WEDNESDAY FILMS IN CLARK PARK
> Near 45th & Regent (between Chester & Kingsessing)in Clark Park
>
> Wednesday, June 29, 8 PM or dusk:
>
> "All for the Taking: 21st Century Urban Renewal"
> A Documentary Produced and Directed by George McCollough, Co-produced by
> Joy Butts & Sara Leavitt
>
> All for the Taking is a case study of how an American city struggles to
> redefine itself through urban renewal in the face of a growing global
> economy - an economy that undermines the value of labor, the local
> economy, and the sense of community that was once the core of urban
> America.
>
> On April 18, 2001, the City of Philadelphia announced the arrival of the
> Neighborhood Transformation Initiative (NTI) – the most ambitious urban
> renewal project in its history. With a projected budget of $1.6 billion
> over five years, NTI is designed to reverse a 50-year pattern of
> population decline, brought about in-part by the City's first wave of
> urban renewal. Through "eminent domain," a process that gives a government
> the right to acquire private property for public use, the City has
> authorized the seizure of thousands of homes, to create a massive land
> bank to entice private developers to rebuild some of its most historic
> neighborhoods. Using the vaguely defined public purpose of eminent domain
> developers across the country have convinced governments to seize land
> that they desire. Governments are gladly using their authority with the
> hope of generating greater tax revenues. This has lead to a nationwide
> epidemic of eminent domain abuse to occur.
>
> Overlooked in the process of urban renewal are lifelong community
> residents who are often elderly, poor and of color. These residents are
> unaware of their rights and have become confused and scared of the forces
> that are changing their neighborhoods and disrupting their lives.
>
> This film documents the personal stories of residents impacted by
> Philadelphia's urban renewal program and of housing activists fighting
> eminent domain abuse. Also feat! ured in the film are Mindy Fullilove, MD
> Professor of Clinical Psychiatry and Clinical Public Health, Columbia
> University and author of "Root Shock: How Tearing Up City Neighborhoods
> Hurts America and What We Can Do About It" and Scott Bullock, senior
> attorney who litigates property rights and free speech cases for the
> Institute for Justice in Washington D.C.
>
> 58 minutes

One could hardly think of a more timely topic for a locally focused documentary film. On a side note the film maker is a West Philly resident and was the former director over at Drexexl's DUTV which has experienced a serious downgrade in the quality and diversity of programming there since he left.

(bump) ahem. Certain recent Supreme Court decisions make this film an even more interesting view. Hope to see some folks there.

Ill be there.

I went there. Several of the "stars" of the movie were there including Al Alston of AABRA himself, who in person in that setting (racially diverse politcaly progressive crowd in Clark Park not Girard Ave.) came across as a quite reasonable. He's younger than I expected him to be.

Good movie. Follows one woman's struggle with having her home taken by eminant domain to make way for the new Lucien Blackwell Homes I believe.

Boy does it pay to put up a fight. In the film they have the first guy offer her $20K for her house and $20K for relocation (on camera) in the end she got them to give her $79K and is still fighting for better compensation for her furniture which was broken by movers the city hired to move all her possesions. Her neighbors often took the first offer from the city sadly. Its simply amazing how elastic the "Fair Market Value" you get from the city for eminant domain seizures depending on how much you educate yourself about the law and how much you are willing to go to hearings and meetings and fight.

Also featured the fight in Ardmore to take businesses in the historic downtown to redevelop and give to a snigle developer because as one township council person said straightforwardly "its easier to control a single owner than 200 individual business owners". Ther were some funny bits with local business owners (who eventually lost their properties) joking about how thier block could possibly have been designated "blighted".

I thought the movie was somewhat bad. Yes, I sympathize with what the residents in the movie went through (I've heard other stories about peope getting bills for the demolition of their homes). However, this movie was completely one-sided. I also thought that the story was all over the place...there was no structure. The film offered no legitamite solutions to the problem...do we just let the city rot? All he did was criticize the fact the city is taking away people's homes and giving them to "greedy" developers who build homes for the wealthy. Not once in the film, was it mentioned that the biggest developer in the Philly is the PHA (um...affordable housing). I thought Westrum was unfairly single out. They're building some of the most affordable market-rate housing in the city. Why not attack the builders in CC who are building $500K+ homes?

