A group of committee people and block captains from the Kingsessing neighborhood will host a community discussion about gentrification on Saturday at 2 p.m. at the Kingsessing Library (1201 S. 51st St.).
The discussion will feature a panel that includes community activist and political candidate Gregory Benjamin, local parent and activist Christina Jackson (who is also a sociology professor at Stockton University) and Drick Boyd, a community educator (and professor emeritus at Eastern University).
The goal of the discussion is to learn from and listen to fellow community members.
The event is co-sponsored by K5DCN – the Kingsessing 5th Division Community of Neighbors.
November 22nd, 2019 at 2:04 pm
Three anti-gentrification activists to have a conversation about gentrification with no opposing viewpoint. Sounds fair.
November 22nd, 2019 at 3:59 pm
It depends on your motivation for convening a community conversation. In this case is the goal is “to learn from and listen to fellow community members”. Besides, you can’t be neutral on a moving train…
November 22nd, 2019 at 6:30 pm
Well, they are “activists,” an overused and meaningless description.
November 22nd, 2019 at 7:59 pm
This neighborhood needs new housing at affordable prices. Not everyone can afford a $450k$650k home.
November 22nd, 2019 at 9:29 pm
Pro-tip: If you click on the links, you can see what community work actually means to Gregory Benjamin, Christina Jackson and Drick Boyd.
November 25th, 2019 at 10:35 am
American Dream: the goal of the meeting is to manipulate vulnerable people in the neighborhood to be more anti-development and to motivate them to segregate their neighborhoods, which is also your goal. I did click the links, which is how I found out that all three are anti-gentrification. They don’t want a discussion that offers an opposing viewpoint, they want an echo chamber.
Strongforu: There are literally dozens homes listed at any given time in West and Southwest Philly well below those prices, even renovated ones. There is no danger that every part of the city will become overpriced, UNLESS those that are trying to stop all development are successful, in which case higher income people will move to where the housing is available and will drive up prices.
November 25th, 2019 at 12:22 pm
Vague accusations of intentions to “manipulate vulnerable people in the neighborhood”, to segregate our neighborhoods, and of not wanting discussion that offers an opposing viewpoint, show ignorance on the part of the writer. There seems to be a significant amount of (unconscious?) projection going on there, as well.
Those sorts of lazy and ignorant trolling tactics have been criticized here before and do not make the individual in question look very admirable, credible, or persuasive in any way…
November 25th, 2019 at 9:11 pm
Strongforu: As mentioned before there are plenty of homes for sale in many places in Philly for what many people would can affordable, but many of those homes are in areas that some people find less then desirable. What I find to be hard to handle is that much of Kingsessing might have been considered ‘undesirable’ 5 to 10 years ago. That might well have meant that there were some vacant and shady buildings. Now that many of that type of building has been improved and for one reason or another house prices have gone up and up, now the complaint is the price. If what you want is a house in good repair in a good to better neighborhood that is not headed downward but you only want to spend $75 to $100K, then that’s not going to happen. Many of these ‘evil’ gentrifactors bought less then perfect houses, invested some time, money and sweat and have shown, block by block, that one doesn’t have to spend half a million to get a home. But you got to take on some risks.
My concern is the increased taxes can make it very hard for some people to stay in their homes, and this increase has nothing to do with anything or much they have done. The City didn’t do much to keep the neighborhood from declining, and didn’t do much to help with it’s betterment, but yet the City wants to be there to collect the taxes as they double and triple, even while City services aren’t any better.
November 26th, 2019 at 6:43 am
Would someone who was able to attend care to give their accounting of what happened at this event?