<p>Penn</a> Connects : — Home</p>
<p>I doubt they will have a "bridge" to the community on, say, Lancaster and 49th. This all looks very nice and even more isolating.
I sure hope they don't get rid of the food trucks. Aesthetically unpleasing, but for those who want a decent lunch for $3-4, a must.</p>
<p>And here I thought most of these projects weren't going to be completed for another decade or two. This is an extremely exciting project for Penn and if I get in it's nice to know that I'll witness a good part of it.</p>
<p>wow thats amazing and really interesting - esp since i want to major in architecture :)</p>
<p>How would building a footbridge to Center City be "isolating". Who said anything about getting rid of food trucks? I hate the attitude that nothing at all can be done unless somehow the lowest common denominator benefits equally. If Penn were expanding in the direction of 49th & Lancaster, people (probably you) would be screaming blood murder about how this was a racist displacement of the community, blah, blah blah. The Postal Lands project was brilliant because it turned Penn in the other direction and didn't displace a single slum dweller, so the racial blackmailers will have no leverage to hold Penn for ransom.</p>
<p>"Racial blackmailers".....come on dude. That was waaayyy over the line. And petty.</p>
<p>Any community has the right to work towards balancing the interests of EVERYONE in the community. That holds for big developers (in this case Penn) as well as small shopkeepers and local residents. Funny how no one every gets "holier than thou" over the opposition to Harvard's expansion into Alston - could it be because those people are white while the residents of Manhattanville (Columbia's expansion) and West Philly are not? </p>
<p>Percy, you can do better than that.</p>
<p>"Any community has the right to work towards balancing the interests of EVERYONE in the community."</p>
<p>This is nonsense - you've been brainwashed by "community organizers" -professional agitators who make a living by blackmailing developers and non-profits. City blocks are not living entities, they are just collections of concrete and bricks and they belong to whomever owns them. They have no rights of their own and third parties ("communities") should have no say in how their owner uses them. Historically, people in slum communities are transient - they move out as soon as they can afford better - the former Jewish and Italian residents of W. Phila and their descendants all live in the suburbs now (or in Florida). Keeping them stuck in ancient slum housing doesn't do anyone any favors -except again the professional politicians and agitators who benefit from having a certain group concentrated under their control and patronage like serfs. Historically, city blocks went thru changes in their highest and best use as economic conditions changed - farmland gave way to city, residential uses to commercial or vice versa. Only in our modern age have people appeared to throw sand in the gears of our economy - it's no coincidence that Philadelphia has been shrinking in population while Houston (which has no zoning laws or other land use controls) has passed it. We're seeing this now with the casinos - even though they will bring thousands of sorely needed jobs, a bunch of yahoos are trying their best to disrupt the public interest.</p>
<p>You've written an interesting jumble of thoughts. It's hard to address a mess, but I'll try:</p>
<p>1) "it's no coincidence that Philadelphia has been shrinking in population" -- that has nothing to do with real estate zoning. Rather desperate of you to make that claim. Phila's econ issues are America's issues + the Philly elite's refusal to lead the economy to less vulnerable areas (IT, finance, biotech, etc). We had and still have lots of manufacturing, etc. Not a good LT plan. And a lot of Houston's growth is immigrants from Mexico (another place w/o a LT plan)</p>
<p>2) When communities don't manage growth you have the infrastructure they end up looking like Lagos, Mumbai or London - endless sprawl with inadequate infrastructure</p>
<p>3) And what Americans (incl these racial blackmailers and interestingly enough the US Supreme Court) guard against most is the use of eminent domain as a land grab by big monied orgs/developers to bulldoze their ambitions through a city. Fortunately, the SC severely limited that odious tool. Which brings things back to a more even negotiating level.</p>
<p>And since you're so concerned, find me one instance where a "blackmailed situation" resulted in a worse outcome for the "developer". Just one......</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Manufacturing in Phila is almost dead at this point. Biggest industry is the service industry, esp. health care and universities. If you think W. Phila looks bad now, imagine what it would look like w.o. all the jobs that Penn provides.</p></li>
<li><p>You could do worse than to look like London.</p></li>
<li><p>Agree w/ you that eminent domain can be abused when used for "slum clearance" - a lot of places that have been condemned looked nothing like slums and the govt. should not have interfered in the private RE market.</p></li>
<li><p>Hard to prove a negative - how many projects have been abandoned b/c of "community opposition". The famous Morningside Park gym at Columbia U. comes to mind.</p></li>
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<ol>
<li><p>Agreed on the value of health care and education. The city itself just needs more. And the kind that actually exist in the city - large cap pharma needs space which cities can't offer. The trick is to bolster health care into more biotech, consulting, etc. And other services a la other "hi tech/value add services cities" like SF and Boston.</p></li>
<li><p>London is a complete mess from an infrastructure perspective. Too much willy nilly planning and archaic rules. And plenty of underinvestment.</p></li>
<li><p>I'd agree with you although there are shades of Baron Haussmann in your writing. At least his interests were the long term health of the entire city not just one project or developer</p></li>
<li><p>CU shouldn't be your reference point. They still haven't learned any of the lessons from the town/gown issues of Yale, Chicago, Harvard, SMU, etc. Penn - to it's credit - seems to have found a nice groove in this regard and received national recognition for it.</p></li>
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<p>
[quote]
it's no coincidence that Philadelphia has been shrinking in population" -- that has nothing to do with real estate zoning. Rather desperate of you to make that claim. Phila's econ issues are America's issues + the Philly elite's refusal to lead the economy to less vulnerable areas (IT, finance, biotech, etc). We had and still have lots of manufacturing, etc.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>This is either empirically wrong (as I see lots of finance houses, biotech firms, universities, etc and not many belching smokestacks)</p>
<p>Or in the case that appearances can be deceiving and we do indeed still have manufacturing, then I too would blame the Philly elite--except those are the sorts of people who specialize in race-baiting.</p>
<p>To wit:</p>
<p>"The brothers and sisters are running the city. Oh, yes. The brothers and sisters are running this city. Running it! Don’t you let nobody fool you, we are in charge of the City of Brotherly Love. We are in charge! We are in charge!"