IMO, NTI is a program that the city desparately needs. If we do nothing, the city is just going to continue to rot. However, many people are losing their homes through NTI. This is a REAL problem. The film does not address the obvious root of this problem: Government mismanagement and incompetence.

I agree with you that it very one sided in its delivery. I think that city needs some of coordinated plan to do what NTI said it was going to do - i.e. provide a carefully coordinated, targeted program to build new infill and hopefully encourage rehabilitation in the nieghborhoods. That is not what has happened under NTI and I think 10 years down the line that will be clear. Just because most of the NTI eminant domains got turned over to "non-profit" developers does not make them angels.

Essentially a lot of the churches and CDC's that NTI hands over the properties to are in many cases political rewards to connected "players" and the actual work of demolition and construction gets handed off to for-profit connected contractors. The CDC makes a profit on the "market rate" components of the construction keeping its funding for its professional staff members full and their is no accountability to the neighborhood or even the mayor's office or a central planning bureau. The designation of an area as "blighted" is completely driven to how connected you are to your areas councilperson and has nothing to do with targeting it to the areas tht are actually in the most need of help.

I went to an RDA meeting and it was all about various district council person lining up to get their share of the big NTI bond funds to give eminant domain and demoltion funds to favorite groups and churchs, regardles of whether those groups had sound plans for what they were going to do post demolition or not. In practice NTI has been a joke and a wash of poor implementation and abuse of eminant domain.

Look at the redevelopment of 51st and Baltimore thread. On our block NTI funds are being used to clear historic buildings that had all sold to businesses and investors who all had plans to use their own money to rehab those buildings and start businesses. The CDC in charge of the demolition, Baltimore Ave. Redevelopment Corp., is headed by a very powerful figure in the Balck Clergy who except for that fact that he retired from a nearby church (where most of the parishoners are not from the immediate neighborhood) has no relationship to the immediate neighborhood. The CDC has made no effort to communicate at any level to the business owners on the block or the neighborhood civic association - why - because they don't need to - they tell Janey what they want and she gives it to them. Their plan for what they want to build with this freee land that is being given to them and cleared with our tax dollars changes everytime you talk to them and believe me they (and the council persons office) dodege phone calls - its senior housing, no its a charter school (that already has a larger location) not its a community center. The truth is what they build doesn't matter to them, they just want to give out the jobs that come with whatever half-baked verison of a social services center they can come up with and the prestige of putting their name on the building.

At the Redevelopment Meeting BARC said there was no way they could progress without getting all of the land given to them including Keith Brown's auto shop. Now that Jannie Blackwell's assistant has toured Keith Brown's shop and relaized that he was going to fight the eminant domain tooth and nail in court, suddenly the archtietural plans magically change and they don't "need" his property.

All I can judge by is what I have seen mysel,f and on my own block NTI funds have been used to knock down historic buildings that were already on their way to being rehabbed and fixed up by market forces torn down with my tax dollars and given to a poltically connected CDC who couldn't even be bothered to investigate how many businesses have opened in the last two years in their "redevelopemtn zone" which isonly one block long.

How is that good urban policy - knocking down 3 story 100-yrold buildings that are on the verge of being rehabbed by private investors to put up two story cinder block "social service centers" and parking lots for the politically connected (but with no connection to the immediate neighborhood) with tax dollars - on one the city's main transit thoroughfairs, no less?

I'm all ears - I really am.

The city does not desperatly need NTI nor will it continue to rot. NTI doe snot addres the core issues of why areas of the city have become so blighted to begin with. like Safe Streets, it has spent a lot of money with little to show for it. Anyone who thought there would be no gov't incompetence or mismgt in the program is a damn fool.

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Good points Sean. You'd figure that something as comprehensive and full of potential as the NTI would be base on the principles of sound urban planning. But no, instead it's based on a foundation of political and economic gain (just like everything else in this city). This made me think of a conversation I had yesterday. My buddy from school was talking to someone in the commerce director's office (maybe the acutal commerce director?) and saying how penn graduated 80+ city planners this year, of which him and I are included. About 50-60% wanted to stay and work in Philly. And most of these people aren't from the Philly area. Off the top of my head, I can think of 2 that actually got a job in the city. It's a friggin disgrace! The city talks about retaining graduates, but they can't even employ them in fields that sorely need workers. She was pretty pissed off actually. There is demand for these jobs - HOOK IT UP!

Many nbhds WILL continue to rot. But you're right, many of these problems go way beyond the local level.