Filed under: Appropriation, Are You Kidding?, Displacement, Future Plans, Gentrification, University City Creep, University City District | Tags: creep, Gentrification, university city, war, west philly
Alert! Vandals have repeatedly struck the 4500-5000 blocks of Baltimore Ave in West Philly! Every lamp post on both sides of the street has been tagged UNIVERSITY CITY DISTRICT. Why oh why would merciless thieves and liars called University City District do such a thing??
“The intent is to increase illumination, reduce the perception and reality of crime and encourage private investment.”
Oh, that. But wait, there’s more!
“Lewis Wendell, University City District’s Executive Director noted, “This project demonstrates the results of a new level of collaboration between the major institutions in University City, Penn Dot, the City of Philadelphia Streets Department and PECO.”
We here at the UCD blog love collaboration, especially between private corporations and the government. But seriously folks, the vandalizing soul-sucking demons of the “left of center” University City District should really be reprimanded for their behavior. Replacing perfectly good, working streetlights with boutique, fake vintage gaslight-looking streetlamps for a million bucks so they can hang their crummy gentrification advertising banners… well what can we say, this shit is wack.
Peep the original press release via http://www.ucityphila.org/news/release/402
Filed under: Displacement, Gentrification, Real Estate, University City District | Tags: eviction, Gentrification, university city, upenn, west philly
From something called The Jewish Exponent. Exponent? You people have to get a little better at naming your newsletter…
“David J. Adelman is the president and CEO of Campus Apartments, a company, which provides housing for undergraduates, graduate students, faculty and support staff at various colleges and universities throughout the United States.
Under Adelman’s leadership, the company has broadened its focus to include mixed-used projects on campus that incorporate both retail and office space together.
The company has increased its revenues by 300 percent over the last five years.
Adelman’s commitment to his clients extends to initiating and funding other types of projects that enhance the quality of student life on American campuses.
One of them is the University City District, a partnership between the University of Pennsylvania and other institutions to improve the safety and cleanliness in communities around Penn’s grounds and immediate area.
Moreover, Campus Apartments is the largest private-sector supporter of the district, contributing more than $500,000 over the past decade.”
That’s really charming. Campus Apartments in Philadelphia is making so much money, they can throw a half-million dollars at a gentrification committee in 10 years. That’s basically like having an employee for ten years who is paid $50,000 a year. Ah, lobbying. I’m sure Adelman’s “commitment to his clients” lies more in their exploitative monetary relationship, rather than “student life.” It’s scum like Adelman who have created the notion in yuppie pea-brains that $1,000 per month for a “studio/1BR” is a good deal in West Philly.
Filed under: Displacement, Gentrification, Poverty, Race, Real Estate, University City Creep | Tags: creep, Gentrification, home prices, university city, upenn, west philly
Every once in a while something really funny comes across our news desk. Apparently one real estate agent for RE/MAX thinks that home buyers elbowing to get their kids into the UPenn run Alexander school are making a mistake. These special brand of West Philly gentrifiers are looking to get into the Penn Alexander Catchement Area, a strangely mapped zone that qualifies your special kid to get into that special school.
Except the wise folks at REMAX give their top reasons to AVOID the special real estate zone, besides saving money…
“You don’t like the smell of Dirty Diapers on Wednesday mornings. True, the Catchment Area has exploded with the arrival of little stinkers like the one below. If you don’t like the smell of streaky green diapers on garbage day, move a few blocks away…”
Wow. Could that pesky diaper smell actually serve to dissuade people from this elitist neighborhood? We can only hope. However, the Philly Weekly article that inspired our real estate blogger actually had to quote someone using a FAKE NAME because of how much they’re ripping off people.
“We bought our first home, which is in the catchment, eight years ago for $100,000,” says Frank, a property owner/manager who now lives outside the city and doesn’t want his real name used in this article. “When the school opened, we watched our house go up to $150,000, then $200,000. Now it’s worth $400,000. With home prices rising, our rental price is higher. I’m aware that there aren’t many people in the city who could afford to rent our house.“
Local parent Pat Warner says “People have more money,” says Warner. “It’s not a bad thing, necessarily, but it’s different. And it certainly seems less diverse.”
