Final Thoughts...

The major underlying theme of this blog is the effects of wealth inequality in the urban environment. All but the first two blogs, have elements of class struggle in them. Whether it be; poor food options in American inner cities or the displacement of indigenous people in Brazil from their land so that Cargill can plant soybeans or the residents and businesspeople losing Atlantic City to the Casino industry to class bias that erected the border around Temple University to developers and city planners initiating gentrification in working class neighborhoods. These class inequalities manifest themselves in many different and they can seem too overwhelming to address. How can these class inequalities be solved?

Can neighborhood members from the communities surrounding Temple stand up to The University’s front office and the parents of affluent students and demand less cops and more community partnership initiatives that address the reasons for petty economic crime? Can residents of East Kensington take a stand against the rich developers and powerful bureaucrats who continue to gentrify and displace people in working class neighborhoods? Will residents in Atlantic City ever be able to truly benefit from millions of people who visit there city?

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?

Industry Fieldwork

The areas surrounding Temple University’s campus are an example of post-industrial urban landscape. Before the train tracks at 12th and Berks lies Temple University’s campus which is heavily populated by students, staff and visitors during daylight hours. Walking down Berks toward the SEPTA regional rail stop, I was struck by the row of Temple banners down Berks. These banners seem to demarcate places that Temple University approves of. Everything that surrounds the banners is well maintained and always relatively populated including the public housing develop on Berks.

The first sign of industry I encountered was Philadelphia Management’s Kardon Building. The exterior of this building is in excellent condition. It seems as though it had been rehabilitated recently. What purpose did the Kardon Building serve before it was up-scale housing for college students? I don’t think the surrounding community stands to benefit much from the Kardon Building. The only benefit it could bring is perhaps some jobs to the area. What kind of wages does the Kardon Building pay? What is the living wage for some living in North Philadelphia? I wonder what kind of activities took place inside of the Kardon building and what was the relationship of the business to the surrounding communities?

Continuing down Berks I crossed under the train underpass. Past the underpass there are no more Temple banners, curiously this is also where there are many vacant lots and boarded up row home shells. The next sign of industry I encountered was the PWD building which is right after the under pass. The building is not nearly as old as the Kardon Building, however the style seems similar to my high school which would put it’s erection sometime in the 1960s-70s. Like Temple buildings, the PWD is looks like a small fortress with barbed wire fences, security cameras, and scan card entry doors. The building certainly does not add anything to the neighborhood, again except for jobs. How much skill, training and education does one need to work at PWD?

Across from the PWD compound there are a few row homes and vacant lots. The houses do not seem well maintained and the vacant lots are filled with trash and overgrowth. This kind of blight must be an effect of deindustrialization. What is the mean income of people who live behind Temple University? Where do they work? At the time I was at the corner of Berks and N. 9th there did not seem to be any people walking around except some within the PWD compound. This whole scene contrasts Temple’s campus which is just 2 blocks away. Temple’s campus is well-maintained and heavily populated. This area looks like its maybe even in another country. I am curious as to how the existence of the Kardon building has affected rent prices in this part of the city.

As I turned the corner onto N. 9th St. and then took a right onto Montgomery St. (heading back to Temple’s campus) I noticed an old Train track which pushed right up against the back of the Kardon building. This piqued my interest even more as to what purpose the Kardon building served when it was actually a functioning warehouse, factory or mill. These tracks like the Kardon building can no longer carry out their intended purpose. It seems that in the post-industrial city there are two options for obsolete structures, like Kardon turn them into housing or entertainment facilities for affluent people or let them rot like the train tracks.

Securing Temple's Ivory (Bell) Tower

When Matt Davis spoke to our class he talked a great deal about the importance of community partnerships. He discussed a future community center project that would be shared by both the students of Temple University and members from the surrounding community. He also discussed the possibility of mixed housing. While I believe these are some of the most important initiatives that Temple University should undertake, these ideas are not conceivable considering the current state of Temple’s main campus. In fact it seems Temple does everything in its power to “protect” the “students, employees, and visitors” from the surrounding neighborhoods.1 Temple officials have fabricated a border around the university using armed “professional law enforcement officers,” “a security division,” “state-of-the-art communications system,” and “an extensive lighting system.”2 Temple claims the purpose of this fortification is to “prevent” crime and to “improve the quality of life [on campus].”3 I believe the border around Temple University’s campus shares many similarities with the militarized border dividing the United States from Mexico. I believe this border is a primary reason why community partnerships and bridge-building initiatives are unfeasible at this point in time.