- Mayor of Philadelphia</p>
<p>there's tons of belching smokestacks in south philly... as clearly visible from any highrise window facing south.</p>
<p>but that sort of belchy smoky manufacturing as a whole is probably on the decline as the delaware valley becomes even better known as "bio valley".</p>
<p>i would argue that philadelphia's population decline is primarily due to the continuing net flight of the middle class to the suburbs, where education is of generally higher quality, and the lack of major inner-city revitalization and new / changing tourist attractions.</p>
<p>I'm a Philly native and big booster of the city. But don't kid yourselves - Philly grows less important as a center of finance in the country by the day. Biotech - there's still a lot of flux in the sector, but</p>
<p>there's tons of belching smokestacks in south philly... as clearly visible from any highrise window facing south.</p>
<p>You're looking at the oil refinery that's down by the airport. That's 1 refinery that's been there forever (I think there used to be 2 and one closed). Oil refinery is not exactly manufacturing. It's highly automated and not a huge source of jobs in relation to the amount of space it takes up. It's expensive to transport petro. products so it makes sense to keep oil refinery close to customers vs. moving refinery to China along w. all the other industry. Phila used to have a lot of textile and garment stuff - light manufacturing, cigar factories, etc. Never as much into heavy industry as Detroit or Pittsburgh, though we did have Baldwin Locomotive, ship building. Was very diversified back in the day, not dependent on any one industry.</p>
<p>
[quote]
I'm a Philly native and big booster of the city. But don't kid yourselves - Philly grows less important as a center of finance in the country by the day
[/quote]
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<p>A city does not need to be a "center" of any industry to offer plenty of jobs in it. Philadelphia is not a "center of education" but that doesn't stop it from employing tens of thousands of people. Philadelphia is not a "center of tech" but that doesn't mean there aren't lots of cool startups in Manayunk. Philadelphia is not a "center of tax processing" and still has a zillion people working in H&R Block branches.....etc</p>
<p>
Actually, it is. The Philadelphia region is among the top 2 or 3 in the country for number of students and institutions in higher education; there are 5 medical schools within the city limits of Philadelphia; there are 5 law schools in the Philadelphia metropolitan area; etc.; etc.</p>
<p> [quote=ilovebagels] Philadelphia is not a "center of tech"
Actually, it is. The Philadelphia region is the epicenter of the pharmaceutical industry in the US, which makes it a major center of biotech and pharmaceutical research and development.</p>
<p>
Actually, it is. Philadelphia has one of the largest IRS regional processing centers in the country, with 5,000 employees.</p>
<p>But other than that, you basically got it right. :)</p>
<p>It's true that bagels got the details wrong, but his basic point, that Phila. does not have to be the "center" of any given industry in order to have a jobs base, is true. We can be #2 or 4 or 5 in the country and still do very nicely (just as Penn itself has) Even back in the glory days, I'm not sure Phila was the "center" of any one industry the way Pittsburgh was the "center" of steel - as I said before, it always had a highly diversified economy, which is one reason why it did not almost totally shrivel away like some single industry towns such as Bethlehem, PA did when their key industry died.</p>
<p>But if you view "manufacturing" of all kinds as a single industry (and one that provided lots of jobs for the unskilled and poorly educated), that industry is almost gone (even if you can see the refinery from the high rises) and this (along with the fact that the Phila school system has failed to turn out workers capable of working in the modern knowledge based economy) is what has led most of all to the dismal conditions and crime we see in W. Phila. Back in the day, even if you could barely read or write you could get a job in the shipyard or run a sewing machine in a garment shop, but now, yes there are a # of dead end jobs mopping the floors at HUP or molesting undergrads as a security guard, but not nearly enough.</p>