Philadelphias Changing Neighborhoods

A report from May 2016
Philadelphia’s
Changing
Neighborhoods
Gentrification and other shifts since 2000
Contents
1 Overview
3 Gentrification in Philadelphia
Defining gentrification 3
Gentrified neighborhoods 5
9 Types of neighborhoods that gentrified in Philadelphia

Predominantly working-class African-American neighborhoods 9
Old industrial areas 17
Mixed-income, mostly white neighborhoods 22
Center City and adjacent areas 28
33 Other types of neighborhood change

University areas that are no longer majority African-American 33
Neighborhoods with other demographic shifts and real estate market change 37
Public housing redevelopment areas 38
Areas that are losing ground economically 38
40 Shaping neighborhood change through public policy

Programs already in place 41
Property tax abatement 41
Property tax reform and relief programs 41
Housing counseling 42
Basic systems repair 42
Subsidized units in gentrified neighborhoods 42
Empowering residents, old and new 42
Strategies in development or under discussion 43
44 Conclusion
45 Endnotes
About this report
This report was researched and written by Emily Dowdall, an officer with The Pew Charitable Trusts’ Philadelphia
research initiative. Additional research and analysis was provided by the Policy Solutions team at Reinvestment
Fund, a national community development financial institution based in Philadelphia. Assistance by Pew
colleagues included an extensive methodology review by Alan van der Hilst and analytic support by Michelle
Schmitt. The report was edited by Larry Eichel, director of the Philadelphia research initiative, along with
Elizabeth Lowe, Daniel LeDuc, and Bernard Ohanian. Kodi Seaton was the designer, and Bradley Maule and Katye
Martens provided photographs.
Acknowledgments
In producing this report, the author interviewed numerous public officials, community development experts,
and city residents who provided important insights into neighborhood change in Philadelphia. Ingrid Gould
Ellen, professor of urban policy at New York University; Alan Mallach, senior fellow at the Center for Community
Progress; and Ken Steif, founder of Urban Spatial Analysis, a data and policy consulting firm, assisted in the
development of methodology for defining gentrification. The study also benefited from the expertise of several
external reviewers: Ariel Bierbaum, Ph.D. candidate, University of California, Berkeley; Marcus Anthony Hunter,
assistant professor of sociology, UCLA; and John Kromer, consultant and former director of housing for the
city of Philadelphia. Neither the reviewers nor their organizations necessarily endorse the report’s findings or
conclusions.
About the Philadelphia research initiative

Pew’s Philadelphia research initiative provides timely, impartial research and analysis on key issues facing
Philadelphia for the benefit of the city’s residents and leaders.
Contact: Elizabeth Lowe, officer, communications

Email: elowe@pewtrusts.org
Phone: 215-575-4812
Project website: www.pewtrusts.org/philaresearch
The Pew Charitable Trusts is driven by the power of knowledge to solve today’s most challenging problems. Pew applies a rigorous, analytical
approach to improve public policy, inform the public, and invigorate civic life.
Overview
In recent years, a number of Philadelphia neighborhoods have undergone significant transformation, with
higher-income residents moving in, real estate prices rising, new businesses replacing old ones, and racial and
ethnic compositions changing. Such shifts, often seen as part of a trend known as gentrification, have received
a great deal of attention from government officials, residents, and community leaders. For that reason, The Pew
Charitable Trusts set out to determine the incidence of gentrification in Philadelphia and place it in the context
of other forms of neighborhood change.
This report uses a definition of gentrification that identifies sections of the city that shifted from a
predominantly low-income population to a significantly higher-income one. Our standard has three elements:
In order to be considered gentrified, a census tract needed a median household income in 2000 below 80
percent of regional median income, $53,992, the threshold set by the federal government to determine
eligibility for housing assistance and other programs aimed at low-income households; the tract’s median
income had to have increased at least 10 percent in inflation-adjusted dollars from 2000 to 2014, a period
in which the median income of the city as a whole actually fell by about 10 percent; and its 2014 median
household income figure had to exceed the citywide median of $37,460.
Using this definition, we found that only 15 of Philadelphia’s 372 residential census tracts gentrified from 2000
to 2014, the last year for which data were available. These tracts were mostly in South Philadelphia and in, or
just north of, Center City. More than 10 times that many census tracts—164 in all—experienced statistically
significant drops in median household income during the period studied, a time span in which the estimated
number of Philadelphians living in poverty grew by more than 60,000. Beyond the 15 tracts that gentrified,
1
several other parts of the city underwent changes sometimes associated with gentrification—such as rising real
estate prices, increases in education levels, and changing racial and ethnic composition—but without increases in
income, and thus did not meet our definition.
The areas where gentrification did occur, according to this report’s income-based definition, fall into four
distinct categories, based largely on what the neighborhoods were like in 2000. One set was characterized
primarily by working-class, African-American populations, another by mixed-income, mostly white ones. A third
group consisted of old industrial areas with relatively few residents. The final category comprised nonaffluent
sections of Center City and adjacent neighborhoods. The pace and scope of change were different in each of the
neighborhood categories.
Other important findings about gentrification include the following:
• The neighborhoods that ultimately gentrified were not among Philadelphia’s lowest-income areas in 2000.
None of the 15 was in the bottom quarter of the city’s census tracts that year when ranked by income.
• Twelve of the 15 gentrified neighborhoods had higher percentages of white residents in 2000 than the city
as a whole, and all 15 had larger proportions of whites in 2014. There were modest increases in the share of
Hispanic and Asian residents as well.
• The three predominantly working-class African-American tracts that gentrified, all of which are located in the
neighborhood known as Graduate Hospital, experienced the most dramatic changes in racial composition.
Their total black population fell from 7,793 in 2000 to 3,450 in 2014. During the same period, the number of
white residents more than tripled in the neighborhood.
• Home prices rose the most (more than 1,000 percent in one tract) in gentrified areas where there had
been relatively high numbers of investor-owned and vacant properties in 2000 and where many of the
neighborhoods’ housing units have been built in the years since: the old industrial and working-class African-
American tracts. Median home prices in the mixed-income white neighborhoods—which had few investor-
owned and vacant properties—all remained below $300,000 in 2013-14.
As the data indicate, gentrification is a relatively small part of the recent story of Philadelphia’s neighborhoods.
But the phenomenon, and indeed the very word, can stir intense feelings. Some residents view it as bringing
vibrancy to the affected neighborhoods and much-needed tax revenue to the city. Others worry that longtime
residents are being forced to leave and that those who stay no longer feel they belong. For those reasons, what
happens in the areas that have gentrified—or are in the process of doing so—can have an outsize impact in terms
of enhancing the city’s economic future and raising concerns about fairness and civic harmony.
2
Gentrification in Philadelphia
Defining gentrification
Neighborhoods are in a constant state of flux. According to census estimates, 65 percent of the people living
in Philadelphia in 2014 had moved at least once since 2000, indicating that many neighborhoods experienced
significant residential turnover during this time.1 Gentrification, however, involves new arrivals who differ from
longtime residents in notable ways. Although definitions of the term have varied since it was coined in the 1960s,
the underlying meaning is the shift in a neighborhood’s population from predominantly low income or working
class to predominantly middle or upper class.
Northern Liberties, 2003 and 2016.
Efforts to identify gentrification typically begin with housing costs or income levels. We chose to work with
income because the numbers, available from the U.S. Census Bureau, were more reliable than those for home sale
prices or rental rates over time. This report looks at how neighborhoods changed from 2000, a decennial census
year, through the 2014 five-year estimates from the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey, the most
recent source of tract-level data.2
Our definition has three elements. First, to be considered eligible for gentrification, a census tract had to have a
relatively low median household income in 2000.3 We set the threshold at $53,992, which was 80 percent of the
regional median of $67,490 in inflation-adjusted dollars; this is the standard that the federal government uses
to designate low income and determine eligibility for housing assistance and other funding programs.4 Second,
the median income for the tract had to have a statistically significant increase of at least 10 percent in inflation-
adjusted dollars from 2000 to 2014—a notable change, given the city’s overall income declines. Third, the tract’s
2014 household income figure had to exceed the citywide median of $37,460.5 Here, we used the city median
rather than the regional one6 because the large number of low-income households in the city has the effect of
lowering median incomes even in some tracts widely viewed as middle or mixed income; using a higher initial
threshold and a lower outcome threshold expanded the range of tracts that could qualify as gentrified.7
Because of the nature of the 2014 tract data, which is based on information gathered and averaged over a five-
year period, this analysis may not have captured some of the most recent neighborhood changes. Nor does it
identify areas that may be beginning to gentrify. In addition, this analysis does not capture areas where the shift
from moderate to high income played out over a period longer than 2000 to 2014.
3
Figure 1
Income Change in Philadelphia Census Tracts, 2000-14
City Hall
Gentrified
Income decreased
Income increased but tract did not gentrify
No significant income change
Non-residential tracts
Out of 372 residential tracts in the city, 15 gentrified from 2000 to 2014, according to our income-based
definition. Median household income declined in more than 10 times as many tracts, 164 in all. There
was no significant income change for 171 tracts.
Source: Pew analysis of Brown University Longitudinal Tract Database and U.S. Census, American Community Survey, 2010-14
five-year estimate
© 2016 The Pew Charitable Trusts
4
The descriptions of gentrification in Philadelphia in this report, though rooted in income, also include other
indicators often associated with neighborhood change. Among them are housing prices, educational attainment,
and racial and ethnic composition.
Gentrified neighborhoods
Using our income-based definition, we found that gentrification in Philadelphia was a limited phenomenon: Only
15 of the city’s 372 residential census tracts gentrified during the period studied. The 59,747 people living in these
tracts represented 4 percent of the city’s population in 2014. All of the tracts, with the exception of one in the
Roxborough section, were located near or in Center City.8 (See Figure 1.)
During the period studied, the population of the 15 tracts grew by 7,071, or about 13 percent, while the population
of the city as a whole grew by about 2 percent. Most of the population increase in the tracts was due to a rise
in the number of white residents while there was a net loss of blacks. (See Figure 2.) In 2000, 12 of the 15 tracts
had higher percentages of white residents than the city as a whole. In 2014, all of them had a higher percentage
of white residents than the city, and eight had more white residents in percentage terms than they had in 2000.
There were modest increases in the share of Hispanic and Asian residents across the gentrified tracts.
Figure 2
Changes in Philadelphia’s Gentrified Neighborhoods by Type,
2000-14
Working-class
Old Mixed-income Center City
African- Philadelphia
industrial white and adjacent
American
Change in median household income* $31,098 $32,803 $14,363 $15,824 -$6,199
Population growth 18% 57% 6% 10% 2%
Percentage point change in white

35 20 -8 7 -6
population
Percentage point change in

-46 -19 -1 -7 -1
African-American population
Percentage point change in residents

43 33 18 19 7
with bachelor’s degrees
Percentage of housing units built

16% 32% 2% 8% 4%
since 2000
Average affordability index value,

6.36 3.13 1.09 1.34 2.14
2013-14**
* 2000 figures adjusted to 2014 dollars for calculation.