When surveying the literature released by the Temple University Police department concerning the organization’s raison d’etre one is struck by how much the word “prevention” is used. In fact the police department’s motto is “Prevention, Partnership and Pride.”4 While this entire motto will be broken down throughout course of this essay, “prevention” is the first word that will be analyzed. By using the word “prevention,” the Temple Police assume that the viewer of the “campus safety services” video already has a certain perception of the areas surrounding Temple University’s campus. This of course is a negative and most likely racist/class-biased view that equates the working class neighborhoods surrounding Temple as unruly and very dangerous. When watching the “Campus Safety Services” video one is given the impression that without the armed bike patrol, “state-of-the art” security system, and the “extensive lighting” system a person’s safety on Temple’s campus would be in serious question.

In his extensive book on the US/Mexico border Joseph Nevins states, “Discourse always operates in the service of particular interests of power. As such, discourse can help to construct territories and boundaries and those who belong within, the ‘we’ as well as the ‘they’ or ‘other.’ By establishing binary oppositions between ‘us’ and ‘them,’ discourse reinforces group identity.”5 Instead of focusing its “discourse” on the historical and structural reasons for potential economic crime in the areas surrounding Temple University’s Main Campus and possible solutions to these problems, the “Campus Safety Services” video only talks about how it achieves “safety” for “students, staff and visitors.” The surrounding neighborhoods are not mentioned at all in the video, it can be implied that the surrounding areas are so dangerous that Temple has been forced to establish a militarized boundary around the campus. This discourse establishes Nevins’ “binary” of “us” and “them.” “Us” being Temple’s “students, staff and visitors” and “them” being those people who live in the surrounding communities which are thought to be very dangerous. Temple can be viewed as a nation-state, in order to be a legal citizen you must live, work or study within its borders and of course you must always have your proof of citizenship (owl card ID).

As Nevins also suggests this border discourse also “reinforces group identity.” One can assume that this video production was made with a specific audience in mind. One of the key commentators in this video is Scott Alessandro. Alessandro is the assistant director of the Temple University honors program. Alessandro states with all the conviction and demeanor of your favorite car salesman, “I have no hesitation telling prospective students and their parents that Temple is a safe place to learn.”6 Why would producers feature Alessandro as a spokesman for the University above all others? Most likely the reason is because it is his job to attract “honor students” to the university. A prospective Temple University honor student is a specific kind of student from a particular place. Most people who are in the Temple University honors program enter as freshman. The Temple Honors website states, “Entering first year students are automatically selected for admission to the Honors Certificate Program based on SAT scores and high school GPA.”7 There is a strong class correlation between SAT scores and class status. Harold Berlak asserts, “What standardized achievement tests appear to predict best are parents' wealth and scores on other similarly constructed tests. As reported by Peter Sacks, socio-economic class accounts for approximately 50 percent of the variance in SAT test scores. He estimates that for every additional $10,000 in family income, a person on average gains 30 points on the SAT.”8 It is common knowledge that America’s wealthiest citizens are predominantly white and are overwhelming from segregated suburbs.

By creating a guarded border between Temple (“us”) and the surrounding working-class neighborhoods (“them”), Temple hopes to make affluent white suburbanites feel (as the first male to speak in the security services video states) “more at home.”9 This border “reinforces” most prospective “honor students’” class group identity by making them feel as though it is unsafe where there are no red banners, or where there is not a bicycle cop on patrol i.e. where the poor people live. This perspective is cultivated in the often racially segregated affluent suburbs (or home). The “prevention” in the Temple University police motto can be interpreted as “prevention” of affluent students from not coming to or leaving the university for fear of the surrounding working class predominantly African American and Latino neighborhoods. Aside from similar discourses surrounding the reason for their existence, both the US/Mexico and Temple University borders share “state-of-the art” technologies that were previously only available to the military.


