Two of the Top Eight Most Gentrifed Zip Codes Since 2000 are in Philadelphia (Homestead: 2013, crime)

[MarketStEl]

Originally Posted by thedirtypirate

Agreed. Port Richmond has what all quality Philly neighborhoods have, good restaurants.

Whatever happens there, I hope Port Richmond hangs on to some of its Polish heritage. That's the source not only of many of the restaurants but also of some of the best sausage makers in the area (I'm looking at you, Czerw's).

I disagree with you here. Temple has never been a hindrance to growth or a reason for the divestment of North Central when considering the actual factors at play imo. Maybe you could say that Temple's reliance on being a commuter school for most of it's history has something to do with the difference, but the overall general economics of the area are defined by industrial decay and that has led to a cycle of crime and poverty. What would APM do to develop the area in a 'beneficial matter'? I actually find all the development from Ridge Ave. north to be very appealing as an investment opportunity vs. places farther out in West Philly. I think the high rise tower being built at Broad and Masters St. is affirmation of major changes happening. Penn and Drexel combine for much more of an academic punch than Temple alone, and West Philadelphia housing was always in better shape than the tiny modest row houses that surround Temple (there are some gems tucked in throughout though).

The commuter-school heritage may account for what I consider Temple's misfiring on neighborhood revival. And come to think of it, some of the current friction comes from Temple's efforts to create a residential campus around its commuter heart; the proposed football stadium is Exhibit A. (Temple had a stadium once, btw; it was well away from the campus, though - it was in West Oak Lane, up by Cheltenham Avenue. It was demolished in the 1980s, and a Baptist megachurch owns its former site.)

There's a street that houses most of the gems and is named for one: Diamond Street, which was an epicenter of new money in the 1880s.

As for what APM would do, the answer lies right next to Temple University Regional Rail station. That's a mixed-income, mixed-use development that's been honored with several awards; it was also the first project in the country to earn LEED-ND (Neighborhood Development) certification. (LEED stands for "Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design." It's a set of standards for eco-conscious and energy-saving construction developed, and continually revised, by the U.S. Green Building Council.)

The point I was trying to make is that Temple is making all of its moves around the students. That may be a good strategy for bolstering the campus itself as a place to hang around, but it does little to nothing to bolster the neighborhood. Penn's strategy relied mainly on bringing the faculty and staff back to what was becoming a student ghetto. Drexel's copying Penn while also augmenting student amenities.

Sharswoods will be Clarke's legacy in my opinion. The city is obviously doing something to attract so much development in Francisville. Is the PHA actually competent enough to pull off a Master Plan like the one they have proposed? The verdict is out still.

The city had next to nothing to do with Francisville. In fact, it (through Clarke) has tried to poke holes in it. Literally.

The person who I give the most credit to is Penelope Giles, who heads the neighborhood's civic association/community development corporation, the Francisville Neighborhood Development Corporation. She saw the Wave headed squarely towards her neighborhood and decided her community would ride it rather than try to hold back the tide. (I think she was quoted somewhere some years back as saying that her aim was "to put Francisville on the map.")

What her group does is sit down with developers to negotiate over things they could provide for the neighborhood when they come in with proposals. Those things need not be, and most often aren't, housing for its lower-income residents, but rather support for services and programs that those residents can use to improve their own lives.

I don't think it was an accident, however, that Clarke chose to announce his workforce housing initiative in Francisville. I will say this much about that program: it doesn't seem to be a program that doles out goodies to favored, politically connected developers, which is what I feared it would be.

I don't know what, if any, role Clarke played in Sharswood: I was the person who broke the story of the PHA's bait-and-switch in the middle of a Federally funded neighborhood planning program. This whole affair does reek of transactionality for the politically connected. The weird part is, PHA did manage to pull off a succesful revitalization effort in Hawthorne. I think that may have had something to do with partnering with a developer who knew the lay of the land. It seems to have no idea what it should be doing in Sharswood aside from building its own headquarters.

[thedirtypirate]

'We want to see growth' too: Why Tonetta Graham isn’t worried about Philly hipsters moving into her neighborhood

“I think that's a misconception: They want it to stay the same,” says Graham. “We want to see growth; we want to see restaurants and eateries, where you can bring your family. We want quality schools as well. We just don't want to be planned over.”

At least this lady is ready to ride the revitalization train!

[KansastoSouthphilly]

Originally Posted by thedirtypirate

'We want to see growth' too: Why Tonetta Graham isn’t worried about Philly hipsters moving into her neighborhood



At least this lady is ready to ride the revitalization train!

I wish more people had her attitude. I think energy would be much better spent trying to find ways to harness the power of "gentrification" instead of trying to stop it. Unfortunately a lot of the opposition to gentrification is being lead by people who feel their positions of power are threatened by the new demographics.

[BK_PHL_DEL]

Originally Posted by KansastoSouthphilly

I wish more people had her attitude. I think energy would be much better spent trying to find ways to harness the power of "gentrification" instead of trying to stop it. Unfortunately a lot of the opposition to gentrification is being lead by people who feel their positions of power are threatened by the new demographics.

Racism is still a barrier, for both sides unfortunately...