** Index compares 2013-14 housing prices with residents' incomes in 2000. A score over 3.0 is considered unaffordable for a household
earning the median income for the neighborhood in 2000, adjusted for inflation.
Sources: Pew analysis of Brown University Longitudinal Tract Database and U.S. Census, American Community Survey, 2010-14, five-year
estimate; Reinvestment Fund, 2015
5
In 2000, before gentrification, these tracts were not among the lowest-income areas of the city. Even after
gentrification, seven of the tracts had median incomes below the 2014 regional median of $62,169; they were
more middle income than upper income.
All of the gentrified tracts improved more in terms of educational attainment than the city as a whole. Citywide,
the share of residents over age 25 who had at least a bachelor’s degree rose 7 percentage points, from 18 percent
to 25 percent, from 2000 to 2014. Increases in the gentrified areas ranged from 9 percentage points to 49
percentage points.
Economic Forces That Spur Gentrification

Gentrification is a function of real estate cycles, according to many urban economists.
Often, a neighborhood’s housing stock deteriorates over time and is occupied by people of
lesser and lesser means. Home values, rents, and land prices fall.
Gentrification is said to begin in such neighborhoods when the difference between the current
real estate prices, which are low, and the potential prices, which are higher, becomes large
enough to attract a wave of new investment and higher-income residents.
According to this theory, what happened in some of the Philadelphia tracts that gentrified
from 2000 to 2014 was the result of the revitalization of Center City in the 1990s, when luxury
apartment towers and new restaurants replaced aging office space and surface parking lots.
By the 2000s, these developments had increased the appeal of some nearby neighborhoods,
which looked like bargains compared with pricier Center City. As a result, higher-income
people started moving in, housing prices rose, and gentrification occurred.
6
Although housing prices rose in all of the 15 tracts, the relative affordability of housing over time varied widely
from one place to another. This conclusion is based on a price-to-income index developed by the policy analysis
division of Reinvestment Fund, a national community development financial institution based in Philadelphia.
The index compares changing residential sales prices over time with the inflation-adjusted median income of
residents at the starting point. For this report, that is the year 2000.9 Reinvestment Fund estimates that an index
value at 3 or below in 2013-14 would mean that homes in a neighborhood remained within reach for the people
who had been living there in 2000; a value above 3 would indicate that they were out of reach. Index values in the
15 tracts ranged from close to zero to over 7.10
A Note About Neighborhood Names

Neighborhood names and boundaries are subject to debate in any city, and this is particularly true in areas
undergoing change. Our use of neighborhood names was further complicated because our analysis relied on
census tracts, which have borders that do not always line up with residents’ perception of local geography. We
sought to identify places clearly and accurately but recognize that opinions about names may differ.
7
Displacement
In gentrifying areas, some longtime residents of modest means leave as neighborhoods change.
Those departures are often classified as “displacement.” But it is hard to know how many people
choose to leave, as opposed to those who feel they are being forced out.
For instance, when property values rise, there are a number of reasons why a homeowner may
decide to sell: to cash in on the increased value of the property, to avoid higher real estate taxes,
to leave a neighborhood where he or she no longer feels comfortable, or for unrelated personal
reasons. Experts say renters are more likely than homeowners to feel forced to move, but the
lack of rent regulation in Philadelphia—and the record-keeping that comes with it—makes that
hard to measure. This study does not attempt to provide a definitive analysis as to how much
displacement has taken place.
Nationally, the results of efforts to measure and understand displacement are mixed. One
Columbia University study found that poor households left gentrifying areas of New York City
for the same varied reasons that they left other neighborhoods; they were not more likely to be
forced out by rent increases or other pressure from landlords.*
A 2015 study of Philadelphia by the local Federal Reserve Bank looked at moves made by
residents with low credit scores or no credit scores—an indication that they probably had low
incomes. It found these individuals were no more likely to move out of neighborhoods identified
by the study as gentrified than out of nongentrified areas. But those who did leave gentrified
areas tended to go to neighborhoods that were somewhat worse off than the areas they had
left, as measured by several quality of life indicators.
* Lance Freeman, “Displacement or Succession? Residential Mobility in Gentrifying Neighborhoods,” Urban Affairs
Review 40, no. 4 (March 2005): 463-91.
8
Types of neighborhoods that gentrified in Philadelphia
Our research found four categories of neighborhoods that gentrified in Philadelphia from 2000 to 2014,
distinguished by demographic characteristics and the nature of their real estate markets in 2000. The history
and makeup of these communities affected the form and degree of change that each area experienced, as well
as the reaction of longtime residents. The categories were:
• Predominantly working-class African-American neighborhoods, three tracts, in Graduate Hospital, south of

Center City.
• Old industrial areas, two tracts, just north of Center City.
• Mixed-income, mostly white neighborhoods, six tracts, largely in South Philadelphia.
• Center City and adjacent areas, four tracts.
Predominantly working-class African-American neighborhoods

Graduate Hospital West (Tract 13), Upper Graduate Hospital (Tract 14), Lower Graduate Hospital
(Tract 19)
In these three adjacent tracts, located west of Broad Street and just south of South Street, gentrification was
swift and sweeping. The area has gone by various names as it has changed, including Graduate Hospital, the
name used in this report. The increases in incomes during the study period were steeper in this area than in
other neighborhoods that gentrified, and the changes in home prices, racial composition, and educational
attainment were more striking.
Graduate Hospital, 2006 and 2016.
In one of the three tracts, Graduate Hospital West, median income climbed by 111 percent—from $34,801 in
2000 to $73,472 in 2014—when adjusted for inflation. That was the biggest increase among the city’s gentrified
neighborhoods. Income was also up sharply in the other two tracts—98 percent in Lower Graduate Hospital
and 64 percent in Upper Graduate Hospital. Across the three tracts, the share of households earning at least
$100,000 in 2014 dollars grew from one-tenth to one-third. (See Figure 4.)
9
Figure 3
Predominantly Working-Class African-American
Neighborhoods that Gentrified, 2000-14
City Hall
.
Broad St
r
ve
Ri
ill
ylk
South St
.
hu
Sc
21st St.
Catharine
St.
Washing
ton Ave.
Graduate Hospital West (Tract 13) Upper Graduate Hospital (Tract 14) Lower Graduate Hospital (Tract 19)
Figure 4
Income Change, 2000-14
In working-class African-American neighborhoods that gentrified
Median household Median household Percentage

Census tract Neighborhood
income, 2000 income, 2010-14 increase
13 Graduate Hospital West $34,801 $73,472 111%
14 Upper Graduate Hospital $38,194 $62,475 64%
19 Lower Graduate Hospital $30,908 $61,250 98%
Note: All income figures are in 2014 dollars, adjusted for inflation.
Source: Pew analysis of Brown University Longitudinal Tract Database and U.S. Census, American Community Survey, 2010-14, five-year estimate
10
4
Value
3
2
Among all of the gentrified tracts in this study, Lower Graduate Hospital also had the biggest growth in median
1 home sale price.11 The figure increased from $25,500 in 2000-01 to $311,250 in 2013-14, up 1,120 percent.
Median sales price increased by 332 percent in Upper Graduate Hospital and by 457 percent in the area’s
0
western tract. Analysts said several conditions in 2000 probably contributed to those outcomes. One was
-1 the relatively low homeownership rate (39 percent for the three tracts combined, compared with the city’s
59 percent at the time). Another was the high level of investor ownership of single-family
2000- 2001- 2002- 2003- 2004- 2005- 2006- 2007- 2008- 2009- 2010-
homes (42 percent
2011- 2012- 2013-
versus0121 percent
02 citywide).
03 And a third
04 05 was 06the high
07 number
08 of vacant
09 properties;
10 11 of the1215 gentrified
13 tracts,
14
these three had the highest rates of property beingCensus
converted
tract
from vacant to residential from 2000 to 2014,
according to city data. This allowed for construction of large numbers of new units, which tend to garner higher
prices than existing ones.12 They also make streetscapes look different: Three- and four-story townhouses were
Graduate Hospital West Upper Graduate Hospital Lower Graduate Hospital
built on streets once characterized by two-story row houses.
Figure 5
8
Change in Housing Affordability, 2000-14
7 In working-class African-American neighborhoods that gentrified
6
8
5 7
6
Affordability index value change
4
Value
5
3
4
2
3
1 2
0 1
0
-1
-1
2000- 2001- 2002- 2003- 2004- 2005- 2006- 2007- 2008- 2009- 2010- 2011- 2012- 2013-
01
2000-01 02
2001-02 03
2002-0304
2003-04052004-05
062005-06
072006-07
08 2007-08
09 2008-09
10 2009-10
11 2010-11
12 2011-12
13 2012-13
14 2013-14
Census tract
Year
In all three Graduate Hospital tracts, home prices grew largely out of reach for the residents who had been living
there in 2000. The affordability index compares the median residential sales price in a census tract over time to
the median household income (inflation-adjusted) in that tract in the year 2000. A score over 3.0 is considered
unaffordable for the typical household living there prior to gentrification. A negative value can result from the
index calculation's accounting for citywide price trends, and indicates deep affordability.
8
Note: Index compares 2013-14 housing prices with residents' incomes in 2000. All figures are adjusted for inflation.
7
Sources: Pew analysis of Brown University Longitudinal Tract Database and U.S. Census, American Community Survey, 2010-14, five-year
estimate;
6 Reinvestment Fund, 2015

5
3
11
2
1
Figure 6
In Philadelphia neighborhoods that gentrified
Lower Graduate Hospital 7.38

