"Gentrification Protection" Passed by Philadelphia City Council

No, this is not The Onion. 

When you can no longer parody a society, it has reached a terminal phase. 

After mulling "gentrification relief," the Philadelphia City Council recently passed two bills that have been dubbed the "Gentrification Relief Plan."[So What’s This Thing About Gentrification Relief And What’s Inside It?, Philadelinquency.com, June 25, 2013]. 

An actual screenshot of the front-page of Philly.com on July 17, 2013. As property values soar in one part of Philadelphia, the fear of black crime is replaced with a fear black people might be priced out...

Even in Black-Run America (BRA), calls for denouncing property appraisals as "racist" would be greeted with laughter; without white people and the communities they create (where individuals and businesses can thrive), how would any municipality have a tax-base to pay for the city government and public employees?

You'd be left with a city boasting the conditions of 90 percent black Detroit in 2013. 

Philadelphia, where high rates of black crime has made large sections of the city uninhabitable for law-abiding citizens and an unpleasant prospect for businesses hoping to locate there and be profitable (because black people have no purchasing power and costs for security would erode profit margins), is now enacting "gentrification protection" to protect the very individuals whose collective lifestyle drove down property appraisals in the community to begin with. 

The Philadelphia Daily News has published a sob-story bemoaning the rising property values in one area of Philly that white people are moving into and remaking in their image. You see, the community standards white people are displacing via gentrification were created by black people; property appraisers didn't put a premium on the market value of homes found in this community.

Until whitey came along [Francisville in transition, Philly.com, July 17, 2013]:

 JOHN JACKSON swept the sidewalk outside his house in the late-afternoon sun. A huge American flag hung out front, where a lethargic brown-and-white beagle sat inside a fenced-off driveway and front yard filled with flowering trees and potted plants. Jackson lives on Brown Street near 19th, in what has become the increasingly "hot" real-estate market of Francisville. 

The neighborhood, for years predominantly African-American with some Latinos, has a growing number of newcomers, many of them white and Asian professionals, residents say. Newer three-story houses tower over one-story homes built in the 1980s by the Philadelphia Housing Authority and bought by mostly black teachers, bank employees and government workers. 

"We have been cheated," said Jackson, a parochial-school administrator, who is black. "We are paying the price for investment in this area where everybody who is buying here now will have a 10-year tax abatement, while our property taxes are being tripled." 

"Our own kids will not be able to buy a home in this area, and that's very disturbing." 

The gentrification of the 28-square-block neighborhood has made Francisville a prime example of the tensions and fears of higher property taxes that often accompany change in Philadelphia. 

City Council President Darrell Clarke, whose district includes Francisville, said he wants to ensure that longtime residents aren't forced out by higher taxes. He said a gentrification-relief law signed by Mayor Nutter on June 25 is aimed at helping them. "Why should the people who have lived in these neighborhoods when it wasn't fashionable have to move?" Clarke asked yesterday. 

But Clarke has been a lightning rod for tensions in Francisville. Many developers say they are outraged that he has put a "hold" on the sale of all city-owned properties in the district, including at least 12 in Francisville. 

Clarke said his main concern is to make sure some affordable housing remains in his district. Some newer residents are disappointed that the Francisville neighborhood organization didn't fight the approval of JBJ Soul Homes. 

The $20 million project, funded by musician Jon Bon Jovi for Project H.O.M.E. and People to People Inc., will bring a complex of commercial and residential housing for the homeless to the intersection of Broad Street and Fairmount and Ridge avenues. Penelope Giles, executive director of the Francisville Neighborhood Development Corp., said some newer residents objected to the low-income project at what they considered the gateway to a renewing Ridge Avenue corridor. 

New houses on Uber Street, which stretches north from Fairmount Avenue between 19th and 20th streets, sold for as much as $670,000 in the last five years, city records show. But houses similar to Jackson's sold at prices ranging from $27,000 to $44,000 between 1992 and 2000.

Seeing police and hearing sirens, a sign another murder has happened in a black community is not as evil as gentrification...

The market value of some of those $27,000 homes is now listed between $223,000 and $230,000. A house on Uber Street near Brown, which Arlene Lee bought for $44,900 in 2000, was assessed recently at $335,900. "If they go with the $335,000 figure, my taxes will jump to $4,000, [from $800 last year]," said Lee. N. Philly or Center City? Francisville - bounded by Fairmount Avenue on the south, Girard on the north, Corinthian on the west and Broad Street on the east - is an old Philadelphia neighborhood. Longtime residents say it always has been considered part of North Philly. 

But city Planning Commission documents began branding Francisville as part of Center City in the last couple of years. "If you say North Philly, it has less cachet," said a real-estate developer who asked that his name not be used. "But you can say Fairmount, Francisville and Northern Liberties. A lot of it is a psychological barrier, or cutoff points for white people." 

Alfred "Magic" Whitten, who lives on Uber Street, said the changes have been both good and bad. "We know the city has a problem and needs money, but it's like they're trying to push us out of here," Whitten said. "We're going to have to fight to stay here." Whitten and his wife, Marilyn, live in a former Philadelphia Housing Authority house they bought for $27,000 in 1992. 

Whitten works two jobs to make ends meet. In the daytime, he repairs door and window screens. At night, he works as a janitor. But some of the tensions aren't just about paying higher taxes. Black residents have clashed over the role of Giles, who also is black. Giles and the FNDC board have long pushed for the economic revival of the Ridge Avenue business corridor. 

Giles' rallying cry has been that "economic diversity" is necessary for the corridor to thrive. Last month, Giles poured out her frustrations in an emotional 15-paragraph letter titled "Dear Francisville," urging longtime residents and newcomers to set aside their differences. 

She had not distributed the letter as of yesterday, but shared it with the Daily News. "Can we achieve economic diversity and restore the health and vibrancy of our neighborhood? . . . That's a no-brainer, we damn well better or find ourselves transplanted to another economically segregated community rife with the same deplorable conditions because guess what, change is coming whether we like it or not . . . ," she wrote. 

Giles, 53, grew up in Francisville, lives there today and still has strong ties to what she said was a thriving working-class neighborhood where people shopped on Ridge Avenue. But some black residents say they consider Giles a "traitor." A few have accused her organization of helping "outsiders" buy property without giving longtime residents a chance to buy long-vacant lots. 

"People are angry and they don't understand what they're angry with me about," Giles said in a telephone interview Monday. "My frustration lies in understanding the bigger picture; about how it's the economic segregation that creates all the bad things."

The Visible Black Hand of Economics is one of the few certainties in life.

As white people move into Francisville in Philadelphia, property values soar by an average of 800 percent in a short span of time; in some cases, 2500 percent!

The same homes went for $27,000 - $44,000 when black people were responsible for setting community standards; now, white people are improving the market value by 800 percent.

Property appraisers certainly don't view race as a social construct, for the outward expression of increased or decreased market value in a home is reflected on which racial group is the majority population of the community.

A black individual can be an asset to a community; but collectively, black people are the great liability.

You can rebuild from a natural disaster, but when the natural disaster is the black community and the dysfunction they create, market values of homes plummet.

Replace them with white people, and you get Francisville.

You get Philadelphia in 2013, where "gentrification relief/ protection" has been passed.

None of this was from The Onion.

None.