"Clark’s daughter, though, is deeply wounded by our presence on the block. To her daughter, says Clark, white people moving into Strawberry Mansion is “like a slap in the face.”

She should move to East Germantown then:

"Gentrification for black people by black people”

[kyb01]

Originally Posted by thedirtypirate

'We want to see growth' too: Why Tonetta Graham isn’t worried about Philly hipsters moving into her neighborhood



At least this lady is ready to ride the revitalization train!

There is a similar person in Francisville who has the same attitude. She's the head of the Francisville Civic Assoc. MarketEl has mentioned her.

[kyb01]

Originally Posted by BK_PHL_DEL

Racism is still a barrier, for both sides unfortunately...

"Clark’s daughter, though, is deeply wounded by our presence on the block. To her daughter, says Clark, white people moving into Strawberry Mansion is “like a slap in the face.”

She should move to East Germantown then:

"Gentrification for black people by black people”

She would find me or my family an abomination, with our abundance of mixed, white and brown-skinned members. My 4 year old great-nephew looks white(blond hair/blue eyes) although he is biracial...something that is not obvious. So I suppose if he showed on that block he would be another slap in her face.

[MarketStEl]

Originally Posted by BK_PHL_DEL

Racism is still a barrier, for both sides unfortunately...

"Clark’s daughter, though, is deeply wounded by our presence on the block. To her daughter, says Clark, white people moving into Strawberry Mansion is “like a slap in the face.”

She should move to East Germantown then:

"Gentrification for black people by black people”

1. James Earl Davis, Marc Lamont Hill and I all live in the same Census tract. The block they live on is about an eight-block walk from mine. The median household income in that Census tract is about $19,000 a year, below both the $28,000 figure given for Germantown (=ZIP code 19144) and the $36,000 MHI for the ZIP code I live in, 19138 (the post office serving it is East Germantown Station, but most of its delivery area lies in West Oak Lane). I guess you could say our presence is a drop in the bucket, but several visits to Uncle Bobbie's tell me there are lots like us up this way.

2. One of the things I'm often at pains to point out is the higher-than-usual income diversity in both Germantown and neighboring Mt. Airy. If I were to walk two blocks east to Francis Pastorius School, turn left once I pass it, then turn right onto any of the next three cross streets, I'd be in a Census tract where the MHI is in the neighborhood of $56,000/year. The MHI in Mt. Airy's ZIP code (19119) is about as high as Germantown's is low, but if you were to drill down to the Census tract or block group level, you'd find those figures mask as much as they reveal: in Germantown, the affluent residents (largely in its northwest quadrant) disappear; in Mt. Airy, the poor ones (largely in its southeast corner) do.

3. We may be witnessing "gentrification on our terms" here, but again, there's a difference between Germantown and the other neighborhoods visited in that series of reports so far: It's not exclusively monoracial, white or black. Only 18 percent of Germantown residents (19144) may be white, but that's about 18 percentage points higher than the percentage of whites who lived in Point Breeze pre-wave of gentrification or in Strawberry Mansion now. IOW, not all of Germantown's white residents fled, and those who stayed, like their neighbors up the road in Mt. Airy, made a conscious commitment to live in a (somewhat) integrated community. (The Presbyterian church I attend on Chelten Avenue just west of Germantown Avenue prides itself on its racially mixed congregation - an even greater rarity in the church pews than on the streets: only about 1.5 percent of all Protestant churches in the U.S. have racially integrated congregations.) And I note that even though both Hill and Davis chose to live here because they'd be around lots of black people, Hill at least isn't averse to working with those white folks also trying to improve Germantown from within.

[thedirtypirate]

Public housing at the heart of neighborhood revival

Interesting article about the success of the Hawthorne Projects in South Philadelphia.

Blowing up the towers and replacing them with houses that blend into the existing neighborhood makes those living in the projects feel more apart of the community than the impersonal world that the towers created.

I wonder if there are any plans to emulate MLK plaza in Sharwoods. I am optimistic about the area and hope in 20 years we view Sharwoods as we do Hawthorne.

[kyb01]

Originally Posted by thedirtypirate

Public housing at the heart of neighborhood revival

Interesting article about the success of the Hawthorne Projects in South Philadelphia.

Blowing up the towers and replacing them with houses that blend into the existing neighborhood makes those living in the projects feel more apart of the community than the impersonal world that the towers created.

I wonder if there are any plans to emulate MLK plaza in Sharwoods. I am optimistic about the area and hope in 20 years we view Sharwoods as we do Hawthorne.

20 years! How about 10 years or less.

[BK_PHL_DEL]

Originally Posted by thedirtypirate

Public housing at the heart of neighborhood revival

Interesting article about the success of the Hawthorne Projects in South Philadelphia.

Blowing up the towers and replacing them with houses that blend into the existing neighborhood makes those living in the projects feel more apart of the community than the impersonal world that the towers created.

I wonder if there are any plans to emulate MLK plaza in Sharwoods. I am optimistic about the area and hope in 20 years we view Sharwoods as we do Hawthorne.

Hawthorne Park and the new streets carved out are a great example of well-spaced setback from the sidewalk and what I assume are buried power lines. There are no power poles and ugly hanging power lines obstructing the vertical view:

https://goo.gl/maps/Qfjnrh9YiM72