Quote:
Originally Posted by allovertown
Man you are truly lost in this. Please reread my posts, I'd be really interested to see what part of what I wrote gave you even the remote impression that I thought poor people should be stuck anywhere or that they don't deserve anything; much less any Make Philly Great Again vibes.
My exceedingly simple point seems to be repeatedly lost. The best PHA developments are not identifiable as PHA developments. I'm not sure why anyone would disagree with this point. It's accepted at this point that totally segregating poor people in projects is bad policy. What is wrong with wanting PHA developments that just seamlessly fit into the neighborhood they're built in? That someone new moving into the area would have no idea which of their neighbors lived in subsidized housing and which didn't?
When I said they should fit in with the surrounding housing stock I was never talking about aesthetics, I was always talking about density and use. Building housing that is radically out of place with the context of the neighborhood helps no one.
In one of my posts I pointed out that the PHA development south of Queen Village, with all the out of place green space and parking it has sticks out like a sore thumb. It is readily apparent to all that pass by that it is a housing project and so people avoid it. There are fewer businesses and amenities in that immediate area and the value of the houses immediately adjacent to it are depreciated by the developments' presence. People are afraid of projects and the people who live in them. But as I pointed out, the PHA properties are kept up great and the residents perfectly normal. Another poster pointed out that crime is no higher in the development than in the upper middle class neighborhood that it borders.
There is no real problem with the development besides perception but perception can have a real affect on actual people and their quality of life. If they had built something that looked like it fit in that neighborhood instead of a suburban style apartment complex then these issues of perception would not exist.
Plus, if people really want green space and parking spots, there is no shortage of cheap land in more far flung parts of the city where PHA could build complexes like this that would be right at home with their surroundings. But do you think there will be many opportunities for PHA housing in the core of Philadelphia within good elementary school cachements like this Queen Village development? In what world is it better that 300 families get to live in this totally out of place suburban development instead of 600 or more families living in the type of rowhomes that surround this development in all directions?
I don't believe it is callous to say that people who qualify for subsidized housing should weigh the same things that anyone else weighs when they decide where to live. Do you want to be close to everything in a smaller place with no parking or are you willing to move further from the core to get the green space and off street parking that is important to you?
Nor do I see the issue in wanting the PHA to be economical in the planning of their developments. Wasting incredibly expensive land with out of place green space and an overabundance of parking when poverty and homelessness is such a pervasive problem in Philadelphia is borderline unethical.
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Do you have any familiarity with the area being discussed? Your comments suggest you don't. Check out Google maps. This site is bounded by structures/uses that are far from ordinary for North Philadelphia including a huge block long parking garage for temple and TU's heating/cooling plant. I guarantee you the average person would have no clue that the new project is PHA sponsored if they aren't told. I'm still trying to understand WHAT about the renders clearly suggests this is a 21st century ghetto. It could EASILY be a markerate development based on design aesthetic and it's most certainly not out of scale with the rest of the area. Perhaps you believe this is a newer version of the single family development further south in North Philly- it's not. North central phila has numerous apt buildings, nursing homes and subsidized residential complexes surrounded by grass and/or parking lots north of Fairmount Ave. BEtween that and all the vacant lots and city owned recreational sites the entire area from Broad to roughly 7th street, Fairmount Ave to TU is actually not very dense at all. Queen village this is not.