Graduate Hospital West 5.33
Upper Graduate Hospital 4.76
Upper Northern Liberties 4.49
Center City Northwest 4.18
Passyunk Crossing 2.9
Census tract
Passyunk Square 2.33

Bella Vista/Hawthorne 2.25
Pennsport 2.19
Lower Northern Liberties 1.72
Lower Moyamensing 0.99
Roxborough 0.17
Marconi Plaza 0.09
Logan Square North -0.16
Washington Square West -0.2
-1 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Line 1 Line 2
The affordability index compares the median residential sales price in a census tract over time to the median
household income (inflation-adjusted) in that tract in the year 2000. The difference in the index value from
2000-01 to 2013-14 is a measure of how affordability changed from the point of view of residents living there
prior to gentrification. A negative change indicates that home prices have become more affordable relative to
the median income in 2000.
Source: Reinvestment Fund, 2015

Living in these tracts became largely unaffordable for the people who had been living there in 2000, as measured
by Reinvestment Fund’s affordability index. (See Figure 5.) According to that index, the home price-income ratio
rose more in Graduate Hospital than in any of the other gentrified areas. (See Figure 6.)
Beyond income and home prices, there were big shifts in other characteristics often associated with social class.
Among all of the city’s gentrified areas, the three Graduate Hospital tracts had the largest gains in educational
attainment. The share of residents with at least a bachelor’s degree grew by 40 percentage points or more
in each of the tracts. There also were gains, of 22 to 42 percentage points, in the portion of workers with
professional occupations.
The racial change in Graduate Hospital was pronounced as well. In one tract, the percentage of whites in the
overall population rose from 4 percent to 52 percent from 2000 to 2014; in the same tract, the percentage of
blacks dropped from 90 percent to 38 percent. (See Figure 7.) The number of whites in the three tracts grew
from 2,156 to 7,007, and the number of African-Americans dropped from 7,793 to 3,450. The loss of African-
12
Figure 7
Racial and Ethnic Composition, 2000-14
In working-class African-American neighborhoods that gentrified
Graduate Hospital West, 2000 Upper Graduate Hospital, 2000 Lower Graduate Hospital, 2000
2% 2%2% 2% 3% 3%1 1
% %
1% 1
%
2%
4% 4% 4% 4%
22% 22% 8%
31 31
% %
30%
74% 74% 61% 61% 90%
White White African-American
African-American
2% 2%
Asian Asian HispanicHispanic Other Other White 3 %
African-American
1% Asian Hispanic Other
Graduate Hospital West, 2010-14 Upper Graduate Hospital, 2010-14

4
% 2010-14
Lower Graduate Hospital,
22 %
3%% 3%
2 %
7%
9% 9%
3 3 %
%
4% 4
31%
8% 5% 5%
6% 6%
53% 61% 61% 38% 38% 52% 52%
30% 18 18 % %
74% 61%
Asian Hispanic Other White White African-American
African-American Asian Asian HispanicHispanic Other Other
White African-American Asian Hispanic Other
Note: Some totals may not add up to 100 percent due to rounding.
Source: Pew analysis of Brown University Longitudinal Tract Database and U.S. Census, American Community Survey, 2010-14,
five-year estimate
Americans from this historically black neighborhood actually began decades earlier—hastened by urban
renewal-era planning for the never-built crosstown expressway—which is one reason why there were numerous
vacant parcels in the area in 2000. The more recent changes were different; for every black resident who left, one
white resident arrived. (See Figure 8.)
UCLA sociologist Marcus Anthony Hunter and other observers have noted that gentrification can feel more
extreme in areas such as Graduate Hospital, particularly to longtime residents, because few of the gentrifiers
13
Philadelphia’s African-American Communities and the Legacy of
Discrimination and Displacement
Some African-American residents say that gentrification in Philadelphia must be seen in the
context of other events that have disrupted and displaced local black communities over the years.
Historically, African-Americans in Philadelphia were limited in where they could live. And
in the middle of the 20th century, the federal urban renewal program and the planning and
construction of interstate highways, together with the expansion of hospitals and universities,
displaced established black communities in central, South, and West Philadelphia. During
the housing crisis of the 2000s, subprime loans and foreclosures had a powerful impact on
residents of Philadelphia’s black neighborhoods, further reinforcing a sense that their status was
precarious and vulnerable to outside forces.13
Walter D. Palmer, an attorney and activist, grew up in a black neighborhood that was razed to
create what is now called University City. He said many black Philadelphians are skeptical about
neighborhood change “because people feel so threatened because of their past experience.”
That sentiment frequently surfaces at neighborhood meetings as anger about new, market-rate
housing developments.
Continued on next page
14
4,000
2,000
2,000
0
1,479
1,011
0
1,479 1970
1970 1980
African-American White
Although urban renewal, the subprime crisis, and gentrification are very different phenomena, 20,000
many black Philadelphians remain skeptical that new residents and investment, whether public
20,000
18,000
or private, will improve their lives. In Pew’s 2015 citywide poll, 72 percent of black Philadelphians,
18,000 15,968
16,000
as opposed to 57 percent of whites, said the city should focus on helping longtime residents stay
16,000 15,968
put rather than trying to attract new residents. “There is a belief that improvements are meant not
14,000
for people who currently live there but [for] abstract newcomers,” Andrew 14,000 Goodman, who has
12,000
developed programming for Philadelphia’s Citizens Planning Institute, the education and outreach 1
12,000
arm of the City Planning Commission, said in an interview for this report. 10,000
11,196
10,000
8,000
8,000
6,000
6,000
4,000
Figure 8
4,000
African-American and White Populations, 1970-2014 2,000
1,479
In working-class African-American neighborhoods that gentrified 1,479
2,000
0 1,011
1970
0
20,000 1970 1980
18,000
16,000 15,968
14,000 Source: Pew
analysis of
12,000
Brown University
11,196 Longitudinal Tract
10,000
8,337 7,793 3,450 Database and U.S.
8,000
Census, American
Community Survey,
6,000 7,007
2010-14, five-year
4,000 estimate
2,000
© 2016 The Pew
1,011 Charitable Trusts
1,479 2,078 2,156
0
1970 1980 1990 2000 2014
have been African-Americans. Most middle- and upper-income African-Americans have chosen to live in the
suburbs or in outlying city neighborhoods, Hunter said. According to the most recent census data, there were
207 tracts in the Philadelphia metropolitan area where median household income for African-Americans was
20,000
higher than the citywide median.14 Just 29 of those tracts were in Philadelphia proper, and nearly all of them
18,000
were on the city’s fringes, far from the gentrifying areas.
15,968
16,000
Community development experts have said that gentrification in a neighborhood that starts off majority black
14,000
and winds up minority black can make longtime residents feel they no longer belong. The changes in Graduate
12,000
Hospital have fueled development-related
11,196 tensions in Point Breeze, the mostly African-American neighborhood
10,000
directly to the south, which did not gentrify during
8,337our study period but has undergone
7,793 3,450 substantial change in
the past few years. Objections there have focused on the scale, speed, and price point of new construction and
8,000
the target audience of new businesses.

6,000 7,007
4,000
2,000
1,011 2,078 2,156
1,479
0
1970 1980 1990 2000 2014 15
The Rev. Edward Sparkman of Shiloh Baptist Church.
Institutions in a Changing Neighborhood

Gentrification can affect neighborhood institutions, weakening them, strengthening them,
or simply causing them to change. Those institutions can serve as points of continuity in a
changing neighborhood and as links between new and old residents.
Consider Shiloh Baptist Church. Located at 21st and Christian streets in gentrified Graduate
Hospital, the church has served an African-American congregation at the site since 1945.
According to its pastor, the Rev. Edward Sparkman, most congregation members no longer live
in the neighborhood; the children or grandchildren of former residents, they now live in West
Philadelphia, Mount Airy, or other areas that have become home to the city’s black middle class.
Still, the church has sought to serve its home area through support for the local elementary
school and other initiatives.*
Sparkman said recent changes in the neighborhood, which has become wealthier with an
increased white population, “hit fast,” making some congregants wary. But the church has
opened its doors to the newcomers for community meetings, theatrical performances, and other
programming. As a result, older members have become more accepting of new residents, because
all the activity “makes the church feel alive again,” he said. And the congregation has given little
thought to leaving, even though it received a buyout offer. Sparkman tore it up to applause during a
Sunday service, declaring: “We are an instrument, we are here, and we are staying.”
* Interview with the Rev. Edward Sparkman, Oct. 1, 2014.
16
Old industrial areas
Lower Northern Liberties (Tract 367) and Upper Northern Liberties (Tract 142)
These tracts, located north of Center City Philadelphia, were dominated for decades by industrial uses, including
a cigar factory, breweries, a tannery, and printing presses. The people who lived there were concentrated in
a relatively small portion of each tract. In recent years, development has intensified, establishing residential
markets where none existed before.
Northern Liberties, 2004 and 2016.
Figure 9
Old Industrial Areas That Gentrified, 2000-14
.
rd Ave
West Gir
ard Ave.
Frankfo
Po
pla
6th St.
rS
Spring G t.
arden St.
er
Riv
ware
la
De
City Hall
r
ve
Ri
lkill
y
hu
Sc
Upper Northern Liberties (Tract 142) Lower Northern Liberties (Tract 367)
17
rd
New residential construction (left) in Northern Liberties, 2016.
In 2014, the two Northern Liberties tracts had the highest median household incomes of the 15 tracts that
gentrified. Lower Northern Liberties began with the highest median income, at $53,809 in 2000 (adjusted for
inflation), and it grew to $83,086 in 2014. In Upper Northern Liberties, the median income rose from $43,824 to
$80,154. (See Figure 10.)
Figure 10
In old industrial neighborhoods that gentrified