The first time I drew a comparison between the US/Mexico border and Temple University’s campus was during a walk I was taking at night on campus. The campus’ infamous lighting (in the name of security) system reminded me so much of images in my mind from my time studying along the border last year. Soon I began to notice the overwhelming presence of the police especially at night as well as the alarming abundance of surveillance cameras present throughout campus. Armed men, lights and cameras; Temple had its own border it was just on a bit of a smaller scale. Temple uses some of the same technology to police its border as the US Border Patrol. Peter Andreas and Richard Price in their article From War Fighting to Crime Fighting believe that the line between law enforcement and the US military is blurring. One of the examples they cite regarding this phenomenon is the use of “military hardware and technology for police use.”10 Andreas and Price state, “Technologies previously off-limits to law enforcement are now being converted for border control tasks. For example, The Central Intelligence Agency’s (CIA) Office of Technology has worked with the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) to use ‘face trace’ technology, which allows the Border Patrol to identify individuals by scanning their facial structures and matching them to out standing warrants.”11 The Temple University police website claims that Temple University detectives use, “facial composite software to help identify offenders.”12 All the officers, lights, cameras and “state-of-art technology” used to defend the 500 yard radius around Temple University campus does not solve the problems of the surrounding community that lead to petty economic crime. The same is true for the US/Mexico border, all the billions of dollars the government spends on technology, arms and agents does not address the problems that lead people to cross the border nor does it stop them from doing so.

Large-scale community partnership efforts, making University resources available to community members and bridge building initiatives could in the long run begin to address the problems that force people to petty economic crime. This is not unfortunately the kind of “partnership” the Temple University police are referring to when they use the word in their motto. The kind of partnership the police are referring to is one between themselves and Temple’s students. This thinking can be seen in the “community outreach” section of their website which includes activities like “Coffee with the Cops” in the (ID required) library. This event would be amazing if neighborhood community members were allowed to engage in dialogue with both Temple’s police as well as students. But they don’t, this is just another attempt to “prevent” “honor student” from leaving school.

Building borders by using arms and surveillance around the campus I would assume would eventually create feelings of resentment in community members. However, some kind of survey would have to be devised in order to prove this point. I would imagine the guns, lighting and cameras must not seem too inviting or friendly. Creating a policed border around campus is an effort by University officials to make campus life as “normal” as possible. Temple is situated in a unique area and thus our experiences here should be equally as unique. They are trying to erase the surrounding community instead of embracing it. As mentioned before these efforts “reinforce group identity” which usually means the identity of white affluent students from the suburbs. This means that in some cases their horizons are not broadened and they still maintain a feeling of superiority/fear towards working class people. As Temple GUS/Social Science students we should question the militarized border around campus. We should plead for less funding for “face trace” technology an more for community-bridging workshops, mixed residences and more sharing of our vast resources. Will cops with guns, cameras and all the lights of Las Vegas make any social change?

Author’s Note: There are still many comparisons that can be draw between the US/Mexico and Temple borders. A large research paper which explores things like the history of the Temple Police department, funding, segregation of honors students, Mike Davis' discussion of LA archiechture, community sentiments, and the meaning of “safety” would truly do the subject justice.

The Security Services Promo Video can be seen here: http://css.ocis.temple.edu/about_us/video.aspx

Photo Credits in Acending Order:
1. www.temple.edu.
2. The Sun Never Sets on the British Empire and........ Temple University?
Taken From the security services website: http://css.ocis.temple.edu
3-4. Take from www.borderpatrol.com This is a horrid website. Don't check it out.

Works Cited.
1. "Temple University Campus Safety Services." Temple University. 03 May 2006 http://css.ocis.temple.edu/.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4.Ibid.
5. Nevins, Joseph. Operation Gatekeeper: the Rise of the Illegal Alien and the Making of the US/Mexico Boundary. New York: Routledge, 2002. 159-164.
6. Campus Safety Services.
7. "Honors Applicants." Temple University Honors Program. Temple University. 03 May 2006 http://www.temple.edu/honors/news.htm.
8. Berlak, Harold. "Race and the Achievement Gap." Rethinking Schools 15 (2001). 03 May 2006 http://www.rethinkingschools.org/archive/15_04/Race154.shtml.
9. Campus Safety Service.
10. Andreas, Peter, and Richard Price. "From War Fighting to Crime Fighting: Transforming the American National Security State." International Studies Review 3 (2001): 31-52.
11. Ibid.
12. Campus Safety Services.