google map pictures of the surrounding neighborhood, and also search out opinions of that particular corner on message boards like this one, and realize that it's in the middle of a slum. Maybe I'm not giving poor residents credit where credit is due, but I always end up wondering how such fine architecture survives decades of being sandwiched essentially between a drug house and a shabby corner store. I feel like that's something pretty unique about Philadelphia. These beautiful old places somehow survive with their most charming features intact, no matter what. And the sense I get is that that is what's happening with gentrification in the city, as well. Developers are mostly trying to preserve the historical features of a neighborhood, not build boxy modern structures over them (I know there's a lot more to it than that).
But one thing I do wonder about gentrification is: does the bubble ever burst? I hear people on these message boards talking about "Just give such-and-such neighborhood 20 years". And it makes me wonder - what if the trend towards gentrification has started rolling *backwards* by then? I know we're in the middle of a national trend towards the young and the monied moving back into the cities, but surely this trend can't keep going at the same pace, right? The poor have to live somewhere in the city. Unless Philly turns into a place like San Francisco, where there are few places a blue or pink collar worker can afford.
Do people think that gentrification of Philadelphia will eventually reach a saturation point, where the gentrified neighborhoods are sustainable and holding steady, BUT where "progress" stops being made because it just doesn't make sense to target new neighborhoods for gentrification? Or do people think the gentrification will just continue, even at a snails pace, for decades to come? Or will there be a point at which the trend slows and then starts going backwards into the next period of urban flight?
But one thing I do wonder about gentrification is: does the bubble ever burst? I hear people on these message boards talking about "Just give such-and-such neighborhood 20 years". And it makes me wonder - what if the trend towards gentrification has started rolling *backwards* by then? I know we're in the middle of a national trend towards the young and the monied moving back into the cities, but surely this trend can't keep going at the same pace, right? The poor have to live somewhere in the city. Unless Philly turns into a place like San Francisco, where there are few places a blue or pink collar worker can afford.
Do people think that gentrification of Philadelphia will eventually reach a saturation point, where the gentrified neighborhoods are sustainable and holding steady, BUT where "progress" stops being made because it just doesn't make sense to target new neighborhoods for gentrification? Or do people think the gentrification will just continue, even at a snails pace, for decades to come? Or will there be a point at which the trend slows and then starts going backwards into the next period of urban flight?
Any kind of development is going to hit the limits of the economy. The money has to come from someplace, and I think our national economy is still shellshocked from the subprime crisis which was artificically fueling a lot of residential development nationwide in teh last decade, so I don't think that's going to happen again soon. Philadelphia's job growth does need to keep up with development in the city, or else it will just end up acting (even more) as a bedroom community for jobs in the suburbs, which is very inefficient.
But I really don't think history is going to repeat itself, or that there is some natural sort of boom-bust-boom cycle of trendy urbanism that will keep occurring over and over. I say this because population growth, short of a great calamity, is not cyclical.
There are so many more people in the US, and in the world now than there was during the great decline of american cities.
There are more than twice as many people in the country right now as there were in 1950 when suburbanization took off, and 3x as many in the world.
Higher density, and more efficient patterns of living seem inevitable in the future, and that naturally makes city living more desirable. Not to mention the likely fuel and energy crisis in the coming decades which will increase demand for walkable living amenities.
How all of that will relate to gentrification will be interesting. Because a trend we have witnessed since the 1970's has been the shrinking of the middle class, and polarization of income at the top and at the bottom. What will that mean for cities in the future is a question mark.
^^Hallouise
There are so many structurally dense and architectually beautiful neighborhoods close to the core of Philly, that gentrification should be able to continue for decades, so long as the economy continues to grow. I believe that the poor will be pushed out to the suburbs and it's possible that Northeast Philadelphia will end up being a much poorer but hopefully transient/immigrant friendly enclave.
There are many signs that already show this to be happening. Northeast Philly, like much of the suburbs, has a dense environment but none of the convenience that living close to the core provides. For the most part, it also doesn't have the diverse and older architecture like is found in the rest of the city. These areas IMO, like in Europe, will become less desirable and poorer over time.
North Philadelphia is so large and so poor that there should always be room for people with less means. You could say the same for a large part of West and Southwest Philadelphia.
But the difference with gentrification in Philly is that it is and always has been a city of homeowners, with a nearly 50% home-ownership rate.
This slows down the process of gentrification and enables both sides of the process to benefit, with older residents able to cash in on some new found equity and new homeowners still able to find deals and profit even further.
Gentrification is the social, economical or physical upgrading of a neighborhood. It can be a change from poor to middle class or working class to wealthy over time. Of course, these are not the only possibilities in the gentrification process, these are just examples.
the idea that wealthy people are better than working class is a fairly arrogant and subjective view. fairmount was never a slum, it was a working class neighborhood. it was, otoh, surrounded by slums.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hallouise
I'm always surprised when I hear that Society Hill had to be gentrified. It always struck me as a neighborhood that had always been upscale.
that's because they completely demolished the old neighborhood. society hill, as it is today, was really just old city. the same kind of neighborhood that still exists in pockets north of market also existed along dock st and straight south to headhouse square and queen village (a subsection of southwark). dock st itself was once a creek and it's mouth is where Wm Penn is said to have landed. in later years it became an open sewer, it was then convered over and made into the city's biggest market. it remained a market section, not unlike 9th st, until the 50's when the city, using urban renewal funds, bought up all the buildings and knocked it all down...the remainder of the market occupants were relocated to south philadelphia and became known as the produce terminal. in the few photos I've seen from the era before this started in 1957 or so, the area looked like a lot of philadelphia...in no way did it appear to be a slum in the way we probably think of it today (see north philly)...though the buildings probably lacked a lot of modern amenities we take for granted. still,for the time it was bad, and markets the world over are often shady at night. one should remember, society hill (really old city) didn't need to be gentrified, someone decided to gentrify it. as with most urban renewal projects, I'm sure there was a healthy profit to be made using taxpayer money.
the idea that wealthy people are better than working class is a fairly arrogant and subjective view. fairmount was never a slum, it was a working class neighborhood. it was, otoh, surrounded by slums. .
That's not what I meant by it, chill out man. I'm not wealthy. I was just using those as examples of what can happen in the process of gentrification. I was not suggesting that anyone is better than anyone else.
My lord people on this forum are sensitive.
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