Gee, you think? Gentrifying the neighborhood isn’t bad, it’s just different. Whiter. Richer. Stinkier. Chew on that.
Filed under: Displacement, Gentrification, University City Creep, West Philly Cultural References | Tags: creep, expansion, Gentrification, university city, west philly
via Zine Library. Sounds familiar if you live in West Philly, right? Distribute freely.
Filed under: Are You Kidding?, Introducing, University City District | Tags: marketing, ucd, university city
Just saw an ad for a new marketing scheme courtesy of University City District: University Square .BIZ! Nothing says fine establishment like a .BIZ address. I’d say it’s a good place to go to meet squares.
But their website says…
“Eclectic. Hip. Urban. University Square includes galleries, cultural and recreational venues, and public spaces, as well as funky shops, nationally known stores, bistros, fine dining establishments, and outdoor cafes.”
It’s none of my .BIZness but come on people, hip? urban? Nothing screams YUPPIES like University City.
And it’s time for our daily disclaimer: If you’re looking for info about University City, or restaurants in University City, or perhaps even the Top 10 reasons to go to UPenn, then you’re at the right place. We’ve got all that University City info and more.
Filed under: Licenses & Inspection (L&I), Real Estate, University City District, Zoning | Tags: expansion, university city
Why does this man get it more than you do? BJ Widick, author of Detroit: City of Race and Class Violence, is one of the few people who fall into the category of “old white men” who get it. Before his untimely death last year at the age of 97, Widick was well known as a Columbia prof and unionist, and a good Serbian/Midwestern rabblerousing hybrid that exemplifies what makes this country great. (Or as they say in the vaporous toxic cloud of University City marketing, what makes this place so very diverse and special. Desirable diversity, the hot new fetish!)
Below is an excerpt from Detroit that was actually transcribed from a Gary Nunn radio broadcast from 1957. Behold.
“The Real Estate Board pursues–and enforces–a policy which will in time spread the ghetto, block by block, until it becomes the entire heart of the city. You can watch it happening almost day by day. As a Negro family moves a block away from the ghetto’s former boundary, real estate agents go to work on the fears of the white residents in that block. The prospect of a double sale is created; a new home to the panicked white seller, and an old one to another Negro. Block by block it works…There are no apparent legal weapons against a group of men [the Detroit Real Estate Board] who practice the most vulgar racism in their internal membership policy–whose external policy results in what we could only describe (should it happen in any other country) as a form of Fascist race segregation and economic discrimination based on race.”
Gee, radio sure was different back then. It should be noted that is not just realtors who are factors in the displacement of people of color–the State functions as an apparatus of the rich to declare buildings out of code, unsafe for habitation (thanks L&I!) and thus ripe to be picked up on the cheap by whites with cash-in-pocket. If you don’t know already, most people cannot get a loan/mortgage from a bank unless a house is in “habitable” condition, e.g. conforms to code, has working furnace and water heater, needs no major repairs. Why? Because if you default on your payments or they jack the rates, and they then repo your house, they want to be able to sell it easily for more cash money. See the cycle? In order to buy foreclosures or condemned/gutted properties, the buyer must have 100% cash, which leaves the option of a buyback out of the question.
At this point I’d like to introduce some of the great new tools of the trade that scum sucking devil worshipping money grubbing, ahem, West Philly real estate professionals, use to research which properties to buy and essentially steal based on the support of wonderful public-private partnerships like the University City District.
Number one on the list is Trulia, very popular as a way to search forclosed homes and fancy gentrified flipped homes. They won’t be honored with a link, but you can probably figure it out. See how much your neighbors are trying to flip their “gorgeous renovation” for.
Number two is Property Shark. This requires an account but it is bona-fide free. This gets you into the property history of any address, complete with zoning info, last sale price, mortgage status, and neighborhood demographics. See how little your landlord paid for the building in which you rent an apartment, or how much those yuppies on the corner paid. See how one building is against zoning code, or how every building on your block is owned by some absentee landlord from Florida.
These tools can be used for subversion or for ill. More on all this in another edition of University City.
