The Urban Village:

Northern Liberties, a Neighborhood (Still) in Transition

Jaclyn Boone

Temple University

May 2, 2013

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Introduction

A visitor to Philadelphia walking east along Girard Avenue from Broad Street would encounter a somewhat limited variety of storefronts. Dollar stores, fast food restaurants, and cash for gold trading shops line both sides of the street for at least a mile. But as this visitor approached the lower-numbered cross streets, he or she might notice the occasional upscale restaurant, the rising proportion of banks to check cashing places, or, if he made it all the way to 4th Street, the towering glass façade of a brand new Super Fresh grocery store. Failing to observe these subtleties, he would most certainly be taken aback upon reaching 2nd Street, where the towering new supermarket at that intersection is just the beginning of a bustling commercial corridor. Even if the out-of-towner were not familiar with Northern Liberties, he would recognize that he had crossed a border into a distinctive neighborhood.

Any path into Northern Liberties would follow a similar pattern of older, run-down buildings fading quickly to picturesque, well-kept row homes and shiny new condominiums. The Philadelphia, PA neighborhood is bordered by Kensington, Fishtown, Poplar, and Callowhill, areas that are, to varying degrees, less residentially and commercially developed. But even more striking than comparing Northern Liberties with its neighboring blocks and communities is comparing it with itself, just a decade or two in the past.

After a veritable flood of people leaving the neighborhood for most of the twentieth century, the population of Northern Liberties has boomed since the turn of the millennium. Accompanied by a resurgence of development and a complementary spike in housing prices, there is no question that the neighborhood is in a state of gentrification. The less obvious question, however, is how that gentrification has taken place. How did this area evolve from a former manufacturing neighborhood in the midst of a postindustrial slump to a trendy yet family-friendly enclave with rents that rival Rittenhouse Square’s?

Information from the United States Census and American Community Surveys illustrates the shape of the transformation, but the data doesn’t identify the initial pioneers or reveal what had driven them there. Through interviews with residents, business owners, and visitors to the neighborhood, I got a glimpse of Northern Liberties as it was to those who knew it intimately. Supplemented by historical information from various literary and scholarly sources, I began to piece together a narrative that connected the population and housing trends from one decade to another. In this essay, I present an analysis of the neighborhood’s transformation informed by its history and supported by data about its population, economic, social, and housing changes since 1990.

Geography and Methodology

Northern Liberties is defined by the Northern Liberties Neighbors Association as the area bordered by Girard Avenue to the North, Callowhill Street to the South, 6th Street to the West, and the Delaware River to the East. It is part of the 19123 zip code. Though it was originally considered a suburb of Philadelphia (Adams et al. 1991:5), it was annexed by the City in 1854 and was recently added to Central Philadelphia Development Corporation’s guide to Center City living. The neighborhood currently encompasses most of Census Tracts 142 and 367 and a small portion (about 20 percent) of Tract 366. In the 1990 and 2000, the area now contained within

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Tract 367 had been separated into Tracts 128,129, and 130 (see Figures 1 and 2). Data in this report is calculated for Tracts 128,129, 130, and 142 in the 1990 and 2010 United States Censuses and for Tracts 142 and 367 in the 2007-2011 American Community Survey Estimates. All monetary values have been adjusted for 2011 inflation. Interviews were conducted with thirteen residents, visitors, and business owners I approached in Northern Liberties early in April 2013, including the president of Northern Liberties Neighbors Association, Matt Ruben.

Early History

Northern Liberties began as a hub of milling and manufacturing and a home for several waves of European immigrants to Philadelphia (Central Philadelphia Development Corporation 2013). It was named for the plots of free land – “liberty lots” – William Penn granted to settlers who ventured to the northern suburb. Much like the rest of the city, it flourished until the fall of manufacturing in the early twentieth century, but the neighborhood lost nearly 80 percent of its population in the thirty years between 1950 and 1980 (see Figure 3).

Figure 1: Northern Liberties, US Census, 1990 - 2000 Figure 2: Northern Liberties, US Census, 2010

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The First Wave: 1980-2000

The next decade saw a slight reversal in this trend, with about 300 newcomers moving into Northern Liberties between 1980 and 1990. These were the neighborhood’s marginal gentrifiers, as I learned in an interview with Matt Ruben, president of the Northern Liberties Neighbors Association and Urban Studies lecturer at Bryn Mawr College. Urban renewal efforts focused in Center City throughout the middle of the century had significantly increased the cost of living in this region (Adams et al. 1991), and artists and creatives were attracted to the cheaper housing just north of the central district. These pioneers were relatively young, moderately educated, largely single, and mostly childless (see Table 1). They built studios and work spaces, investing in the community and imparting an edgy vibe that the neighborhood has managed to retain to this day. Census data from 1990 and 2000 reflects a continuation of this less invasive form of gentrification into the ’90s, showing minimal change in demographics during the final decade of the 20th century.

