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yeah, but i'm not one of them. My perspective is from growing up in a highly diverse middle-upper middle community (East MontCo) so I know that It can work.
This explains a lot of your perspective to me.
I grew up in a similar background but also have lived in Philly proper for a significant part of my life and have become sympathetic to those city residents who are far from upper-middle-income+.
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I see it as hypocritical if we aspire to inclusion in the region and countries suburbs alongside other groups while at the other end demanding our neighborhoods maintain a singular character. We can't have it both ways; as the Northeast, DelCo and MontCo has gotten racially diverse over the years, the consequence of that is what we see.
The city's poor and working class are unlikely to move to the suburbs. As more move to Lower Northeast communities such as Mayfair per your reference, there are subsequently more complaints by longtime residents who can't or won't leave their homes.
There are plenty, but the more non-Chinese Chinatown gets, the less Chinese Chinatown will be. And those that argue for a continued Chinatown want Chinatown to be Chinese. Prime downtown real estate…..no other group enjoys.
Since you're aware of the history of race-based housing restrictions, you know about how thriving communities of color were obliterated in the past in favor of redevelopment that favored majority residents and businesses. The proposed arena placement isn't as direct an action but the result may essentially be the same.
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I'm ok with it. Public Housing is by its nature volatile. No one should expect to live there forever…and when you don’t own you don’t hold the cards, that’s fair….you’re getting highly discounted housing.
I suspect a lot of Black West Philadelphians would disagree...but okay.
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As for the “gentrification” of 52nd street and north of Temple…well I don’t believe in gentrification, lol, its development, and its overdue.
If said development were at least partly for the benefit of longtime poor/working-class residents, that would be one thing...but it's rarely the case.
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Just as many black families have seen their "wealth" rise and happily cashed out for the south, the suburbs or wherever they want to be, as have people who were displaced against their will.
I don't know if that hypothesis is accurate...but it's one thing to leave voluntarily; it's another to be forced out.
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Some people want to live in the same place forever, you'd be surprised that some do not. When you speak against "gentrification" do know, you are also speaking against generational wealth creation for those that want it. Most Americans see their generational wealth created through housing, and the passing down of housing....when black families stand to benefit from it, it is now called "gentrification" and is a bad thing? (see this is the other side of that coin).
The renters who are forced to move when landlords raise their rent dramatically or raze the property for more upscale development are not creating generational wealth. Maybe *some* North and West Philly homeowners who are shown the money use it to find greener pastures...but they're not necessarily buying another home in cash, especially in today's housing market.
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I get that the big issue with so called "gentrification" is property values and the taxes from higher property values. So black people have to ask ourselves, are we willing to pay the price for safer and cleaner neighborhoods because safer and cleaner neighborhoods will mean more people will want to live in them, which means demand will be higher, which means prices will be higher, which means taxes will be higher.
The price is that poor/working-class people, regardless of race, are mostly kicked out of said neighborhoods. Sometime ago in another thread - maybe the 2035 one? -I predicted that Philly may reach a tipping point in the next few decades that redevelopment/gentrification reaches a point where lower-income/working-class folks are compelled to move out to lower Bucks, eastern Delco, or even Camden.
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I'm ok with Mayfair being the New Chinatown...as it is happening, naturally. It's not being forced.
Well, I have to trust you on that point.
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I’m not sure, but rest assured there will be businesses to cater to that growing demographic now or later, the way things are going, I fully expect Frankford Avenue to be sino-ized, and I’m ok with it, it’ll be cool.
So you are conceding that there may not be much of a cultural gathering place there while the original Chinatown disappears due to the arena.
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The D.C. example, btw, is highly exaggerated, from what I understand, the Chinese district, which was always small (a few blocks at most), was already dying before that Arena opened, and was never at the scale of New York, San Francisco or even Philly’s Chinatown. To be frank, D.C. itself never had strong ethnic enclaves; it’s below the Mason-Dixon, that’s just how it is down there. Besides, a vibrant Chinatown 6 blocks from the United States Capital is weird.
These folks would disagree with your assessment of the significance of DC's Chinatown.
The Piscataway, Pamunkey and Powhatan folks would probably say a lot of things about DC are "weird"...but I digress...
