University City – The Rotting Gentry

Let’s start with the basics, shall we?

The University City District is defined as a 2.2 square mile zone west of the Schuylkill. The “boundaries are, on the east, 29th Street and the Schuylkill River; on the west, 50th Street; on the north, Spring Garden Street (to 40th Street), Powelton Avenue (to 44th Street), and Market Street; and on the south, Civic Center Boulevard, University Avenue and Woodland Avenue.” [ref] The UCD also happens to be a “non-profit” corporation which shares a building with the Philadelphia Police, one block east of the UPenn Police station (FYI: UPenn cops are authorized by the State to make arrests up to 43rd St.) How ironic that the occupiers of historically poor/working-class, non-white lands would run marketing campaigns that redefine West Philly as the “left bank” and “left of center.” White liberalism knows no bounds, but can take pointers from Zionism in its mobilization and appropriation of the suddenly oppressed “victim” of crime. See, for those of you that don’t know, Gentrification goes a little something like this… young white artists and post-30-year-olds start to move into super-”cheap” neighborhoods that are predominantly POC (read: people of color) and/or industrial/post-industrial fallout zones. The script runs like this:

Whitey #1: “Wow did you know you can get a crazy huge warehouse at 34th and Spring Garden for like only 100 grand right now?”

Whitey #2: “Holy crap that’s really cheap! If I keep my center city job I can pay down that mortgage in 10 years. That’s a steal!”

Whitey #3: “Yeah let’s totally make it into a community space community garden show house artist residence!”

Whitey #1: “That would rock!!”

6 months pass…

Whitey #1: “So my Dad says we have to rent at least half of the space at market rate in order for him to continue paying the mortgage for us. But like we would totally be cool landlords and do affirmative action and stuff…”

All of a sudden, you’ve driven up property values 200%, raised median rent 100% in 6 months, and become bona-fide landlords. Oh yeah, but you totally still listen to indie bands and are down with the cause. Right. (Take note Fishtown and Kensington.) But as we like to say, “that’s America,” or “that’s life, right?” No, hell no! Ya’ll should get acquainted with Seth Tobocman’s amazing book You Don’t Have to Fuck People Over to Survive. Because you don’t.

But let’s get back to the basics about University City… today from the horse’s mouth we get:

“With its funky vibe and unique spirit, University City is one of Philadelphia’s most vibrant and diverse neighborhoods. Located on the west side of downtown Philadelphia, the area is a hotbed of education, science, medicine and research. This dynamic, close-knit community is home to college students, artists, and families who coexist amid world-class universities, dining, nightlife and cultural offerings.”

Wow I didn’t know it was that exciting! We all co-exist! We all get along! Obama, Obama, Obama! I guess America isn’t racist after all!

Let’s lay off the crack, shall we? What bigwigs actually contribute to the UCD, and make West Philly what it is today?

$1,000,000 and up
University of Pennsylvania (ed note: and by “up” you must mean…”)

$500,000-999,999
Drexel University
University of Pennsylvania Health Systems
The William Penn Foundation

$100,000-250,000
City of Philadelphia/Department of Commerce
INTECH Construction (ed note: strangely, the very same company that just built The Radian highrise directly adjacent to the UCD office building)
Pro-Med
The Science Center
University City Associates
University of the Sciences in Philadelphia

$50,000-$99,000
Campus Apartments
Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia
And that’s just the “major” donors… [ref] Well, gee, I guess I just didn’t realize how much money the UCD had to play around with. But then I did see those signs on I-95 for “University City” going north and south, and all those bridges painted with “welcome to University City” must have cost something…

Then again, our primer continues with the Housing Act of 1949, which instead of building better homes for people, ended up subsidizing a net loss in dwellings, and paid UPenn to raze houses in West Philly.

And this is the part where we lay the smackdown…

“Many residents of University City were still prepared to fight the destruction of their homes, however, and for the first time, student groups at Penn really seemed to take an interest in the situation just north of the University campus. Lawrence Beck and Stephen Kerstetter, two graduate students at the University, spent parts of their fall semester in 1966 visiting the “slums” of Unit 3 and interviewing residents. They published their findings in a five-part series entitled “The Quiet War in West Philadelphia” that ran in the Daily Pennsylvanian, the University’s student newspaper, from 23 January to 27 January 1967. “The Quiet War,” which was sympathetic to the displaced residents, stood out not only because the Daily Pennsylvanian rarely featured a series but also because its five articles were among the first in that paper to discuss the redevelopment proceedings in Unit 3. Felton Newman, one of the area residents whom Beck and Kerstetter interviewed, claimed that “the West Philadelphia Corporation is a front for the University of Pennsylvania” and that Penn was “fostering segregation by moving all Negroes out of the area.” The graduate students also found that other residents seconded the idea that “urban renewal means Negro removal.”" [ref]

This is why going to Penn must be a mindfuck–you have to write your papers to reference “University City” as a real tangible place, as you explore the vast racist destruction machine therein. And on the same page we find, “Conforming to the regulations established by the Housing Act of 1949 and its successors, this $12 million grant covered two-thirds of the RDA’s estimated $18 million net cost of preparing Unit 3 for redevelopment.” Oh gee, I’m glad that the Feds covered 2/3 of the multi-million dollar cost to destroy homes and replace them with UPenn science buildings.

the fight goes on and the saga will be continued