Filed under: Introducing | Tags: branding, creep, Gentrification, marketing, sketchy, ucd, university city, upenn, west philly, yellowjackets
This is an investigation of the powers that be in West Philadelphia, PA. West Philly. West Illadelphia. West Philthy. Home of The Roots, KRS-One, Will Smith and Dick Clark. Wait, what? Yes, apparently American Bandstand, the teen whitey show that launched Dick Clark’s career, was filmed in West Philly. Who knew? But the secrets of the land west of the Schuylkill (translation: rushing and roaring waters) go much deeper, and that’s what we’re here for. We are the maniacs digging up the dirt in plain sight. After all, if you were an evil megalomaniacal corporation masquerading as an academic institution, you’d probably want to brag about what you were doing, right? The landed gentry (read: yuppies, liberals, etc) have been encouraged, poked, proddled, and deeply subsidized in order to ensure a University City bubble (aka rich white safety zone) around the family jewels. Now, granted, Philadelphia is sorely lacking in social services, so it makes sense that the corporatocracy (read: University City District) would step in and provide services, like street cleaning, buffing graffiti, de-flyering, 24/7 security forces (read: yellow jacketed Allied Barton employees, 95% of whom are black and paid less than $15/hr), and real estate support services, namely marketing campaigns. More on all of this later, of course, but by now you should be tasting something sickly sweet, or notoriously bitter in your mouth…probably depending on your upbringing and requisite class-consciousness. As the University City District creeps onwards, as theives in the night, venturing further and further westward until Lansdowne is a stone’s throw away, we too must creep into the minds of every single person contemplating buying that gorgeous old house in that sketchy neighborhood that’ll probably turn around in a few years…go forth, multiply, and sow the seeds of dissent and disgust.
end university city
Filed under: Appropriation, Displacement, Gentrification, Race, Real Estate, The Master Plan, UPenn Mortgage | Tags: eviction, expansion, Gentrification, home prices, ucd, university city, upenn, war, west philly
Using the power of the internet, anyone can find this snazzy article about how UPenn is a Zombie Flesh Eating Monster. According to the Philadelphia Business Weekly, the UPenn-subsidized mortgage program was already a smashing success way back in 1998.
“It’s just been overwhelming,” said D-L Wormley, Penn’s managing director of community housing. “It literally is people from every part of the university – professors, the housekeeping department, a vice president, the physical plant. And that’s the thing I’m most thrilled about.”
And what’s good for Penn is good for West Philadelphia’s residents, the banking community there, local construction contractors and neighborhood real estate values.
Part of the new program includes cash for faculty and staff already living in the area bounded by Market Street, 49th Street, Woodland Avenue, University Avenue and the Schuylkill River: Penn is offering up to $7,500 in matching funds toward exterior home improvements.”
Of course by 2004 this program was considered a battle plan against local residents (read: black people.)
“The change in the program is two-fold. First, the geographic boundaries originally set by the program are being extended. The new borders reach out westward to 52nd Street, northward to Haverford Avenue, and eastward and southward to the Schuylkill River. The old boundaries extended only to 49th Street, Market Street and Woodland Avenue in the west, north and south, respectively.
The second alteration of the program consists of a reduction in the maximum size of the loans available to those participating in the program from $15,000 to $7,500.
The forgivable cash loan “can be used for a down payment, to buy down points, or for interior or exterior home improvements,” according to the program’s policy. The loans are forgiven after seven years on the condition that the purchaser remains in residence during that time.”"
Wait, you mean if I own a house for 7 measley years and work for UPenn during that time, I get fifteen thousand dollars for free? That’s right. Doesn’t that mean that there’s some unfair advantage available to UPenn staff?
And of course, there is:
“Penn officials note, however, that it is not their intention to force people from the neighborhood. But, the program gives the Penn-affiliated buyer a clear advantage in the real estate market.
“If two buyers are competing for the same house … the Penn buyer is already $7,500 ahead,” O’Donnell said. “If there is a bidding war, the Penn buyer is going to win.”"
Aye aye, sir! Fire away! Move the negroes out of here! Move in the zombies with cash bonuses that they don’t have to repay!
end the upenn zombie monster parade
