Quote:
Originally Posted by hammersklavier
Keep in mind, though, that the Philadelphia urban market is only so large. Pete Saunders at the Corner Side Yard makes the observation, for example, that Bay Area- or Portland-style YIMBYism is not a solution to the issues cities like Chicago (or Philadelphia) face because Philadelphia and Chicago are still strongly marked by favored and disfavored sides which yields a lot of disparity in housing prices depending on how desirable a given neighborhood is ... That is, as long as houses can be had for cheap in Philadelphia, the focus needs to be reinvestment in existing neighborhoods and existing stock over the densification of the whole city, because solutions which prioritize the densification of the whole city are a response to problems which occur when the whole city has become unaffordable, which assuredly has yet to happen in Philadelphia. The basic argument Saunders makes is that YIMBY-style Build Build Build in enviroments with a significant disparity between favored and disfavored parts of the city will only further concentrate investment in the favored side, to the detriment of the disfavored side (which is an issue Chicago is seeing).
The market continues to exist. By keeping the scale of new construction in check within already-proven neighborhoods it spreads the wealth into more and more neighborhoods. Consider, for example, that Philadelphia is the state's second-largest net recipient of taxpayer funds according to this analysis (yes I am well aware that that analysis fails to take physical infrastructure obligations into account); that will not change until the city's middle class doubles or more in size, and frankly more East Passyunk- or Fishtown-like neighborhoods is also better for growing a middle class than keeping them concentrated in the parts of the city that are already desirable. In this respect Philadelphia is probably ahead of Chicago in getting the most bang for its middle-class buck (as Chicago tends to build larger apartment towers and thereby slow the spread of the middle class into outlying neighborhoods). |
This. All of this.
Sooo much of Philadelphia is....
Empty.
I think just now we're getting to the point where total infill is guaranteed South of Market all the way to the stadiums. But even then, you still have huge swathes of land associated with parking lots and underused shopping centers (ex: Quartermaster Plaza). If our development, especially considering how tepid the job market has been, was concentrated in huge buildings in Center City alone, we wouldn't even have Northern Liberties, or South Kensington, Grays Ferry, etc etc.
It's not as if the new buildings going up are commercial buildings. They're for the most part residential and or hotel related. Mixed use at best. For every new office space that is created, an old one is turned into residential.
Our job market simply isn't strong enough to support the expectation that every 10 floor building be 20, or 20 30, etc.
About 10-15 years ago, the line of demarcation (north of Center City) moved from Spring Garden to Girard. Not even 5 years ago it moved from Girard to Cecil B Moore. Now it feels like it is (already) moving to Lehigh. If anything, the outward pace is quickening...which is not what I expected would happen, but also good. Because the sooner we have critical infill everywhere south of Lehigh, the sooner we'll get even taller buildings in the core.
The NW and West Philly are filling in nicely as well. Germantown is seeing new ground up development for the first time in decades (witness yesterday's CDR itinerary)...when you realize the Germantown Avenue proposal is in GERMANTOWN and not Mt Airy or Chestnut Hill, you realize how far we've come. West Philly north of Baltimore and South of Market will pretty much be stabalized all the way to Cobbs Creek within a few years.
That wasn't imaginable even 5 years ago. Not for me.
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