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I get seriously sick of this narrative. It's BS. 4 years before I moved to my neighborhood in South Philly you could buy most houses on the market for $15k-$30k. No adult who has lived in Philadelphia for longer than 10 years has any right to complain about not being able to afford to a house.
But, of course, you realize neighborhoods change, and when they do, houses no longer cost $15,000, and other dimensions of the cost of living rise as well. I'm not saying it happens to everyone, but it happens, and it's a negative consequence of rising home prices.
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Originally Posted by drive carephilly
look up the etymology of "gentrification" it refers specifically to the displacement of working-class people by the bourgeoisie.
Yet, in common usage, it needn't refer to displacement of working-class people. It can refer to the changing character of a neighborhood, physically AS WELL AS demographically. You're correct that, for the most part, it refers to the influx of wealthier individuals into working-class neighborhoods. But industrial neighborhoods like Northern Liberties and Callowhill can gentrify as well.
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Originally Posted by drive carephilly
c) I paid about $200k for my house. The people I bought it from paid $7k for it 15 years earlier. Their property taxes were $250 per year. Mine are $500 per year. No one forced them out of the neighborhood. They took the money and ran. That process was repeated ad infinitum in Graduate Hospital over the last decade.
You're correct that this is often the character of gentrification, and it's a process that doesn't bother me all that much. But this is not everyone's experience. For some, neighborhood change means increasing costs, increased harassment from realtors, and substantial alterations to neighborhood amenities. I think you're naive if you don't realize this has happened to some families in Graduate Hospital in the 2000s.
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Originally Posted by drive carephilly
The changes in blue-collar neighborhoods like Pennsport, Fishtown, Newbold, Cedar Park, Brewerytown etc are gradual, diverse, generational changes. They won't look much different tomorrow or 5 years from now but in 30 years all of those places will be vibrant neighborhoods with different demographics than they have today
I would agree with you, mostly, but I think that the changes will be more rapid than, say, 30 years. 10 years ago, grad hospital was very decayed with hundreds of abandoned buildings and vacant lots. Today, nearly all the abandoned buildings and lots have been sold and developed. In 10 years, the neighborhood went from average in terms of Philadelphia home prices to more than 3 times the average. This wasn't a generational change. This was a swift reversal of the long-term depopulation of the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s.
A bigger GHETTO than it is now if thats even possible.
When was the last time you were in Philly? If you think it's a ghetto, I'd hate to think what you'd say about Baltimore, Detroit, Buffalo, or St Louis.
A bigger GHETTO than it is now if thats even possible.
Well then I guess Philly will have to prove you wrong huh?
A lot of you make really good points. I think Philly has made a lot of changes in the past 10 years especially around Center City, University city ,lower North Philly etc. I think it will continue to shed its industrial image and become a place where people of all income can live.
I'm excited to see what Penn and Drexel have in store in West Philly as well as Temple in North. They are huge part in the revitalization of areas that would otherwise still be stagnant.
But, of course, you realize neighborhoods change, and when they do, houses no longer cost $15,000, and other dimensions of the cost of living rise as well. I'm not saying it happens to everyone, but it happens, and it's a negative consequence of rising home prices.
Owning a $15k house isn't a positive for anyone. It means you have zero equity. For most americans it also means you have no capital. If you can't afford a house for $15k you're not going to be able to afford one and if you couldn't be bothered to buy a house when they were that cheap you shouldn't be complaining when they cost more.
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Yet, in common usage, it needn't refer to displacement of working-class people. It can refer to the changing character of a neighborhood, physically AS WELL AS demographically. You're correct that, for the most part, it refers to the influx of wealthier individuals into working-class neighborhoods. But industrial neighborhoods like Northern Liberties and Callowhill can gentrify as well.
not common usage. not dictionary usage. not historical usage. your usage. A place can't change demographically if there was no demographic there before. Gentrification is about people. Not buildings or tracts of land.
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You're correct that this is often the character of gentrification, and it's a process that doesn't bother me all that much. But this is not everyone's experience. For some, neighborhood change means increasing costs, increased harassment from realtors, and substantial alterations to neighborhood amenities.
Unless you're trying to be incredibly condescending you can stop saying "you're correct." I don't argue about things I don't know about.
As someone who lived in apartments for most of his life - i got news for ya - the rent always goes up and moving is always part of it. It's why people aspire to own homes in the first place. Increased harassment from realtors? From developers maybe . . . and that's why instead of playing the guilty white liberal card (you and) neighborhood orgs should be educating homeowners on their rights, how to fight back against harassing developers, what the true value of their home is, how to use the equity in their home to their advantage and, if they are interested in selling, how to get the most money possible. If by changing neighborhood amenities you mean the fading of the chinese takeout and corner stores that sold soda, candy, cigarettes and processed food and served as hangouts for dealers then yeah. I'll take that. If you mean the replacement of laundromats with in-home washer and dryers then yeah, i'll take that too. As for the rest of what you might be getting at - please see below
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I think you're naive if you don't realize this has happened to some families in Graduate Hospital in the 2000s.
Not at all naive - maybe just better read on this topic. All neighborhoods have regular turnover and a demographic shift toward a higher income or education doesn't increase that turnover. The only difference is that the people moving in look or sound different so it's a visible difference. Studies from Duke (of Boston 'hoods) and Columbia (in NYC) both showed the same thing.
The important distinction is that in Philadelphia housing tenure skews toward owner-occupancy higher than the national average and in neighborhoods like Graduate Hospital and Point Breeze those numbers skew even higher than the Philadelphia average.
