Barmelo_Xanthony t1_izh4ekd wrote
Reply to comment by Chimpskibot in Fishtown, Point Breeze have become far wealthier in the last 10 years and other new Census findings by Dryheavemorning
I’m guessing you mean you want them building apartments right? Cause that’s the right idea but half the city would have a panic attack if you knocked down 10 of their precious row homes to build a 50 unit apartment. Literally just happened in west Philly and this sub was mostly with the protestors.
If you want denser housing that means we need to say fuck single family row homes. Sorry, the look cool when taken care of but they’re impractical and overpriced.
Dryheavemorning OP t1_izh7v93 wrote
The area he's talking about has plenty of empty lots and abandoned industrial buildings so no need to destroy anything. It's also full of apartment construction on those empty lots and industrial buildings.
Barmelo_Xanthony t1_izh872b wrote
Wow awesome link thank you. Didn’t realize that - so we are actually trying. It’s just a little harder to actually build things than ti say we should build them.
Dryheavemorning OP t1_izh8unc wrote
It's actually going up in the neighborhood, I'm in South Kensington and there's at least 500 units under construction within 2 blocks of me, way more in the entire neighborhood. It's like a whole new City.
LoudGroans t1_izjc95r wrote
... Where'd you move here from?
markskull t1_iziz5uc wrote
Or, and hear me out... you DON'T tear down the single family row homes and instead bring back mixed-zoning use instead.
[deleted] t1_izj06t9 wrote
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thecoffeecake1 t1_izjoygf wrote
Right, so let's raze half the city and replace it with higher density new construction, so the entire landscape of the city is a rolling wave of shitty new plastic facaded apartments and condos.
You developer mouthpieces don't give a shit about Philadelphia or the things that make it unique and give these neighborhoods the value you people exploit. You think anyone is going to want to move into any of these neighborhoods if the rowhomes are gone?
I hope this sub is still around when this housing bubble bursts and all these hideous drywall and plastic condos are worthless and literally crumbling to the ground.
The most disturbing and perverse thing about this comment though is that people are seemingly returning to this utility + profit > everything urban design mentality. It's what developers want the public to believe, so that they're given a greenlight to do essentially to whatever they want to the landscape of our cities. They managed to push the public narrative in this direction in the middle part of the 20th century, and they gutted every single city in North America for highways that encouraged more auto travel, brutalist offices and apartments, public housing projects that worsened conditions for the city's impoverished and are mostly long demolished. And what happened? Cities collapsed and fell into decades-long depressions, which were only reversed when people started moving into older neighborhoods that maintained long term value.
It's a really sick thing this person here is saying.
Dryheavemorning OP t1_izjtd44 wrote
This is pretty ironic coming from someone with "West Poplar" in their flair. Most of that neighborhood is a monument to the failures of government urban planning and housing policy in the late 20th Century. Turns out sticking suburban style homes in what should be a dense urban neighborhood doesn't solve all the ills of poverty. The apartment buildings and rowhomes developers are putting up now look awesome compared to the garbage projects in West Poplar.
thecoffeecake1 t1_izjv5ih wrote
Do you think I designed them? I don't get your point.
Dryheavemorning OP t1_izk6ih0 wrote
My point is you're lamenting the potential destruction of existing homes for new dense development when you live in a neighborhood that would be massively improved by demolishing what is currently there for new dense construction.
You're also conflating the anti-urban actions of the government in the 20th Century with private developers that are responding to market demand, they're very dissimilar.
thecoffeecake1 t1_j03icto wrote
There's so much wrong with what you're saying that I hardly know where to begin.
First of all, no, West Poplar would not be "massively improved" by destroying the neighborhood for denser development. No one who lives in this neighborhood - neither transplants nor locals who have been here for generations - wants to live in a jungle full of condos. I've lived here for a decade, and I moved here and stayed here because I love this area the way it is. Take your opinions about a place you don't live somewhere else - you clearly know very little about this neighborhood or the people who live here.
I don't entirely disagree that how Richard Allen was redesigned wasn't great, but what's your solution? Evict an entire community that's been there for almost a century for more tacky and poorly constructed condo buildings? Revert back to high rise public housing? You obviously don't understand the issue very well. And by the way, any problem you perceive with the development of the area stems from an urban renewal project that did exactly what you're suggesting back in the 30's - a poor neighborhood was seized by the city, its residents evicted, and their homes replaced by higher density development.
No, what happened to our cities in the 20th century and what's happening now are not dissimilar at all. Replace the actors and change some of the language, and it's fundamentally the same thing. Our neighborhoods are being gutted and altered for the benefit and profit of people with a lot of capital who don't live in them.