Census tract Neighborhood
142 Upper Northern Liberties $43,824 $80,154 83%
367 Lower Northern Liberties $53,809 $83,086 54%
18
From 2000 to 2014, the median home sale price rose 660 percent in Upper Northern Liberties (from $42,500
to $323,000), the second-highest percentage increase among the gentrified tracts, and 255 percent in Lower
Northern Liberties. The percentage of residents who were renters jumped from 47 percent to 63 percent in the
upper tract and from 33 percent to 50 percent in the lower one, reflecting the construction of apartment buildings
on former industrial sites.
Among all of the gentrified tracts in Philadelphia, these had the most new construction. Thirty-six percent of
all units in Upper Northern Liberties and 26 percent in the lower tract were built since 2000, compared with 12
percent for the gentrified tracts as a group and 4 percent citywide. (See Figure 11.)
Figure 11
Share of Housing Units Built Since 2000 in Philadelphia’s
Gentrified Neighborhoods
Lower Moyamensing 1%
Passyunk Square 1%
Passyunk Crossing 2%
Washington Square West 2%
Marconi Plaza 2%
Roxborough 2%
Pennsport 4%
Logan Square North 6%
Center City Northwest 7%
Lower Graduate Hospital 11%
Upper Graduate Hospital 11%
Graduate Hospital West 22%
Bella Vista/Hawthorne 25%
Lower Northern Liberties 26%
Upper Northern Liberties 36%
0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40%
Source: Pew analysis of U.S. Census, American Community Survey, 2010-14, five-year estimate
According to Reinvestment Fund’s income-to-price index ratings, Upper Northern Liberties became unaffordable
by 2013-14 from the perspective of residents who lived there in 2000. The tract’s affordability index stood at 4.3.
In Lower Northern Liberties, which started with a relatively high median income, the index was an affordable 1.9.
These tracts had the largest population growth by far among the gentrified tracts from 2000 to 2014: 46 percent
in Lower Northern Liberties and 67 percent in Upper Northern Liberties.
On educational attainment rates, both tracts were well above the city median in 2000 and had above-average
rates of improvement from 2000 to 2014. They also started out with higher shares of workers in professional
occupations than the citywide percentage, and those proportions grew.
19
Figure 12
In old industrial neighborhoods that gentrified
Upper Northern Liberties, 2000 Upper Northern Liberties, 2010-14
1% 4%1%
3
2 %
11%
23 %
17 %
18%
45% 4 %
1% 53%
933 %%
67%
30%
White African-American Asian HispanicWhite Other African-American Asian Hispanic Other
Lower Northern Liberties, 2000 Lower Northern Liberties, 2010-14
4% 1% 1%
1% 3% 1%
2%
11% 7 %
17 %
% 2 %
11%
23 18%
45% 4%
53% %
1% 9 33
% %
45 53%
67 %
33% 71%
30%
Asian White
Hispanic African-American
Other Asian Hispanic Other
Note: Some totals may not add up to 100 percent due to rounding.
five-year estimate
20
Painter and sculptor Jennifer Baker.
Artists in Northern Liberties

A common gentrification narrative begins with artists. In search of large live-work spaces at
low prices, they move into a neighborhood full of vacant industrial buildings. They are followed
by wealthier arrivals, who are drawn by the renovated lofts and cultural buzz. And then the
rising costs threaten to drive out the artists.
In Philadelphia’s Northern Liberties, a version of this story has been playing out. Painter and
sculptor Jennifer Baker set up her studio at Third and Green streets in 1978, taking over an
industrial building with no heat or plumbing. At the time, she said, the neighborhood was
“emptying out.” Some of the longtime residents, who were working to stop the city-led razing
of historic buildings, were happy to have newcomers join their cause.
As buildings disappeared, Baker watched the old Northern Liberties, “a place where people
made things,” fade away. Now that the pace and scale of development has accelerated, she
finds herself part of a dwindling community of working artists. She worries that the speed
of change, and “relentless demolition of old buildings to make way for luxury townhouses
and condos,” threatens to destroy the neighborhood’s lingering sense of self, leaving few
connections with the past.
21
New construction on the site of the old Ortlieb’s brewery in Northern Liberties, 2016.
In the two Northern Liberties tracts, the percentage of blacks in the overall population fell, the result of African-
Americans leaving and members of other groups arriving. In Upper Northern Liberties, the percentage of blacks
fell from 30 percent in 2000 to 9 percent in 2014. Whites, who had accounted for 45 percent of the population in
2000, made up 67 percent in 2014. Lower Northern Liberties had similar shifts. (See Figure 12.) Overall, the white
population in the two tracts more than doubled, from 1,926 to 4,258.
Given the relatively small population in Northern Liberties before gentrification, and the fact that much of the
growth took place in areas that had not been residential, less controversy regarding development has occurred
there than in other neighborhoods. But some concerns persist, particularly about the loss of a diverse working-
class community that had been home to Puerto Ricans, African-Americans, and immigrants—and of the
neighborhood’s artistic identity.
Mixed-income, mostly white neighborhoods

Lower Moyamensing (Tract 40.01), Marconi Plaza (Tract 39.02), Passyunk Square (Tract 29),
Passyunk Crossing (Tract 28.02), Pennsport (Tract 27.02), Roxborough (Tract 212)
These tracts, five in South Philadelphia and one in the Northwest (Roxborough), were mixed-income
neighborhoods in 2000, with high homeownership rates and majority-white populations. Of the 15 gentrified
tracts, these are located the farthest from Center City. Throughout the 20th century, the five in South Philadelphia
had heavily Italian- and Irish-American identities. According to census data on reported ancestry, that was still
true in 2000 and remained so in 2014, despite some increases in ethnic diversity. Many residents of these areas
still identify their neighborhoods by Catholic parish boundaries rather than other neighborhood demarcations.
Although increases in median income qualified these tracts as gentrified, they experienced less change than the
other gentrified neighborhoods in terms of housing market conditions, race, and income. (See Figure 14.)
22
Figure 13
Mixed-Income, Mostly White Neighborhoods That Gentrified,
2000-14
t.
eS
mitag
r
He
He
nry
Av
e.
Rid
ve.
ge
hA
Av
ug
oro
e.
xb
Ro
Wharton
St.
City Hall
St. ad
South Bro
ve. Front St.

unk A
Passy
18th St.
Oregon A
ve.
Packer A
ve.
Pennsport (Tract 27.02) Passyunk Crossing (Tract 28.02) Passyunk Square (Tract 29)
Marconi Plaza (Tract 39.02) Lower Moyamensing (Tract 40.01) Roxborough (Tract 212)
23
Wharton
St.
Figure 14
In mixed-income neighborhoods that gentrified

Tract Neighborhood
27.02 Pennsport $33,725 $61,366 82%
28.02 Passyunk Crossing $32,318 $49,635 54%
29 Passyunk Square $37,976 $50,813 34%
39.02 Marconi Plaza $51,790 $59,625 15%
40.01 Lower Moyamensing $36,713 $46,309 26%
212 Roxborough $52,872 $63,827 21%
Sources: Pew analysis of Brown University Longitudinal Tract Database and U.S. Census, American Community Survey, 2010-14, five-year estimate
Household incomes went up, but not as dramatically as in some of the other areas. Marconi Plaza, Roxborough,
and Lower Moyamensing experienced the smallest increases of the 15 gentrified tracts, at 15, 21, and 26 percent.
From 2000 to 2014, the share of residents with household incomes over $100,000 (adjusted for inflation) was
flat in Marconi Plaza and rose 3 percentage points in Lower Moyamensing, 7 points in Passyunk Crossing, 9
points in Roxborough, 15 points in Passyunk Square, and 16 points in Pennsport.15 (See Figure 15.)
These six tracts also had the lowest median home sales prices in 2013-14 among the 15 gentrified tracts, ranging
from $151,900 in Lower Moyamensing to $260,000 in Passyunk Square. And they had the highest rates of
homeownership in 2000. This may have reduced the opportunities for sale, renovation, and rapid resale of
properties and kept home prices relatively modest.
These tracts did not experience much new housing development; only 2 percent of units in existence in 2014
were built since 2000. This happened because these neighborhoods had few empty lots for new construction
and few large, vacant nonresidential buildings suitable for conversion. The lack of new housing stock kept the
neighborhoods looking much as they had appeared for decades.
24
Figure 15
Change in Share of Population With Household Incomes Over
$100,000
In Philadelphia’s gentrified neighborhoods, 2000-14
Graduate Hospital West 28

Upper Graduate Hospital 25
Bella Vista/Hawthorne 22
Upper Northern Liberties 22
Lower Graduate Hospital 17
Logan Square North 16
Neighborhood
Pennsport 16
Passyunk Square 15
Lower Northern Liberties 15
Center City Northwest 15
Washington Square West 10
Roxborough 9
Passyunk Crossing 7
Lower Moyamensing 3
Marconi Plaza -1
-5 0 5 10 15 20 25 30
Percentage point change in share of population with income over $100,000
Note: 2000 figures adjusted to 2014 dollars for calculation.

