“Just because of embedded racism,” he said. “That wouldn’t surprise me in the least,” said Goukas, when asked whether white professionals are moving in because East Kensington is a white neighborhood. Since then, he’s watched more and more white couples opt for the block’s modern construction homes. When he first moved there 13 years ago, the street was home to only a handful of residents, a well-known drug house, and a vacant lot that became a murder scene. He says he originally came for a simple reason: He could afford it. Goukas, who is white, owns and has rehabbed multiple properties in the neighborhood, including his own home. Jayme Goukas also said racial dynamics were not the reason why he picked East Kensington. Maybe that’s because these areas have been white…I’m afraid I don’t know.” “I feel our area took off because the developers of Northern Liberties had nowhere to go but north. “Maybe race plays a role, but I’m not sure if that’s something we can quantify, (if that’s the right word),” Blank wrote via email. (Emma Lee/WHYY)ĭoes she think race – white residents moving into a white neighborhood – has contributed to the neighborhood taking off faster than elsewhere?īlank said it wasn’t her motivation, but she struggled to answer that question generally. Since then, the vacant lots surrounding her home have been replaced by new construction. When she bought into the neighborhood 11 years ago, she was able to get a large lot. Jacelyn Blank stands in her backyard in East Kensington. “As if Frankford Avenue were this terrible dividing line between good and bad,” said Blank. Their friends in Fishtown - the gentrified neighborhood next door - thought they were crazy to buy in such a “dangerous” neighborhood, where drug dealing and prostitution were common. “We had no, honest to goodness, no idea what was going to happen to this neighborhood in the next couple years – didn’t even consider the fact that we were buying in a neighborhood that was going to be completely changed,” said Jacelyn Blank, a white teacher who moved to East Kensington with her husband after qualifying for a first-time home-buyer program about a decade ago.Īt the time, the neighborhood was not a place where middle class couples typically moved. A short walk away, people pay to hurl small axes at targets inside an old warehouse. A vacant auto garage is now a trendy bar specializing in fermented foods and sour beers. The area has also attracted a growing number of millennial-friendly businesses. Some properties are being rehabbed, but more are being built from scratch. Walking through the neighborhood, a familiar symphony of backhoes, nail guns, and jackhammers can be heard coming from a steady supply of construction projects. With the epicenter of the city’s hipster culture nearby, the neighborhood has transformed over the last several years.Īnd this has occurred despite the fact that homes abut ground zero of the state’s opioid crisis. Take East Kensington, for instance – a cluster of blocks three miles north of Center City that’s historically been poor and white. What seldom gets reported is that Philadelphia also boasts neighborhoods where those same young, white professionals are moving into low-income, white neighborhoods.Īnd while it may be harder to tell, the data suggests that those white neighborhoods are actually gentrifying faster than the black neighborhoods - a point that further complicates a situation already fraught with racial tensions. In many ways, the changes in Point Breeze symbolize the stereotypical definition of gentrification, with young, white professionals moving into a low-income, African-American neighborhood.Īnd while this dynamic is true - and the frustrations of residents like Bell are real - this isn’t the whole story. “ feel like they’ve been pushed to the side, like they don’t matter.” Then you’ve got new people moving into the new developments who don’t have to pay taxes for five years,” said Bell, an African-American. “Most of the elderly residents are upset because their taxes are sky high. WHYY thanks our sponsors - become a WHYY sponsorīut now that a new wave of more affluent residents and expensive developments have moved in, many are mourning the loss of a neighborhood that they had thought of as theirs.
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