Love the "responding to demand" myth though, that's always a good one. No one responds to demand, they respond to profitability. There's very little demand to turn Kensington into a future condominium graveyard, but there's money to be made by developing the area and inducing that demand (an important concept I'm sure you learned in business school - whoever you're parroting certainly did at least). There's much more demand to not tear these neighborhoods apart block by block, but there's much less money to be made leaving places alone and maintaining them as they are.
When land in the suburbs was cheap and developing it became practical, all kinds of accommodations were made for developers to help attract people out to them. When that market saturated, they did the same thing to get people back into the city after the urban housing market had collapsed and it was profitable and expedient to do that.
And besides, weren't governments just responding to the demand for highways that increased car usage created? When the government does it, it's anti-urban action, but when a private developer stands to make money tearing up the fabric of our communities, it's just responding to demand right?
Dryheavemorning OP t1_j06ebg0 wrote
If you "love" the suburban style projects and trashnados of West Poplar I don't think we'll ever see eye to eye on urban planning . The inefficient use of space there will eventually be corrected like every other Center City adjacent neighborhood. There's already big apartment developments in Poplar and a ton of development along North Broad which will make West Poplar more attractive and valuable enough to densely develop. The projects there have and will hold it back some but they'll be built around like Queen Village or Nolibs and will eventually be demoed or converted. They won't be rebuilt as dense or moved, Section 8 vouchers are a much better solution than concentrating poverty in projects.
>Love the "responding to demand" myth though, that's always a good one. No one responds to demand, they respond to profitability. There's very little demand to turn Kensington into a future condominium graveyard
What's that you said about opinions about places you don't live? I'm in South Kensington and there is massive demand to live here near public transit, world class restaurants and a booming arts scene. And they're building densely for that demand because our neighborhood isn't full of suburban project NIMBYs concerned about keeping their neighborhood poor and shitty.
thecoffeecake1 t1_j0ad9w0 wrote
Lol poor and shitty, spoken like someone who has a firm understanding of the American inner city and plenty of respect for our communities and the people in them.
Fuck off.
Dryheavemorning OP t1_j0ba2h5 wrote
Lol, "inner city," is just another term for poor and shitty. No one calls Fairmount or Nolibs the inner city despite a similar geographic location.
thecoffeecake1 t1_j0cbtej wrote
No it's not, you're clearly a dumbass with very little academic or real world exposure to anything you're trying to lecture people about.
Dryheavemorning OP t1_j0cpggp wrote
What is your definition of "inner city" then if you're such an expert? Why is "inner city" culture something we want to sustain when it never refers to a prosperous and safe neighborhood? I focused on housing policy during law school, your expertise seems to be Darrell Clarke style NIMBYism.
thecoffeecake1 t1_j0cr3wf wrote
Resorting to waving your diploma around is a pretty pathetic move, but I have an urban studies degree tough guy.
Dryheavemorning OP t1_j0cs7k2 wrote
So you claimed I had no academic experience, I gave it to you, and I'm the one waving a diploma around? Fucking moronic. So you have no alternative definition of "inner city" or any reason why it's worth preserving? Super strong case for keeping a neighborhood of suburban style projects immediately adjacent to Center City.
thecoffeecake1 t1_j0cvy9n wrote
Ok, let's go back to that.
First of all, I agreed with you that what they did with Richard Allen wasn't ideal. But do you know what was there before, or what the area was like before they redeveloped it? The outcome wasn't great, but I understand why they tried it out - and it's certainly s lot better than it was in the 80's and 90's.
It's also not the worst thing that could be there. It's not the end of the world that there are twins with backyards. But it's not my community. I don't live in Richard Allen, and whatever they do or don't do with it should be up to the families that have been there for, in some cases, generations. Your suggestion of evicting an entire community's worth of people so they can build condos and flood the area with people from everywhere else is a terrible one, that benefits only a handful of people - none of whom currently live here or have a vested interest in the neighborhood.
I also don't disagree that public housing projects are a bad solution to a major problem - but evicting Richard Allen and throwing thousands of people's lives into chaos isn't the solution, and it won't help create a better one. It just moves the problem somewhere else.
You're a lawyer, go ahead and reform public housing, figure out how to integrate better section 8 policies, push for PHA to buy and maintain individual housing units & scattered sites instead of constructing projects, and then we can have a conversation about what replaces Richard Allen, and the Spring Garden Apartments, Harrison, etc.
But any redevelopment that happens in this neighborhood, I won't be supporting anything that's higher density than what exists now. The character of the neighborhood has always been lower density row housing. If I wanted to be surrounded by tacky, high density condo buildings, I wouldn't live here. That's not what this neighborhood is, and no one here wants to see it torn apart.
If there's more demand than there is housing, too fucking bad. Find a different neighborhood to live in. There are plenty.
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