Throughout the period studied, the Reinvestment Fund affordability index level never exceeded 3 in five of the
six mixed-income tracts; it was just over the line, at 3.2, in Passyunk Crossing in 2013-14. So purchasing a home
in these neighborhoods remained relatively affordable for the residents who had lived there in 2000. Among
block groups, which are smaller than tracts, there were some notable differences within Pennsport and Passyunk
Square, indicating that price appreciation was concentrated in a few parts of the neighborhoods. (See Figure 16.)
As for educational attainment, four of the six tracts had lower percentages of four-year college graduates
in 2000 than the city as a whole. The levels had increased by 2014, rising from 9 to 33 percent in Passyunk
Crossing, from 11 to 32 percent in Lower Moyamensing, from 13 percent to 32 percent in Pennsport, and from 10
percent to 21 percent in Marconi Plaza. The percentages of college graduates also rose in Passyunk Square and
Roxborough, from 25 to 45 percent and from 25 to 35 percent of adults, respectively. The citywide percentage in
2014 was 25 percent.
25
Year
8
Figure 16
8 7
In mixed-income
7
6 neighborhoods that gentrified
6
5
5
4
4
3
3
2
2
1 1
00
-1 -1
-2
-2
2000-01 2001-02 2002-03 2003-04 2004-05 2005-06 2006-07 2007-08 2008-09 2009-10 2010-11 2011-12 2012-13 2013-14
2000-01 2001-02 2002-03 2003-04 2004-05 2005-06 2006-07 2007-08 2008-09 2009-10 2010-11 2011-12 2012-13 2013-14
Year
Year
Lower Moyamensing Marconi Plaza Passyunk Crossing Passyunk Square Pennsport Roxborough
Lower Moyamensing Marconi Plaza Passyunk Crossing Passyunk Square Pennsport Roxborough
Lower Moyamensing
Home prices remained mostly affordable in the mixed-income neighborhoods that gentrified. The affordability
Marconi Plaza
Lower Moyamensing
index compares the median
Passyunk Crossing
residential sales price in a census tract over time to the median household income
Marconi Plaza
(inflation-adjusted)
Passyunkin that tract in the year 2000. A score over 3.0 is considered unaffordable for the typical
Square
Passyunk Crossing
household living there prior to gentrification. A negative value can result from the index calculation's accounting
Pennsport
Passyunk Square
Roxborough
for citywide price trends, and indicates deep affordability.
Pennsport
Roxborough
Source: Reinvestment Fund, 2015
Compared with the 15 gentrified tracts as a group, these six had relatively little population growth, averaging
6 percent. In 2000, each of the six tracts was at least three-quarters white, and that share dropped in five of
them as Asian and Hispanic populations grew. In Pennsport, the white share was unchanged at 86 percent. (See
Figure 17.)
In these tracts, the overall reaction to the arrival of higher-income residents has been more positive than in
other gentrified areas, although there have been some complaints that the new arrivals did not understand
neighborhood traditions and were willing to pay far too much for housing, driving up prices. In addition,
perceptions of change in the South Philadelphia tracts have been complicated by an influx of Latino and Asian
immigrants as well as the gentrifiers.
Tina DeJesse, a Realtor and lifelong Passyunk Square resident, has been surprised by how well the gentrifiers
have fit in. “They’re sitting out on their stoop and their kids are playing in the street just like I did as a kid,” she
said. DeJesse also said that fewer of the new families than she expected have been “five and out,” referring to
people who stay for five years before moving to the suburbs when their kids reach school age.
26
Figure 17
In mixed-income neighborhoods that gentrified
Pennsport, 2000 Pennsport, 2010-14 Passyunk Crossing, 2000 Passyunk Crossing, 2010-14
3% 4% 3
%
1%
2% 5
%
4 %
2
%
6% 6
%
6%
15%
1% 24%
86% 86% 76% 0.3% 68%

Pennsport Pennsport Passyunk Crossing Passyunk Crossing
Passyunk Square, 2000 Passyunk Square, 2010-14 Marconi Plaza, 2000 Marconi Plaza, 2010-14
4% 2
%
2% 1% 1% 1%
2% 1
%
0.1% 1
%
2% 6% 10% 6%
13%
86% 0.4% 74% 97% 90%

Passyunk Square Passyunk Square Marconi Plaza Marconi Plaza
Lower Moyamensing, 2000 Lower Moyamensing, 2010-14 Roxborough, 2000 Roxborough, 2010-14
3% 3 2 1% 2% 2% 1%
% %
3%
1 %
7% 5% 7%
13% 6%
7%
90% 2% 77% 90% 77%

Lower Moyamensing Lower Moyamensing Roxborough Roxborough
Note: 2000 figures for Pennsport and Passyunk Crossing were calculated from census block groups due to changed tract boundaries.
Some totals may not add up to 100 percent due to rounding.
five-year estimate
27
Center City and adjacent areas
Center City Northwest (Tract 4.02), Washington Square West (Tract 11.01),
Bella Vista/Hawthorne (Tract 18), Logan Square North (Tract 125)
These four tracts, two in Center City Philadelphia and two just outside, are all adjacent to tracts that were already
high income in 2000. In some ways, both Logan Square North and Bella Vista/Hawthorne already resembled,
and were considered, Center City neighborhoods at the outset of our study, although they are located just outside
the area’s traditional borders. The four tracts all had relatively expensive housing prices and a high level of
educational attainment, and their populations were two-thirds or more white in 2000.
Figure 18
Center City and Adjacent Areas That Gentrified, 2000-14
.
Broad St
Spring G
arden St
.
Vine St.
Arch St.
20th St.
Chestnut
City Hall
St.
Spruce St
.
South St
11th St.
Fitzwater
St.
Christian
6th St.
Washing St.
ton Ave.
Center City Northwest (Tract 4.02) Washington Square West (Tract 11.01) Bella Vista/Hawthorne (Tract 18)
Logan Square North (Tract 125)
The tracts in this group began with relatively high incomes, and the changes during the period studied were
neither the smallest nor the largest of the 15 gentrified tracts. From 2000 to 2014, inflation-adjusted median
income was up 27 percent in both Washington Square West and Logan Square North, 33 percent in Center City
Northwest, and 45 percent in Bella Vista/Hawthorne. (See Figure 19.)
28
Figure 19
In Center City and adjacent neighborhoods that gentrified

Tract Neighborhood
4.02 Center City Northwest $38,908 $51,559 33%
11.01 Washington Square West $51,921 $66,105 27%
125 Logan Square North $49,149 $62,381 27%
18 Bella Vista/Hawthorne $51,770 $75,000 45%
Sources: Pew analysis of Brown University Longitudinal Tract Database and U.S. Census, American Community Survey, 2010-14, five-year estimate
Among the gentrified areas, the four tracts had the highest median home sale prices in 2000-01; they were
the only tracts out of the 15 in which the prices started out higher than $100,000.16 The median home price
increased 83 percent in Logan Square North, 88 percent in Washington Square West, and 227 percent in
Bella Vista/Hawthorne during the study period. In Center City Northwest, the median rose from $200,000 to
$612,500, the highest values of all 15 tracts at both the start and the end of the period.
Three of the four tracts had relatively little housing construction during the period. The exception was Bella
Vista/Hawthorne, where 25 percent of housing was built after 2000, in large part because of the redevelopment
of a public housing site.
Reinvestment Fund’s affordability index showed that Logan Square North and Washington Square West stayed
affordable to the typical household living there in 2000, whereas Bella Vista/Hawthorne and Center City
Northwest, with much larger price increases, did not.
As for the population, there were differences between the tracts in Center City and those adjacent. Center City
Northwest had no population growth from 2000 to 2014, and the number of residents in Washington Square
West fell by 4 percent. The population grew by 19 percent in Logan Square North and by 25 percent in Bella
Vista/Hawthorne.
Logan Square North and Washington Square West had the highest shares of college graduates, at 65 percent
and 61 percent, and residents with professional occupations, at 64 percent in both, among the 15 tracts in 2000.
The other two tracts were close behind. All four tracts had increases in both measures from 2000 to 2014.
29
In terms of racial composition, Washington Square West, Logan Square North, and Center City Northwest all
started out at least two-thirds white, and that share grew to 80 percent or higher. In Bella Vista/Hawthorne,
the share of whites dipped from 67 to 63 percent, and the share of blacks dropped as well, while there were
increases for Hispanics and Asians. (See Figure 20.)
Figure 20
In Center City and adjacent neighborhoods that gentrified
Center City Northwest, Center City Northwest, Washington Square West, Washington Square West,
2000 2010-14 2000 2010-14
3% 1 2% 1%
%
2%
2 %
7% 4
%
9% 8% 8%
5%
13% 10% 5%
74% 88% 78% 81%

Center City Northwest Center City Northwest Washington Square West Washington Square West
Logan Square North, Logan Square North, Bella Vista/Hawthorne, Bella Vista/Hawthorne,
2000 2010-14 2000 2010-14
2% 2% 3% 1% 4%
5% 5% 6% 7%
11 % 6%
6 %
8 %
22%
15%
18%
68% 80% 67% 63%

Logan Square North Logan Square North Bella Vista/Hawthorne Bella Vista/Hawthorne
Note: 2000 figures for Pennsport and Passyunk Crossing were calculated from census block groups due to changed tract
boundaries. Some totals may not add up to 100 percent due to rounding.
five-year estimate
30
The 1900 block of Webster Street, 2016.
Block-Level Patterns of Change

Pew commissioned Reinvestment Fund to take a close look at single blocks chosen at random
in three gentrified areas: Northern Liberties, Hawthorne, and Graduate Hospital. This ground-
level analysis illustrates how the process of gentrification can vary even within a tract, and how
certain factors, such as investor activity, homeownership, and public subsidy, can be associated
with different degrees of change.
The 1900 block of Webster Street in Graduate Hospital. This is a block transformed: All but
one property here changed hands between 2000 and 2014. The block began the period with
23 percent owner occupancy and ended it with 74 percent. Of the three blocks, Webster Street
experienced the most “flipping”—a property changing hands within two years of purchase—and
investor-involved sales overall.* Remarkably, the median sales price rose from $6,500 in 2000-03
Continued on next page
* Because of the small number of properties on each block, this analysis aggregated data in four-year intervals,
beginning with 2000-03 and ending with 2011-14. Elsewhere in this report, analysis by Reinvestment Fund uses
two-year periods for tract-level data.
31
to $404,500 for 2011-14. The block, which started out with numerous vacant lots, today is
dominated by recently built three-story townhouses and a handful of older two-story houses.
The 400 block of West George Street in Northern Liberties. This block experienced less
dramatic change, even though it is part of an old industrial tract where the real estate market
as a whole was transformed. It began and ended the study period with 80 percent owner
occupancy. Transactions were mostly between owner occupants, which tended to result in less
price appreciation than sales involving nonresident investors. The median sales price climbed
from $73,500 during the 2000-03 period to $232,500 in 2011-14, less than in blocks that had
significant flipping.
The 1200 block of Christian Street in Hawthorne. On this block, publicly owned property played
a significant role. The Philadelphia Housing Authority has redeveloped nine of the 31 parcels
on the block, eight of which are subsidized for rent to low-income tenants. The subsidies have
helped keep the block economically diverse even as the median home sales price climbed from
$48,000 to $322,500.
Reinvestment Fund made an effort to determine the current whereabouts of the 97 homeowners
on the three blocks who sold their homes during the study period, to get a sense of how
they have fared. The search located only individuals who subsequently purchased homes in
Philadelphia or its suburban Pennsylvania counties.
Researchers found 49 of them: Eight had moved within their original census tract, five had gone
to the suburbs, and the rest had stayed in the city. Over half (31 of the 49) were living in tracts
with lower 2014 median incomes than their previous homes in the gentrified tracts. Overall,
their new tracts represented a much broader economic range than the old blocks, from a median
income of $12,931 in one North Philadelphia tract to $126,771 for one in Montgomery County.
32
Other types of neighborhood change
Other kinds of neighborhood transformation have been taking place in Philadelphia that do not meet our
definition of gentrification. In some neighborhoods, particularly those where whites have replaced African-
Americans, longtime residents have expressed fears about rising housing prices and a changing sense of place.
Other areas have experienced drops in median income since 2000.
Signs advertise off-campus student housing near Temple University.
University areas that are no longer majority African-American

