I agree with you, Zur.

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Many a woman has a past, but I am told she has at least a dozen, and that they all fit. - Oscar Wilde

Thanks Amy

I'm a litle touchy about Northwood and Summerdale.

I grew up there. My whole life all my friends and all thier families left before 2000.

before it was over we'd lost one to gunfire...two to stabbings...and the robberies and car thefts and aluminum thefts (drain pipes and furniture) and the creep of "trash" up the Blvd. (In 95 they were beautiful single homes north of Summerdale on the Blvd..on the Summerdale side...now the trash parks in their front yards)

Amy...if I tell you Northwood has problems it's because I don't want someone else to go through it too.

You are living in a great looking section with some sreious issues outside of it's control (ie Frankford, Summerdale, and the very obvious and dramatic decline of the lower NE)

Sometimes all the hope in the world can't overcome time. (as in age of that area)

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I think #1 cops need to really be on top of the quality of life issues. In the N.E. we still have a small but fighting chance. I know in the neighborhood I grew up in the cops were told to leave the Puerto Ricans alone. Don't hassle them, don't ticket them. So the cops didn't and guess what, it's an uphill battle now. The supervisors want the quality of life arrests but the cops are spinning their wheels. That fight is over, the neighborhood is a toilet.
Up here in the N.E. is more was focused on Q.O.L. issues I think it would help a lot. I live in the 7th district and I see all kinds of things happening that didn't happen a few years ago, you call the cops and they just cruise on by... nothing. I have to wonder, are the higher up telling these cops to ignore the influx of Russians and Indians? I don't just see this happening here in my area, I see it all over. Have you noticed all the people selling water, flowers, etc on the Blvd? Years ago a cop would pull over and ask for your license, now you don't even get so much as a 2nd glance.
It's heartbreaking to see what is happening to this city. I always thought I would raise my children here. With the downward slide I can see me moving on.

So what's your beef with the Russians and the Indians? The Russians have been up in that area for 15-20 years now. The Indians aren't terribly new arrivals either. And I always remember people selling flowers and things on the Boulevard, for years. A quality of life issue is something like trash dumping and people dropping trou and using public areas as personal restrooms, among other things. I don't understand.

Indians typically don't "ghettoize" into a tight-knit community like other immigrant groups do. I think they've been in the US even before Partition (same with Pakistanis).

They are much more bold. They spread out, far and wide, even families choose to live isolated away from other Indian communities. I'm assuming that has a lot to do with knowing British Colonial English and already having a general knowledge of American customs makes it easy to live here, just like if you uprooted yourself from PA and moved to New Delhi--you'd really wouldn't have much of a problem except figuring out how to deal with rupees and driving like a maniac.

I had several Indian families in the rural town I grew up in. One family lived nearby. The kids went to University of Texas. Mom and pop stayed put, ran a couple of Main St. businesses that did very well. Retired there. They did all happen to be from the same region of India (your surname determines which part of the country you came from... in this case, it was Patel). The youngest of the kids I knew had a really thick Texas drawl. Imagine that.

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WHYY pays their CEO $750,000 a year. So WHYY should I renew my membership? Seems they have no problems finding money and spending it unwisely.


And this is why you should donate to PACCA, not PETA:

In September, PETA made headlines in Vermont and across the nation for asking Ben & Jerry's ice cream to use human breast milk in their ice cream, instead of cow milk

Patel, the "Smith" of the Indian telephone books!

Your argument runs up against the resurgence of Fairmount. Another neighborhood with an aging population and aging housing stock which is on the upswing. Why? Because the people have priced out the undesirable element and have demanded police presence.

Wrong, Fairmount had its own time in the craphole before its current resurgence, while the NE was very livable. The NE for the most part, except for the lower fringe areas, still remains very livable. What gets me is that some people haven't learned any lessons from other areas of the
City. This decline could be managed and NOT turn into a full-fledged sh**hole for years before someone gets the bright idea that there is something worth looking into up there.

Was never an out and out shithole. But your point about reversing the trend is well said. The only problem is that there is no money in it for anyone if there is no churn. Just like they say in politics, follow the money. You don't think the resurgence of North Philly isn't part of a bigger plan you don't know history.

NE Philly doesn't have an inordinate number of Housing Choice properties (see www.pha.phila.gov/web_files/HousingChoice.pdf)

Most of the complaints that come in about "the Section 8 house down the street from me..." aren't really Section 8 houses at all.

Philadelphia is full of Peter Pan Housing - housing for people that never grow old. You've got living area and kitchen on first floor, bed and bath on second floor, laundry in basement (if you're lucky enough to have it in your house). As people age and grow more frail, they can't stay in these houses. And if they do, the cost of upkeep on a typical Philly house is way outside their budget and the house falls into disrepair. When old-time residents move out because they can no longer live in or take care of their home, a sense of community is lost. I say this as a "new" resident of my neighborhood. You can see the difference between my block where most of the houses are still owned by the people who have lived there for 30+ years and the blocks about 1/4 mile away where the houses have all turned over in the last 5 years. Sometimes it works to the neighborhood's advantage..."new" buyers can maintain and improve properties more easily than "old" residents.

The problem isn't that all of the properties are going Section 8 and "they" are moving in and destroying the neighborhood. I think (and it has been discussed here as far as Russians and Indians are concerned) that people of a different ethnicity are moving in and their lifestyles don't conform to the way the neighborhood has been until now.

I'm from the lower NE (Frankford, to be exact) and though I haven't lived there since I moved to go to college, I am a homeowner in this city. I've lived in many parts of it and see this everywhere I go. Someone "different" comes in and immediately all of the problems get blamed on them.