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I mean 8th Street Disney Hole would be nice, Broad Street past the Convention Center would be nice as well. But I’m just going with what is on the table. So that’s on the table so I support that. For the record, 8th Street looses direct access to Regional Rail but you get PATCO so it’s a wash. I understand the other concerns. I don’t think Chinatown would be lost, it may be a little different, I personally think it would be strengthened. If you are a business owner you would support it due to the increase in visibility and patronage. The ball is in the hand of the property owners; do they continue to maintain Chinese restaurants and other businesses or do they cash out?
Agreed that it's up to the property owners; disagree that the change in Chinatown would be minimal.
It's wild that people will go to such lengths to hold back areas of the city and then cry about a "lack of investment" later on.
That's not just Gauthier objecting.
The Civic Design Review panel also didn't care for what it saw.
And some of what I see I'd object to as well.
The buildings along Market should have something other than murals on their street floor. If the developer can't find retail tenants to fill a space on a busy thoroughfare, I wonder whether they're trying hard enough.
There's definitely demand for family-size apartments out there, and a project of this size should be able to accommodate some in some way.
We can debate whether requiring affordable units is the best way to increase the supply of affordable housing — I think there are better ways to skin this cat, but I wouldn't dismiss her concerns on that subject out of hand.
IMO the bigger issue here is one you glossed right over: The point of establishing the CDR panel and process was to create a method for improving the overall quality of new development in this city, but since the panel has no teeth, developers can simply ignore its recommendations after the second go-round (and according to the article, most do). I know many here would likely object to adding another requirement to those already on the books, but if you create a committee whose powers are limited to exhortation, why bother creating it in the first place?
The gentrification issue has always been a mystery to me.
The "let's keep Philly $hitty" movement is more of a blind attack on business and real estate from the far left than a real thing. The amount of money people would make on property values would FAR outstrip the tax hit one would see. You have any idea how much property values would have to increase for the taxes to become too much of a burden?
It makes my head spin that there would be opposition to someone coming in and improving a neighborhood from a trash-strewn $hithole to a nice place. Who would ever oppose that? Are their arguments purely political?
The points about DC Chinatown are all true - That area was TINY in comparison to the other Chinatowns we normally refer to. They were barely a Chinatown. And the draw had long diminished as a destination. People moved away on their own, not because of some arena. It's a ridiculous comparison. Use your heads. Increased foot traffic will enhance your business. You will benefit from this development. In the end, though, you have no leverage. The developer generously included you in the process, so your voices can be heard, even though you have no standing. This is not technically or otherwise in Chinatown. You decided to bite the hand with disinformation and misguided facts. I'd have told those guys to pound salt by now.
Market East is a dump. It's also the most travelled tourist corridor arguably anywhere. Philly should do anything they can to clean this up and make it more viable. It's one of the most critical stretches in eastern PA, let alone the east coast.
Good lord.
A couple of minor comments:
• I don't have an idea how much property values would have to increase for taxes to become too much of a burden for a middle-income homeowner. But I suspect the increase would not have to be so large for a lower-income homeowner in a neighborhood where redevelopment sends property values shooting northward. And this city also has a higher-than-usual rate of homeownership among low-income households. If one such household bought a house for, say, $25,000 a couple of decades back, and development raises the typical house values to ten times that, when the block gets reassessed, I suspect that the tax bill for the owner of the $25k house will prove an unpleasant surprise.
• Most studies I've read on the spinoff effects of sports arenas and stadiums have reached the conclusion that they produce little or no benefit for businesses around them. I know the idea is that city workers would hang around after work, maybe dine or drink in a nearby bar or restaurant, then go to the game, but most of the literature I've been exposed to says that doesn't really happen. So the neighboring businesses get no increased patronage but have to deal with the extra traffic headed for the arena, which may turn off existing customers.
As a former Philadelphia resident, I have to say, I’m not thrilled about an arena in Center City. Although the wildcard in this “new normal,” where downtowns just don’t have the same sustained foot traffic or energy that they did pre-2020/pandemic, is that this could potentially galvanize the area.
I'm sure they will work to attract all the non-sporting events that the Wells Fargo Center currently hosts. Most high-end acts will surely want to come to a state-of-the-art arena while while those too big for Franklin Music Hall but not quite ready to shell out the big bucks will settle for South Philly.
