Gentrification Fieldwork

For my gentrification fieldwork I have decided to concentrate on East Kensington. Presently I am an intern at the New Kensington CDC in the Economic Development office. Going to school and learning about the potential displacement that occurs as a result of gentrification and working at a CDC whose job it is to bring “development” and capital back into working class neighborhoods is interesting. A question I often ask myself is, can economic development and gentrification be mutually exclusive? My fieldwork reveals that the East Kensington section of Philadelphia is an area in transition, an area the process of being gentrified.

I began my walk at the CDC which is located at 2521 Frankford Ave. I made a right on to E. Cumberland St. As I walk down Cumberland I notice large disparities between the conditions of many of the houses. There are City sealed shells next to homes with completely new windows, a new door and cleaned and refurbished brick work. Building condition consistence seems to be a good way to determine whether or not an area is undergoing gentrification. In East Kensington there is no consistency but the increasing appearance of refurbished homes reveals that a change is going.

I took a left as I reached Coral street. On Coral and E. Hagert St I encountered a local bar. The bar seemed to be geared towards a Latino audience because the sign above the door had the Puerto Rican flag on it. After the bar I finally reached the Coral Street Arts house which is a project that was accomplished by the New Kensington CDC. The Coral Street Arts House offers low income arts affordable apartment and studio space. The picture to the right was taken from a vacant lot adjacent to the arts house. Can artists be considered Urban pioneers? Like the Kardon building in my previous entry about Temple, the Coral Street Arts house is a renovated industrial building. The building’s brick work is so new looking that the building really stands out from the rest of the neighborhood. It seems almost as though this building and all the new fence work and pavement was airlifted into this spot. The building seems to represent the impeding gentrification of East Kensington. I asked a local resident who was passing by me taking a picture of the Arts House how he felt about it he replied, “I’m not to sure exactly what goes on in the Arts house but I know its construction has contributed to a rise in my property value.” While this is a good thing for a homeowner in East Kensington, it certainly is a bad thing for a renter who will almost certainly experience rent increases.

Continuing further down Coral St, I encountered urban juxtaposition. A closed and boarded up row of two houses, right next to a brick building that was being completely gutted and refurbished by a team of at least 8 men. Again this structural inconsistency is an indication that gentrification is actually taking place. Where will people who can longer afford to live in East Kensington?
The final significant thing I encountered during my walk along Coral St. was very close to Coral and Front St. The reason noticed this thing was for 2 reasons, the first was because it was barking at me quite ferociously and the second was because of a conversation I had had with my boss at NKCDC a few days earlier. My boss told me that one indication that gentrification is underway is the way people use dogs and the kind of dogs they own. She claimed that in the later stages of gentrification small dogs are usually pets that live in the house and are walked once a day. In neighborhoods that are still in the early stages of gentrification or ungentrified working class neighborhoods, dogs are usually large, live outside and their primary function is for protection and not pet pleasure. What can one do in the early stages of Gentrification to make sure that too many people are not displaced?