According to census estimates, there were 14 tracts in the city that were majority black in 2000 but not in 2014.17
Three were the gentrified tracts in Graduate Hospital; one was in East Mount Airy; two were the adjacent tracts
of Francisville and Spring Garden, which are North Philadelphia neighborhoods where incomes were up but not
enough to meet our gentrification standard; and eight were close to institutions of higher education: three near
the University of Pennsylvania and the University of the Sciences (Cedar Park, Spruce Hill, and Walnut Hill), three
that included parts of Temple University’s main campus, one in West Powelton next to Drexel University, and one
adjacent to La Salle University. (See Figure 21.) Some residents and city officials consider a few of these tracts to
be successfully integrated neighborhoods in terms of race and income, but such change has been cast more often
as gentrification with the potential for displacement.
33
Figure 21
Census Tracts
Over 50% African-
American in 2000
and Less Than LaSalle
50% in 2014 University
Of the 14 census tracts

that ceased to be majority
African-American, eight were
near university campuses.
Temple
University
Drexel
University
University of
University of Pennsylvania
University-area tracts
the Sciences
Other tracts
Source: Pew analysis of Brown University

Longitudinal Tract Database and U.S.
Census, American Community Survey,
2010-14 five-year estimate
Philadelphia’s universities undertook several initiatives that shaped their surrounding neighborhoods during our
study period. The University of Pennsylvania, facing growing concerns about crime in the area, expanded public
safety patrols and encouraged staff members to settle in the neighborhood with a mortgage assistance program,
retail development, and the opening of a new, highly regarded elementary school. Drexel and Temple recruited
more out-of-state and international undergraduate students, many of whom chose to live in the neighborhood.
Temple, historically a commuter school, was so successful at recruiting resident students that in 2004 the
university announced it had enough dormitory space only for freshmen and sophomores, causing upperclassmen
to look for accommodation elsewhere.18
Of the eight formerly black-majority, university-area tracts, three had white majorities in 2014, one had a white
plurality, and four had African-American pluralities. In four of the tracts (La Salle, Spruce Hill, and two in the
Temple University area), there was a drop in median household income; in the rest there was no statistically
significant change. (See Figure 22.) Income alone, however, does not tell the entire story. Although the
undergraduate and graduate students who have moved in often have little income, their access to student loans
or family wealth can help them afford relatively expensive housing. For those reasons and others, their presence
can have a dramatic impact on a neighborhood’s real estate market.
34
Figure 22
University Areas With Changing Demographics, 2000-14
Racial and ethnic composition
White African-American Asian Hispanic

Tract Neighborhood
2000 2014 2000 2014 2000 2014 2000 2014
78 Cedar Park 28% 53% 65% 27% 4% 5% 3% 5%
79 Spruce Hill 27% 49% 65% 33% 5% 6% 3% 4%
86.01 Walnut Hill 14% 54% 77% 34% 5% 5% 3% 1%
91 West Powelton 29% 30% 55% 46% 11% 20% 3% 2%
North Phila./Temple area

147 1% 38% 96% 48% 1% 10% 2% 2%
(south)

153 8% 55% 88% 36% 3% 4% 1% 2%
(west)

377 16% 31% 64% 41% 3% 7% 15% 19%
(east)
279.02 LaSalle area 23% 38% 74% 49% 1% 2% 2% 7%
Income change
Median household income Median household income

Tract Neighborhood
2000, adjusted 2010-14
78 Cedar Park* $41,017 $38,214
79 Spruce Hill $45,980 $41,440
86.01 Walnut Hill* $27,849 $35,341
91 West Powelton* $24,850 $19,732
147 North Phila./Temple area (south) $23,304 $11,578
153 North Phila./Temple area (west) $21,053 $15,609
377 North Phila./Temple area (east)* $22,051 $22,181
279.02 LaSalle area $37,664 $27,604
* Income change not statistically significant given margin of error for 2010-14 estimate.
35
A view of University City from Philadelphia’s South Street Bridge, 2016.
The population gains on the western side of Temple’s campus—54 percent to the south of Montgomery Avenue
and 14 percent to the north—also help explain why those areas felt transformed. The other university-area tracts
experienced either population decreases or marginal gains.
In terms of educational attainment, the four tracts in West Philadelphia had an average of 56 percent of residents
over the age of 25 with at least a bachelor’s degree in 2014, more than double the city’s 25 percent and up 23
percentage points since 2000. The tracts near Temple and La Salle, however, began and ended with lower shares of
college graduates than the city as a whole, reflecting the rental market’s focus on undergraduates in those tracts.
Around some campuses, investors have converted owner-occupied single-family homes into rental housing
aimed at students. New multistory apartment buildings have risen in both West Philadelphia and North
Philadelphia, making those streetscapes look very different. Reinvestment Fund’s index showed that most of the
university-area tracts became less affordable, at least for home sales. The most extreme property appreciation
was west of Temple, where the median sale price rose from $11,250 in 2000-01 to $140,000 in 2013-14.
Longtime residents of these neighborhoods have mixed feelings about the changes. Some have been pleased
with the improved amenities—such as safety patrols and grocery stores near La Salle and the University of
Pennsylvania—but they also complain about rowdy parties and a general lack of respect or understanding from
the students. Although the universities have sought to smooth “town-gown” relations, residents say the constant
turnover in population makes permanent headway difficult. In 2014, Drexel established the Dornsife Center for
Neighborhood Partnerships in part to support longtime residents through offerings that include a law clinic,
public computer lab, and tax preparation assistance.
36
Neighborhoods with other demographic shifts and real estate market change
A few other neighborhoods that did not meet our definition of gentrification often have been included in
discussions about the phenomenon in Philadelphia—and for good reason.
Fishtown, located north of Northern Liberties, looks very different from a few years ago, when it was primarily
known as a blue-collar enclave. Its main commercial corridor, Frankford Avenue, is lined with new bars and
restaurants and has become a nightlife destination for the city and region. Contemporary townhouses are
popping up on side streets. Of the two Fishtown census tracts, the southern tract had too high a median income
in 2000 to be considered a candidate for gentrification by our standards. The northern Fishtown tract did not
qualify because its median income did not show enough of a change from 2000 to 2014. The racial and ethnic
makeup of the tracts did not change much, either.
Other indicators illustrate what did occur: The percentage of residents in professional occupations in Fishtown
increased from 30 percent in 2000 to 52 percent in 2014. Citywide, the share of professionals rose from 32 to 36
percent. The share of residents with at least a bachelor’s degree more than tripled in one Fishtown tract and more
than doubled in the other. Home prices started to rise in the middle of the past decade and, as was the case in
many of the gentrified neighborhoods, did not decline during the Great Recession.
Another example is the Point Breeze section of South Philadelphia, near Graduate Hospital and Passyunk
Square. In the recent census data, income levels in three of the four Point Breeze tracts were little changed in
2014 compared with 2000. The median was starting to rise in the northeastern tract, which runs from 18th to
22nd streets and from Washington Avenue to Wharton Street, and the increases were concentrated in the block
groups along the northern edge of the neighborhood, indicating that gentrification might be underway.
Point Breeze, 2004 and 2016.
Reinvestment Fund’s index analysis showed that, on the whole, the area remained affordable to longtime
residents but that prices in some block groups within the northeastern tract were not. In that tract, the median
sale price rose from $12,000 in 2000-01 to $160,000 in 2013-14, with the increase beginning around 2010.
Point Breeze’s white population grew between 2000 and 2014, most notably in the two northern tracts, which
also had the biggest increases in the portion of people with college degrees.
37
Public housing redevelopment areas
Some parts of Philadelphia have been transformed over the past two decades by the redevelopment of public
housing complexes, endeavors funded largely with federal dollars as part of the HOPE VI program, which
encouraged the replacement of “distressed” subsidized housing with low-density, mixed-income development.
The idea was to reduce concentrated poverty and thereby improve quality of life.
These changes have been especially apparent in neighborhoods where public housing sat next to high-
income neighborhoods, as was the case with the site of Martin Luther King Plaza in the gentrified Bella
Vista/Hawthorne tract, and Southwark Plaza in Queen Village. Most of the residents of old public housing
complexes were African-American. As a result, from 1990 to 2000, the number of black residents in the Bella
Vista/Hawthorne tract fell from 1,425 to 536 as the Martin Luther King towers were cleared out and then
demolished. But the number has held relatively stable since 2000, indicating that the continued presence of
subsidized housing may have helped the neighborhood retain some black residents.
Daryl Jones, who lives in the Courtyard Apartments, which replaced the Southwark Plaza towers, said most of
his neighbors lived in the plaza for “generations and generations.” He knows that he and they could not afford
the neighborhood today without being subsidized—homes across the street are selling for $500,000, he
said—but he worries that eventually government will eliminate the affordable housing units to make way for
wealthier residents.
Scottish Rite House, a subsidized housing facility for seniors in Graduate Hospital (left), and new public housing in north Philadelphia.
Areas that are losing ground economically

From 2000 through 2014, the primary form of change in Philadelphia neighborhoods was not gentrification;
it was a decline in residents’ economic well-being. Adjusted for inflation, the city’s median household income
fell from $43,659 to $37,460, and the number of Philadelphia residents living in poverty grew by more than
60,000.19 Of 372 residential tracts in the city, median income fell significantly in 164—44 percent of the
total—120 of which already had incomes below 80 percent of the regional median in 2000, qualifying them as
low income by federal standards. Only 10 percent of the city’s census tracts experienced income increases: the
15 that gentrified; seven low-income tracts that stayed low income; and 15 higher-income tracts.
In studying the 70 largest U.S. metropolitan areas between 1990 and 2010, John Landis, a professor of city
and regional planning at the University of Pennsylvania, observed: “Popular fascination with gentrification
38
What Philadelphians Think About Gentrification
In a 2015 poll commissioned by Pew’s Philadelphia research initiative, city residents were asked
two questions about gentrification. Neither question used the word.
By a margin of 63 percent to 23 percent, Philadelphians said having higher-income people

move into lower-income neighborhoods was a good thing. Renters were nearly as supportive
as homeowners of the idea. Having higher-income people move in was viewed favorably by 74
percent of whites, 65 percent of Hispanics, and 55 percent of blacks. (See Figure 23.)
At the same time, 67 percent of Philadelphians said they favored doing more to keep longtime
residents in their neighborhoods. Seventy-two percent of residents who had lived in the city
for at least 30 years also expressed that view, compared with 56 percent of residents who had
been in the city 10 years or less.
In response to another question, only 5 percent of poll respondents said gentrification or

neighborhood revitalization is the biggest issue facing the city, putting it far behind schools,
public safety, and the need for more jobs.
Figure 23
What Philadelphians Think
About Changing Neighborhoods
6%
In some parts of Philadelphia, higher-income 8%
people have been moving into what had been
lower-income neighborhoods. Is this more of a 23%
good thing or a bad thing?
Good thing
Both/can’t choose
Bad thing
Don’t know
63%
Good thing Bad thing Both/can’t choose Don’t know
The city should do more to …

