Quote:
Originally Posted by PHL10
Thanks Cro. That’s my biggest aggravation with those MLK Homes. If that was a private development, how much would each unit have to sell for the developer to get the same return if he built them at twice the density? One million per unit? It’s nuts. That shit is ok in Packer Park or Andorra or the far Northeast. Not in Center City.
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I think alot of this really backward thinking has to with the fact (and this is a FACT that I know from long work experience with such people) that, at least until a decade ago, the "economic and community development" people who worked and helped shape "development" policy for the City were predominantly (no, not exclusively, but predominantly) people who lived in places like Andorra, East Mt. Airy, the Far NE . . . and only lived there (vs. Cheltenham, Delco or Gloucester or Lower Bucks) because of the City's residency requirement. These were/are predominantly people (black or white but little else), who believed in the late post war suburban dream of big driveways and lawns.
That's fine for them, I guess, personally. But the mistakes, from a policy perspective, are:
a) the delusion that installing the superficial physical trappings of the burbs will somehow help transform the dysfunction of impoverished inner city neighborhoods into a communities emulating idyllic suburban middle class mores;
b) the tract housing they developed is ugly and produces starkly underpopulated, still-impoverished low-density neighborhoods. The emptiness does nothing to alleviate crime, and the lack of density means it is more challenging to cost effectively establish needed retail/commercial and social service amenities;
c) it wastes the opportunity of ample public transit to serve dense populations; and
d) did I mention it is hideous (oh, I did) and totally incongruous in appearance with the adjacent relatively dense neighborhoods.
Dumb dumb dumb dumb. So infuriatingly dumb. Just looking at that photo makes me want to hit somebody.