First, regarding your views on gentrification: Amen, brother. I have no trouble with it for the reasons you give here. I am, however, willing to consider strategies to help those at risk of being taxed out of their homes, and I do acknowledge that the renters get screwed in the process.* I don't favor rent control as the cure for that problem, but I would also like to see if there's some way that tenants who would rather remain in the neighborhoods they've called home for years could stay as well. (My understanding of the situation at UC Townhomes was that the site's owner had negotiated with the tenants initially and offered to build them new housing on a nearby lot. The negotiations foundered when the tenant responded that they wanted money as well. The agreement that ended the protests was in effect what the tenants had wanted initially: New housing nearby and money for relocation.)
I would, however, like to revise your description of the transportation situation. Either the proposed site or the Disney Hole would have all-weather connections to the following underground transit stations:
SEPTA RRD Jefferson Station
SEPTA BRS 8th and Market
SEPTA MFL 8th Street and 11th Street
PATCO 8th and Market
The all-weather connection for the stations further away (8th Street MFL/BRS/PATCO for the proposed site, Jeff Sta/11th St for the Disney Hole) is via the concourse level of the Fashion District mall (and the underground overpasses at 8th Street in the case of the Disney Hole and the stations at 11th Street). I would assume that the Sixers would work out something with the Fashion District mall owners to keep the concourse level open during events.
*However: I spoke the other day with an architect who is working on a rental building — market-rate — in Kensington near the drug bazaar. He tells me that most of the people interested in moving to the building already live in the neighborhood. They want to stay where they live now, but in nicer digs.
I mean I would definitely support 8th street as it gets rid of a blight on Market Street, thats been there my whole life...but that's not the proposal, and idk if a campaign to push that spot would be effective at this stage. The reason they chose the site they chose has its reasons beyond it just being a good spot.
As for "gentrification", there are programs that mitigate its effects for long time homebuyers in the form of a tax freeze, and thats all good....hopefully, it stays on a case by case basis and not the type of thing they do down in Cali which would have long term negative effects if we just gave that benefit to everyone that buys a house from this point forward.
As for renters, i've always been a renter....and i never thought myself owning my landlords home. I know I am under a contract and I am at the mercy of that contract; and most people understand it. Renting has its benefits, no property risk, the freedom to move, no need to pay for repairs, no property taxes; the other side is that is...again...we are at the mercy of the contract, and when the contract is up and the rent gets raised we either pay it or move on. So I don't necessarily feel bad for renters, it is what it is.
I'm all for "if you can afford it, live where you want." The problem is a lot of NE Philly (and many other areas throughout the country) only diversified because of section 8 housing, which never helps any neighborhood. Diversity should happen organically.
If today you magically removed section 8 housing from places like NE Philly and Lower Bucks, the complexion would look quite different and the quality of life would improve for a lot of residents.
Your beef should be with your former neighbors who chose to accept the program, collect the rent and move on. You can't be mad at people for looking to improve their housing situation within the system.
Ftr, section 8 would only make sense if a neighborhood was already declining or prices were low enough whereas section 8 makes sense. Section 8 people aren't getting housing in Rittenhouse. So maybe its a chicken and egg situation but i suspect for much of the Northeast, it was no longer desirable for middle class residents (for structural and aesthetic reasons, not even race), so new middle class residents were not moving in, so naturally (the housing cycle) the housing passed to the class below, and thats been going on since the beginning of time probably.
Nothing you can do is going to make a family with options and means choose a 3-1 airlight with a small garage and postage stamp front lawn, tiny galley kitchen, substandard HVAC (if at all) and a third bedroom the size of a closet if they have options. I read a book (Philadelphia: A 300 year history) where people stated when built (the 50s) that they were building the slums of the future because much of the Northeast Airlite belt is not all that desirable, and once the newness factor wore off, we are seeing the effects of that. And to top it off, transit is horrible, mass and roads; can you imagine the Blvd being apart of your daily life? Further, it's far from Center City and doesn't have much in the way of cultural amenities....the best we can hope for up there is a great diverse immigrant enclave like Queens, because to be frank, it's either that or the next North Philly; it'll never be a destination for the white middle class ever again.
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