7%
Attract middle- and upper-income people to struggling 26%
neighborhoods
Help longtime residents stay in their neighborhoods
when housing costs rise
Don't know/can't choose
67%
Source: The Pew Philadelphia Poll, 2015
39
notwithstanding, the dominant form of substantial neighborhood change continues to be decline, not
upgrading.”20 Said Beth McConnell, policy director of the Philadelphia Association of Community Development
Corporations: “This gentrification stuff is happening in very few places, affecting a small number of people. We
have many more poor neighborhoods where there is no change; we need policies that will also benefit those
neighborhoods.”
Shaping neighborhood change through public policy

Philadelphia’s public officials are virtually unanimous in their belief that increased private development that
brings higher-income households into city neighborhoods has numerous benefits when done thoughtfully. It
generates tax revenue for critical services; provides customers for stores, restaurants, and other businesses;
and enhances the quality of city life. For longtime homeowners in these neighborhoods, new construction and
rehabilitation create increased wealth in the resale value of their homes. Some experts see the movement of
higher-income households into moderate-income neighborhoods as a step toward building the diverse, mixed-
income communities that many Philadelphians say they want—as long as some lower-income households are
able to stay put.
“We can’t be against all development,” said Nora Lichtash, executive director of the Women’s Community
Revitalization Project, a nonprofit that does community organizing and produces affordable housing in eastern
North Philadelphia. “We can be against the negative impacts of development.”
The goal of many officials and advocates dealing with gentrification is what they call “equitable development.”
In general, the term means trying to ensure that new investment in neighborhoods includes some benefits
for lower-income individuals and that higher home prices do not force longtime residents to move to areas
that might be less safe or less accessible to jobs, services, or other amenities. “Some neighborhoods have
suffered from disinvestment for 50 years and need investment,” said Deborah McColloch, former director of
Philadelphia’s Office of Housing and Community Development. “But how we manage change in a way that
promotes neighborhoods, honors long-term residents, and helps people feel it’s still their neighborhood is a
huge challenge.”
From a government perspective, there are questions about when, where, how, and whether to intervene as
neighborhood real estate values rise; whether rental or ownership housing is more desirable; and whether
imposing legal requirements or offering incentives is the most effective way to produce affordable housing
without stifling new investment. There’s also the question of how to pay for any government action.
Cities across the country have tried a range of approaches. In Los Angeles, neighborhood advocates have
secured community-benefit agreements from developers of market-rate housing and other large projects that
include affordable housing. But this approach comes into play only when public funds are involved, zoning
variances are sought, and local community groups are organized and focused. Municipalities and counties in
four states and the District of Columbia have applied controls that guide how much and how quickly landlords
can raise rents, but Pennsylvania has not allowed its local governments to enact rent controls.21
40
Programs already in place
Philadelphia has a number of policies and programs that are relevant to the changes taking place in gentrified and
other changing neighborhoods, even if not all of them were put in place with those changes in mind.
Philadelphia’s Graduate Hospital neighborhood, 2016.
Property tax abatement

Philadelphia’s property tax abatement program, introduced in 1997 and expanded in 2000, is seen by supporters
and critics alike as having helped to make gentrification happen. It exempts buildings, though not the land
on which they sit, from all property taxes for 10 years after completion of new construction or substantial
rehabilitation. The program’s backers say the abatement promotes revitalization throughout the city and benefits
a diverse set of residents; they note that the biggest single user of the abatement has been the Philadelphia
Housing Authority.22 Critics say that the tax break is no longer necessary to spur development, especially in “hot”
neighborhoods; that it gives buyers tax savings at the expense of long-term residents; and that it raises sales
prices and assessments, thereby accelerating gentrification by making it harder for lower-income residents to pay
their taxes. Members of City Council have periodically discussed restructuring or limiting the program.
Property tax reform and relief programs

For homeowners who meet certain eligibility tests, the Longtime Owner Occupants Program (LOOP) caps
a property’s taxable value until the home is sold or the homeowner dies. It was created to address the more
extreme effects of Philadelphia’s 2013 property tax overhaul, known as the Actual Value Initiative (AVI), and
growing discontent among some longtime residents regarding the 10-year property tax abatement, which they
see as giving an unfair break to recent arrivals.
41
In addition to meeting income limits and a 10-year residency requirement, a LOOP applicant must own and
occupy a home that has undergone a property assessment increase of at least 300 percent in one year. Such
steep increases happened to thousands of properties in 2013 because of AVI, mostly in neighborhoods where
home prices had risen rapidly.
Lawmakers have called LOOP an anti-gentrification program, and, in fact, the 17,812 households that enrolled
were concentrated in neighborhoods where there are concerns about displacement. Other programs designed to
help keep housing affordable for homeowners are the senior tax freeze, the deferral program, and the homestead
exemption, which reduces the taxable value of all owner-occupied homes by $30,000.23
Housing counseling
Housing advocates worry that real estate speculators in gentrifying and other changing neighborhoods are exploiting
longtime residents, particularly the elderly, who do not know the full value of their homes. Officials say counseling
agencies, though set up primarily to assist would-be home buyers, can help homeowners understand the value of their
properties and how to benefit from rising prices without taking out risky loans that could lead to foreclosure.
Philadelphia’s Office of Housing and Community Development, using federal funds, supports 30 organizations
that serve as housing counseling agencies, most of which also are engaged in other work in community
development, advocacy, or social services. Those organizations offer free counseling on first-time home buying,
foreclosure prevention, predatory lending, and more. In fiscal year 2014, housing counselors served 12,288
Philadelphians at a cost of about $5 million.
Basic systems repair

City officials say the basic systems repair program is essential in a city with thousands of low-income
homeowners and an aging housing stock. The program, which has a two-year waiting list and is limited to low-
income owners of single-family homes, provides free repairs for plumbing, electrical, and heating systems and, in
some cases, pays for roof replacements as well. Using a mix of federal and local Housing Trust Fund resources,
the city spent $11 million on the program in fiscal 2014, covering repairs for 1,303 homes, which experts say
represent a fraction of the homes in dire need of maintenance.
Subsidized units in gentrified neighborhoods

Although the public discussion is often focused on how to fund new subsidized units and where they should go,
hundreds of these units already exist in the tracts that have gentrified since 2000 and in other neighborhoods
in or around Center City. Many of those units are for seniors, such as the 288 apartments in the Casa Farnese
complex in Washington Square West. Although housing advocates say the need greatly exceeds the supply, the
existing units have prevented the displacement of at least some longtime residents of modest means.
Empowering residents, old and new

City officials and others would like to do more to make longtime residents feel more welcome in gentrified
areas. In 2007, the Francisville Neighborhood Development Corp., which serves a changing North Philadelphia
community, gathered public comment to create a plan promoting greater economic diversity in the neighborhood.
Implementation has involved ongoing outreach and programming work to convince people of all incomes that
sharing a neighborhood with one another is mutually beneficial.
Another approach is to enhance the ability of individuals and local civic groups to actively shape change
in their communities through funding or training. Philadelphia’s Citizens Planning Institute, the education
42
and outreach arm of the City Planning Commission, has launched Neighbors Helping Neighbors, a program
designed to encourage new and long-term residents to solve problems together by educating them about how
they can influence development and investment decisions and make themselves feel more in control of their
neighborhoods’ futures.
Strategies in development or under discussion

