As we noted on Thursday, a poll by the Pew Charitable Trust found that 70% of Philadelphians believe that public safety is the most important issue facing the city. As of 11:59 PM EDT on Thursday, April 7th, 127 people had been murdered in the City of Brotherly Love
And on Friday, the Editorial Board of The Philadelphia Inquirer have told us that segregation is the problem:
Segregation is at the core of so many of Philadelphia’s problems. How do we move from moral indignation to meaningful action?
by The Editorial Board | Friday, April 8, 2022 | 9:30 AM EDT
In his budget address last month, Mayor Jim Kenney listed the issues facing the city — “a global pandemic, political turmoil at the national level, and intensified violence” — and proclaimed: “We are facing those challenges together.”
That might be true in spirit, but in practice, Philadelphia is not facing all of its challenges together. That is the reality of a segregated city.
A new poll by the Pew Charitable Trusts, again, demonstrates this disparity with a statistic that is unacceptable: The percentage of Black and Hispanic Philadelphians who feel unsafe in their neighborhood is double the percentage of white Philadelphians.
With this, the Editorial Board have admitted what the Inquirer does not like to say out loud: the problems of crime, especially violent crime, are problems primarily among black and Hispanic Philadelphians. The city’s Shooting Victims statistics indicate that, for April, through April 7th, there were 39 victims in Philadelphia, 31 of whom were black, and 8 of whom were white. Of the 8 white victims, 6 are listed as Latino. White Philadelphians are relatively safe.
Following a couple of paragraphs in which the Board tell us what we already knew, that while city residents felt much safer, and that the bullets flying around the city hadn’t flown in their neighborhoods, we get to the money line:
This disparity is only possible because Philadelphians of different races don’t share the same neighborhoods — despite more than half a century of lip-service to integration as the policy of the United States.
It’s certainly true that Philadelphia is one of our most internally segregated big cities, something the Inquirer has previously reported, complete with colorful — pun most definitely intended — graphics.
But if zip code 19118 — Chestnut Hill — is 2/3 white, doesn’t that mean that it really is integrated?
Of course, Chestnut Hill is an expensive place to live. Home to Chestnut Hill College and several tony private schools — Springside Chestnut Hill Academy’s tuition rates are currently $33,250 for grades 1-4, $39,700 for grades 5-8, and $44,150 for grades 9-12 — and with a median family income of $50,554 in zip code 19138 — primarily West Oak Lane and East Germantown — there can’t be too many families there who could afford Chestnut Hill Academy.
The Board continue on to tell us about the Kerner Commission warning us that continued segregation risked prolonging social unrest, and that President Lyndon Johnson signed the Fair Housing Act. My mother, who was a mortgage company employee, end eventual vice president, told me about the non-discrimination restrictions under which she had to operate. Even though we lived in the Bluegrass State, my mother grew up in Maine, and segregation was something foreign to her.
The Kerner Commission’s report was sadly prophetic. The only thing it failed to anticipate was gentrification and how white city dwellers would go on to create segregated pockets within the heart of big cities. More than half a century after the Kerner Commission and the Fair Housing Act, Philadelphia remains one of the nation’s most diverse and most segregated cities.
It seems that the Board are opposed to gentrification, but gentrification means, among other things, white people moving into and improving homes in what have frequently been heavily minority areas. These are white people who have no objections to having black neighbors. I previously noted a Lexington city task force recommendation which stated:
The Task Force was created out of concern about neighborhood change when that change includes:
- Properties turning over at an accelerated rate;
- Most new owners being more affluent and differing from the traditional residents in terms of race or ethnicity.
Really? The city is going to work to stop integration of neighborhoods?
The Board cannot be supporting increased integration, to fight violent crime, and be opposed to white people moving into primarily non-white areas.
What does it mean to be a segregated city in a gun violence crisis? According to the Controller’s Office’s gun violence mapping toll, the zip codes of Rittenhouse Square and Chestnut Hill, where about 70% of the population is white, haven’t experienced a fatal shooting since before 2015. Contrast that with nearly 200 fatal shootings in North Philadelphia-Strawberry Mansion, where more than 90% of the population is Black, or nearly 240 in the Kensington-Port Richmond area, with a Hispanic population of 50%.
Rittenhouse Square is a beautiful park — and a safe one. The Black and Hispanic neighbors of McPherson Square and Hunting Park deserve to feel equally safe in public spaces near their homes.
The Board illustrated their editorial with a photograph of people, all white people as far as could be discerned, enjoying a “balmy March afternoon” in Rittenhouse Square.
Segregation is at the core of so many of Philadelphia’s problems — including gun violence, which to this day almost perfectly aligns with the borders of the redlining maps created by the federal government to keep, particularly, Black home buyers out of certain areas.
How do we move from moral indignation to meaningful action? How do we deliver on the promise of fair housing such that we implement what the Kerner Commission called “the integration choice?”
The first step is to retain affordable housing options that already exist (some are being lost now in University City) and creating alternatives to predatory financial institutions for those seeking home loans (such as creating a public bank). But fundamentally, segregation will persist as long as Philadelphia continues to fail to provide basic amenities to all neighborhoods. Good schools, clean streets, open libraries and recreational centers — those shouldn’t be a privilege for the few who can afford it, but a feature of life for all Philadelphians, regardless of zip code.
Until the recent Bidenflation, conventional mortgage loans could be found, fairly easily, for under 3%. Of course, a conventional loan required 20% of the purchase price as a down payment, and that means people have to be disciplined enough to save their money for that purpose, and if someone can’t be that disciplined, can he really be trusted to make his mortgage payments? It wasn’t that long ago that we saw a major economic recession caused by the subprime mortgage crisis.
Gun violence is both a disease and a symptom. It’s crucial that our city’s goal be twofold: ensuring that all Philadelphians feel safe, and that the ranks of those who do not isn’t determined by skin color. Only when that is the case can Philadelphia truly say it is facing its challenges together.
For what are the Board asking here? They have already let us know that they don’t like gentrification, wealthier white people moving into predominantly black and Hispanic neighborhoods, and fixing up distressed homes; that, they claimed, led to segregated white pockets in the city. Somehow, no one seems to see the increased values in gentrifying areas lifting the net worth of the homes of black and Hispanic people living in those areas, or the value of white residents who are completely accepting of living in an integrated neighborhood. The Board seem to want more black residents in Chestnut Hill and Rittenhouse Square, but unless those residents can afford to move there, either the city, or someone, will have to provide the same subprime mortgages that caused the crash, or build ‘affordable housing’ in places which would then see other people’s property values decline due to it.
There is, of course, a not-so-subtle undertone to the Board’s editorial, the theme that white people make places safer, while blacks and Hispanics make areas more dangerous. The members would deny that, of course, but it is right there, obvious to anyone who reads what they wrote.