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I would agree with you, mostly, but I think that the changes will be more rapid than, say, 30 years. 10 years ago, grad hospital was very decayed with hundreds of abandoned buildings and vacant lots. Today, nearly all the abandoned buildings and lots have been sold and developed. In 10 years, the neighborhood went from average in terms of Philadelphia home prices to more than 3 times the average. This wasn't a generational change. This was a swift reversal of the long-term depopulation of the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s.
You snipped my post and completely missed the point (or perhaps vice versa) but what I said was: What Jane Jacobs would call "Cataclysmic Money" that transforms neighborhoods overnight is only possible where there are massive tracts of vacant/abandoned land (or in Jacobs' era when the government bought the land and forced people out).
Graduate Hospital was average for Philadelphia home prices but not average for houses within walking distance of Rittenhouse Square. The level of decay and crime in the neighborhood were the only things suppressing home values.
I also had this to say about that neighborhood - If you really get into the census data over the last 30 years in places like Graduate Hospital or Point Breeze you'd see a small, white minority that wasn't so much moving out as dying off and you'd see an african-american population that was moving out and dying off (and still is). The black population in most census tracts is old and their kids don't want to live here. Someone is going to replace them. Over the last decade the white population has grown 50-100% in some census tracts (from a relatively small 10% of the population) and continues to shrink rapidly in others but the asian and latino populations have grown anywhere from 250%- 1000%
One reason some working class people are against gentrification is because it could break up their family in the neighborhood. It's not uncommon in Philadelphia for relatives to live within blocks of each other. If an area is gentrified, the kids of the working class people may not be able to afford a house around the corner anymore, forcing the children to move to a different neighborhood. I'm not for this arguement, just explaining the thinking behind it.
Also, some people just hate change of any kind. They would rather have some neighborhood kid selling drugs on the corner then hipsters, people from the suburbs, or even anyone from outside the neighborhood.
One reason some working class people are against gentrification is because it could break up their family in the neighborhood. It's not uncommon in Philadelphia for relatives to live within blocks of each other. If an area is gentrified, the kids of the working class people may not be able to afford a house around the corner anymore, forcing the children to move to a different neighborhood. I'm not for this arguement, just explaining the thinking behind it.
I can see this point. Where I grew up got really expensive since I was a kid and while I could ultimately afford it, the cost and the quality of life doesn't measure up for me. While most of my aunts and uncles still live there, only a few of my cousins still do.
On the other hand, people in their 20s and 30s who grew up around here are increasingly choosing the suburbs and other parts of the city over staying in South Philly . . . and that started happening way before South Philly really started to transform.
It's interesting in that one of the things that made South Philly (and the city in general) such a cheap place to live were the sky high vacancy rates. It's part of what made so many people want to leave. Occupancy rates that now top 95% in some neighborhoods, renewed parks and cleaner, safer streets are what drive up prices and are also a driving force in making people want to stay.
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Also, some people just hate change of any kind. They would rather have some neighborhood kid selling drugs on the corner then hipsters, people from the suburbs, or even anyone from outside the neighborhood.
nailed it. the block behind my house is mostly one extended family and collectively they own all but a few houses on the block. they also have family members involved in the drug trade. Everyone knows it. Everyone knows the problems it causes in the neighborhood and within their own family but no one does anything about it. But the walls are closing in around them as there are more and more people in the neighborhood who have no patience for that kind of crap. Not surprisingly they complain a lot about the neighborhood changing.
The irony is that the neighborhood has been changing for 40 years and they were part of that change when they moved here 30 years ago.
Philly would be a good place to live as a retiree b/c you can have a small house with low maintenance costs, little to no yard to take care of, property taxes are ridiculously low and if you're not working you don't pay the wage tax.
Although I feel like the Pittsburgh area would be a better place to retire.
One reason some working class people are against gentrification is because it could break up their family in the neighborhood. It's not uncommon in Philadelphia for relatives to live within blocks of each other. If an area is gentrified, the kids of the working class people may not be able to afford a house around the corner anymore, forcing the children to move to a different neighborhood. I'm not for this arguement, just explaining the thinking behind it.
Also, some people just hate change of any kind. They would rather have some neighborhood kid selling drugs on the corner then hipsters, people from the suburbs, or even anyone from outside the neighborhood.
Yea but the opposite is true as well. Where I grew up in west philly, i was within two blocks of:
1 great grandparent
2 grandparents
6 great aunts and uncles
7 aunts and uncles
10 cousins
19 2nd cousins
and that's all just from my mom's side of the family and doesn't even get into dozens of people who we were ostensibly related to in some way or at the very least people who had been around for so long that they were thought of as family.
that family was broken up not by gentrification but by a descend to crime (great grand mother was hit by drunk driver and left to die, my uncle was shot in the back of his knee at an atm), all the local stores went out of business, property values fell like bricks. over the past 20 years a whole neighborhood that was tied together as one is now scattered to the wind, the lone hold out being my one great aunt. everyone else is gone.
the truth is none of these neighborhoods last forever anymore though, kids go to college now, they travel, they set down roots in other neighborhoods, cities, states, or even countries. having a neighborhood where you know every single one of your neighbors and many of them are your family is just a rarity today, for better or worse, that's the age we live in, not just in philly, but around the world.
the thing is though, while gentrification is undoubtedly putting an end to a lot of tight knit communities that have been together for generations, I much rather have gentrification be the reason for this than crime or poverty.
gentrification has it's negatives but it is overall a positive thing. aside from long term renters just about everyone benefits from gentrification, even the long time residents who live in the community being torn apart, cash out as they sell their property and move away. this obviously isn't the case when crime and neglect destroy a community.
So i hope those that gentrify do so responsibly and we as a city take steps to ensure that people are not taken advantage of, but overall? bring on gentrification.
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