In Philadelphia, a range of new strategies to address issues related to gentrification and other types of change is
under discussion. Advocates say the city needs a strategy to guarantee some amount of affordable housing in
neighborhoods that are receiving large amounts of private investment. They see the nascent Philadelphia Land
Bank, created by City Council in 2013, as a means to that end. Land banks are governmental entities tasked with
making vacant and blighted properties available for sale or lease to return them to productive use.
The strategic plan for the Philadelphia Land Bank calls for transferring publicly owned parcels in changing
neighborhoods to community development corporations and other builders of subsidized housing to “preserve
and enhance affordability.” Some developers and housing advocates say, however, that it makes little sense to
provide affordable units in these areas when units can be developed less expensively elsewhere; they say that
the proceeds from selling city properties in desirable neighborhoods at high prices could be used to finance
development in struggling areas. In addition, much of the funding for affordable housing in Philadelphia and
elsewhere comes from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, which has not favored
investment in gentrifying neighborhoods. Rather, it has encouraged development in low-income census tracts and
helping low-income households move to mixed-income tracts.
Philadelphia is also in the early stages of a plan devised by City Council President Darrell Clarke to use existing
local, state, and federal revenue sources to build 2,000 new homes, half of them rentals, for households earning
between 80 and 120 percent of area median income.
An option favored by some housing experts is to adjust the city’s little-used inclusionary zoning incentives,
which are intended to induce builders of market-rate housing to incorporate affordable units into their projects.
Philadelphia’s program permits developers to build more units on a parcel than would otherwise be allowed if
they commit to keeping a certain number of units affordable for 15 years. In other cities, inclusionary zoning has
produced more units through richer incentives, such as greater height allowances, or tougher mandates, such as
requiring developers of buildings over a certain size to subsidize units or contribute to an affordable housing fund.
Additional strategies proposed for managing gentrification in Philadelphia include ending the property tax
abatement in certain areas in order to lessen development pressure and instituting a “flip tax” on owners who sell
properties less than two years after purchase—based on the theory that such behavior encourages rapid price
appreciation—and using the proceeds to help fund affordable housing programs.
Another approach is to focus on retaining existing affordable housing, which the National Housing Trust and
other organizations have concluded is more cost-effective than building new units. Advocates also see such
efforts as essential in neighborhoods that have experienced income declines, which are far more widespread
than gentrified areas in Philadelphia.24 An advocacy coalition called the Healthy Rowhouse Project sees
improving housing stock as helping low-income homeowners in gentrifying neighborhoods resist the pressure
to sell when their homes fall into disrepair, and preventing property abandonment and homelessness in areas
where increasing levels of poverty and continued disinvestment are a bigger concern. The coalition has called
for an expansion of the Office of Housing and Community Development’s Basic Systems Repair Program and
announced a new effort in December 2015 to raise $50 million to fund major repairs for 5,000 homes.
43
Conclusion
Although public policy can have some impact on how—and how quickly—neighborhoods change, the forces
of the marketplace are largely outside the control of government, especially at the local level. Those forces
have been working in favor of gentrification in certain parts of Philadelphia, particularly in areas within a few
miles of Center City. How widespread the phenomenon and other forms of neighborhood change become in
the years ahead remains to be seen, particularly in areas more distant from downtown in a city where far more
neighborhoods have been losing ground than gaining economically. Neighborhood characteristics—such as
homeownership rates, the amount of vacant and investor-owned property, and demographic makeup—are likely
to influence whether the changes are rapid and stark, or slower and more comfortable. And the actions and
perspectives of neighborhood residents, new and old, will also affect who feels at home in these areas and for
how long.
For additional exploration of gentrification and neighborhood change in Philadelphia, including supplemental
analyses and perspectives of city residents featured in this report, please visit: www.pewtrusts.org/
PhillyGentrification
44
Endnotes
1 U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey, five-year estimates, 2010-14, http://factfinder.census.gov/faces/nav/jsf/pages/index.
xhtml.
2 It is important to note that all data from the American Community Survey are based on estimates and not on counts, as in the decennial
census. Margins of error vary by tract and topic. In this report, we accounted for margins of error in our determination of which tracts
gentrified, but the figures and calculations of the scope of change referenced throughout are based on the estimates alone.
3 To account for changing census tract boundaries, this report used Brown University’s Longitudinal Tract Database, which estimates values
for standardized tracts. Data are available at http://www.s4.brown.ed u/us2010/Researcher/LTDB.htm.
4 U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, public housing eligibility guidelines, http://portal.hud.gov/hudportal/HUD?src=/
topics/rental_assistance/phprog.
5 All 2000 income numbers are adjusted for inflation to 2014 dollar values. Of 372 residential tracts, 267 had median incomes in 2000
below $53,992 in inflation-adjusted dollars. Of those, 24 tracts experienced 10 percent increases in median income from 2000 to 2014
that were statistically significant. Only 15 of the 24 had median incomes higher than the citywide figure in 2014.
6 The Philadelphia regional median income was $62,169 in 2014.
7 Some definitions of gentrification recently used by other researchers include: tracts with median household income below the citywide
median in the beginning of the study period and a percentage increase in median gross rent or home value above the citywide median
increase, and an above-citywide median increase in share of college-educated residents—Lei Ding, Jackelyn Hwang, and Eileen Divringi,
Gentrification and Residential Mobility in Philadelphia (Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, 2015); tracts that moved up at least two deciles
when a region’s tracts were sorted into 10 deciles by income—John D. Landis, “Tracking and Explaining Neighborhood Socioeconomic
Change in U.S. Metropolitan Areas Between 1990 and 2010,” Housing Policy Debate 25, no. 1 (2015): 1–51; tracts in the bottom 40th
percentile by ratio of the average household income in the tract to the metropolitan area average income that experienced a positive gain
in the relative income ratio over time—Ingrid Gould Ellen and Katherine M. O’Regan, “Gentrification and Low Income Neighborhoods:
Entry, Exit, and Enhancement,” Regional Science and Urban Economics 41, no. 2 (March 2011): 89–97, http://journalistsresource.org/
studies/government/municipal/low-income-neighborhoods-gentrification-entry-exit-enhancement#sthash.Ye5KxVNA.dpuf; tracts in the
bottom quarter of a region by income with an increase of at least $10,000 in median income—Terra McKinnish, Randall Walsh, and Kirk
White, Who Gentrifies Low-Income Neighborhoods? (National Bureau of Economic Research, 2008).
8 For purposes of this report, Center City Philadelphia is defined by the traditional boundaries of Vine Street on the north, South Street on
the south, the Delaware River to the east, and the Schuylkill River to the west.
9 To calculate the index, Reinvestment Fund tracks changing residential sales prices in an area over time in relation to the inflation-adjusted
median income of area residents at the starting point, the year 2000 in this case. The citywide values are then subtracted to remove the
influence of broader trends, resulting in index values for some tracts that were less than zero. In real estate economics, there is a rule of
thumb that buyers can afford homes priced at 2.5 to three times their annual incomes.
10 Reinvestment Fund analysis used sale price data from the Philadelphia Board of Revision of Taxes and Office of Property Assessment and
aggregated values into two-year periods beginning with 2000-01 and ending with 2013-14 to create larger sample sizes. Income data
were obtained from the U.S. Census.
11 From analysis conducted by Reinvestment Fund, which aggregated sales prices in each tract by two-year periods to increase sample sizes.
12 Reinvestment Fund analysis of Board of Revision of Taxes and Office of Property Assessment data.
13 Ira Goldstein, Subprime Lending, Mortgage Foreclosures and Race: How Far Have We Come and How Far Have We to Go? (Philadelphia:
Reinvestment Fund, 2015), https://www.reinvestment.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Subprime_Mortgage_Foreclosure_and_Race-
Paper_2008.pdf.
14 There are 1,477 tracts in the metropolitan area, and African-Americans make up at least 1 percent of the population in 908 of them.
15 Year 2000 income data adjusted for inflation.
16 Year 2000 sale price from Philadelphia Board of Revision of Taxes.
17 This analysis uses the American Community Survey estimate for the non-Hispanic black population in 2010-14.
18 Vernon Clark, “New Temple Student Housing Stirs a Renaissance West of Broad Street,” The Philadelphia Inquirer, Oct. 15, 2010, http://
articles.philly.com/2010-10-15/news/24983050_1_student-housing-main-campus-foreign-students.
45
19 This compares median household income in 1999, as reported in the 2000 decennial census, with income estimated by the ACS 2010-14
five-year estimates.
20 John Landis, “Tracking and Explaining Neighborhood Socio-economic Change in U.S. Metropolitan Areas Between 1990 and 2010,”
Housing Policy Debate 25, no. 1 (2015): 1–51.
21 The four states are California, Maryland, New Jersey, and New York.
22 Kevin Gillen, “Philadelphia’s 10-Year Property Tax Abatement,” presentation at BIA Housing Conference, April 2013, http://www.
biaofphiladelphia.com/ufiles/abatement_report.pdf.
23 More information about the Actual Value Initiative and programs for taxpayers are available in previous reports released by Pew’s
Philadelphia research initiative: The Actual Value Initiative: Overhauling Property Taxes in Philadelphia (2012) and Philadelphia’s Progress on Its
Property Tax Overhaul: The Actual Value Initiative (2015).
24 National Housing Trust, “Affordable Housing Preservation FAQs,” accessed Oct. 16, 2015, http://www.nhtinc.org/preservation_faq.php.
46
47
pewtrusts.org PhiladelphiaWashington

Philadelphias Changing Neighborhoods

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Philadelphias Changing Neighborhoods

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Description:

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Philadelphias Changing Neighborhoods

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

A report from May 2016

9 Types of neighborhoods that gentrified in Philadelphia

33 Other types of neighborhood change

40 Shaping neighborhood change through public policy

About the Philadelphia research initiative

Contact: Elizabeth Lowe, officer, communications

Other important findings about gentrification include the following:

Northern Liberties, 2003 and 2016.

Change in median household income* $31,098 $32,803 $14,363 $15,824 -$6,199

Population growth 18% 57% 6% 10% 2%

Percentage point change in white

Percentage point change in

Percentage point change in residents

Percentage of housing units built

Average affordability index value,

* 2000 figures adjusted to 2014 dollars for calculation.

Economic Forces That Spur Gentrification

A Note About Neighborhood Names

• Predominantly working-class African-American neighborhoods, three tracts, in Graduate Hospital, south of

• Old industrial areas, two tracts, just north of Center City.

• Mixed-income, mostly white neighborhoods, six tracts, largely in South Philadelphia.

• Center City and adjacent areas, four tracts.

Predominantly working-class African-American neighborhoods

Graduate Hospital, 2006 and 2016.

© 2016 The Pew Charitable Trusts

Median household Median household Percentage

13 Graduate Hospital West $34,801 $73,472 111%

14 Upper Graduate Hospital $38,194 $62,475 64%

19 Lower Graduate Hospital $30,908 $61,250 98%

Graduate Hospital West Upper Graduate Hospital Lower Graduate Hospital

© 2016 The Pew Charitable Trusts

Lower Graduate Hospital 7.38

Passyunk Square 2.33

Affordability index value change

Source: Reinvestment Fund, 2015

Graduate Hospital West, 2010-14 Upper Graduate Hospital, 2010-14

Continued on next page

the target audience of new businesses.

Institutions in a Changing Neighborhood

* Interview with the Rev. Edward Sparkman, Oct. 1, 2014.

Northern Liberties, 2004 and 2016.

© 2016 The Pew Charitable Trusts

Median household Median household Percentage

142 Upper Northern Liberties $43,824 $80,154 83%

367 Lower Northern Liberties $53,809 $83,086 54%

0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40%

Upper Northern Liberties, 2000 Upper Northern Liberties, 2010-14

White African-American Asian HispanicWhite Other African-American Asian Hispanic Other

Lower Northern Liberties, 2000 Lower Northern Liberties, 2010-14

White African-American Asian Hispanic Other

Artists in Northern Liberties

Mixed-income, mostly white neighborhoods

ve. Front St.

© 2016 The Pew Charitable Trusts

Median household Median household Percentage

27.02 Pennsport $33,725 $61,366 82%

28.02 Passyunk Crossing $32,318 $49,635 54%

29 Passyunk Square $37,976 $50,813 34%

39.02 Marconi Plaza $51,790 $59,625 15%