Along with other ideas that have lost appeal in America, one is the notion that powerful government agencies should master-plan large swaths of cities. While such agencies still play roles in specific redevelopments, they seldom imitate the social engineering found, say, during post-War II “urban renewal.” But this has not stopped the Philadelphia Housing Authority from pursuing a mass eminent domain scheme that will revisit these past mistakes.
On June 18th, city council voted overwhelmingly to allow the Philadelphia Housing Authority to redevelop Sharswood, a blighted neighborhood north of downtown. The area is defined by a large, crime-ridden public housing complex called the Norman Blumberg Apartments, a rundown retail strip along Ridge Avenue, and hundreds of abandoned homes.
To combat the blight, the PHA will expand control over a six-by-four-block area, using redevelopment strategies that have become popular elsewhere. It will tear down the public housing and replace it with mixed-income units, and rehab lots in disrepair. But a closer look at additional measures suggests that, like past ones in Philadelphia, the plan will come rife with waste, abuse and incompetence.
Primarily, PHA will confiscate 1,330 properties through eminent domain, amounting to a massive land coup. About 500 of these are already owned by the city, including the public housing. But another 800 are privately owned, and while some have been seized because of abandonment and tax delinquency, others accommodate functional households and businesses. Among those properties are two well-maintained row-homes owned by lifelong Sharswood resident Mike Scott, and a nail salon that has been open for 20 years. Although owners will supposedly get fair market value for their properties, they still must find new neighborhoods and customer bases.
Another problem is that the plan, rather than adding to city coffers, as private developments do, will be a net cost to heavily-indebted Philadelphia (not to mention U.S. taxpayers). The city already received a Choice Neighborhood Grant from HUD, which went towards conducting "studies" in Sharswood. Phase I will include the construction of 57 affordable rental units for $21 million, or $368,000 per unit—an astounding cost for low-income housing. In total, the plan will have 10 phases that include housing, retail, and a new PHA headquarters. This will cost $500 million, and because much of the land is publicly owned, will generate little property tax revenue.
The third problem is that the plan will further concentrate poverty. One widely-accepted notion amongst planners today is that poverty should be diffused, since this improves the poor's mainstream social integration. That is why public housing that gets demolished is replaced with mixed-income projects, where typically no more than 30% of units are affordable. But in Sharswood, about two-thirds of the proposed 1,200 units will be affordable, and many will cater to renters. This means that, even after demolishing the Blumberg apartments, the area will have even more poor people.
This concentration of poverty, moreover, will likely hinder what appears to be Sharswood’s organic revitalization—which is the fourth problem. Recently, several surrounding neighborhoods—namely Brewerytown—have improved because of downtown growth and the students from nearby Girard College. PHA officials have expressed a desire to include Sharswood in this revitalization. A sensible strategy would have been for them to demolish the public housing, which has long stigmatized the area, while letting the private property owners remain and serve as business catalysts. But PHA is contradicting these goals by booting out the owners to bring in more renters. And as Philadelphia Magazine noted, by confiscating homes just prior to neighborhood improvement, the PHA is robbing owners of a valuable asset, including many African-American owners who have endured the neighborhood’s rough times, and were hoping to finally cash in.
But the worst thing about the plan is that it’s being overseen by the very agency that blighted the area. For decades, the PHA, like so many other top-down urban development bureaucracies, has been notorious for waste, corruption, mismanagement, and for delivering poorly-run, substandard complexes that degrade their surroundings. By 2011, the agency had grown so incompetent that HUD temporarily took it over.
The widespread opinion around Sharswood is that the area began decaying in 1969, when the Norman Blumberg homes were built, and has worsened as the city took ownership of more and more lots, leaving them unplowed and trash-filled. This has caused residents to quip that the Philadelphia government itself is “the worst landlord in the city,” and these points have been emphasized by local activist Adam Lang. Lang lives with his wife in Sharswood, where they own a home, and also own several adjacent lots (which the PHA seized). Ever since receiving an eminent domain notification in January, he has been speaking and blogging about the irony of the city wanting to expand its neighborhood footprint:
I will not deny the neighborhood is blighted. It is. It is filled with many vacant lots, sealed buildings and regular homes that need repair, but it is very important to discuss where the blight is coming from. Of the 1300 properties, about 500 are coming from the City of Philadelphia [and several hundred more from the PHA]…What is the logic in giving the people who are the main factors in the blight, even more power and authority over the neighborhood?
In fact, it is not until listing all these flaws that the plan’s overall rottenness becomes evident—Philadelphia will spend $500 million in taxpayer money, confiscate hundreds of private properties, and overhaul a business community; will further concentrate poverty in an already-poor area that was primed for revitalization; and will empower a mismanaged agency by granting it more land, housing, and even a new headquarters. But if Philadelphians want assurance, they should merely listen to PHA president Kelvin Jeremiah.
"We have not always been a good landlord. We have not always been a good partner,” he told a local news service. “That’s the old PHA. That's not the new PHA.”
Perhaps residents will have to reserve their judgment until all 10 phases are complete. But if they wish to make an informed prediction, they only need to look at similar planning failures from years past.