Source: Census 1990 and 2000, American Community Survey Estimate 2007-2011

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Figure 3: Northern Liberties Population by Year

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A 1989 Philadelphia Inquirer article provides insight about the neighborhood’s initial stages of repopulation by contrasting it with Spring Garden, where renewal by development corporations led to the displacement of the neighborhood’s previous inhabitants (Beauregard). In Northern Liberties, “individual households, not developers, have been responsible for gentrification […] In addition, Northern Liberties is much more a neighborhood of homeowners,” who are less likely to be displaced by increasing property values than renters – in 1990, 44.5 percent of the neighborhood’s households were owner-occupied. Renters occupied around 40 percent of the units and paid about $1,115 per month for their space (in 1990; median rent had fallen to $939 by 2000). The median housing value in 2000 (adjusted for inflation) was $101,615; for comparative purposes, the median housing value that year for Census Tract 8, located in the upscale neighborhood of Rittenhouse Square, was $346,382.

The Second Wave: After the Millennium

Around the beginning of the 21st century, residential developers turned their eyes to the area and began to reconstruct old homes, fill in vacant lots, and erect huge condos and apartment complexes. After decades of relatively moderate growth in construction, Northern Liberties added 839 new units in the years after 2000 (see Figure 4). Tax abatement programs for new construction on vacant lots were specifically aimed at developers like Tower Investments, which built the Piazza, a mixed-use retail/residential complex surrounding a public space modeled after European outdoor plazas. The percentage of structures with 20 or more units increased fivefold during the decade. Housing prices experienced a complementary spike: median home value rose to $315,350 – surpassing Rittenhouse Square’s now $300,000 median – and 49.1 percent of renters were paying $1,500 a month or more.

Table 1: Northern Liberties Social and Housing Characteristics

Characteristics 1990 2000 2011

Social

Population 3,792 3,954 5,607

Median age 34 33

Married, not divorced or separated 34.8% 33.5% 30.7%

Never married 44.7% 48.0% 55.9%

Housing

Households 1,710 1,934 2,848

Families as percentage of total households 30.4% 41.6% 35.0%

Families with children as percentage of total households 17.4% 26.6%

Owner-occupied as percentage of total households 44.5% 36.3% 40.0%

Structures with 20 or more units 5.1% 25.1%

Median housing value (adjusted for inflation to 2011) $129,094 $101,615 $315,350

Source: Census 1990 and 2000, American Community Survey Estimate 2007-2011

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This extraordinary housing boom attracted a new generation of gentrifiers – somewhat more varied in terms of life stages, but less racially diverse and significantly more affluent. While the first wave had done a lot to increase the neighborhood’s appeal, post-2000 newcomers were enticed by a number of financial incentives and market trends that facilitated upper middle class entry into Northern Liberties (Ruben 2013). The mortgage bubble was in its prime period of growth, and real estate loans were easily accessible to the crowd looking to move into the neighborhood. The population, says Ruben, has grown at an “almost disorienting rate”: by 2011, the neighborhood had become home to 5,607 people.

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Figure 4: New Construction by Year

Table 2: Northern Liberties Economic Characteristics

Characteristics 1990 2000 2011

Education

High school graduate 73.2% 80.3% 92.4%

Bachelor’s degree or higher 36.1% 37.6% 56.9%

Income and Employment

Median family income (adjusted for inflation to 2011) $65,180 $87,121 $91,756

Population (over 16) in labor force 64.6% 64.2% 80.8%

Employed in management/professional or office/sales

positions 46.0% 67.3% 81.7%

Financial Insecurity

Unemployment rate 5.8% 2.8% 5.2%

Families below poverty level 11.0% 14.0% 9.8%

Households receiving public assistance 13.6% 4.4% 2.7%

Source: Census 1990 and 2000, American Community Survey Estimate 2007-2011

Source: Census 1990 and 2000, American Community Survey Estimate 2007-2011

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Those who could afford Northern Liberties’ newly elevated rents changed the neighborhood’s demographic profile. Educational attainment at the high school level continued its steady climb from 1990, while the percentage of adults with a bachelor’s degree or greater soared to 56.9. This was matched by a rise in median family income and labor force participation and a shift in type of employment from service and production to the professional sector, or the “creative class” (see Table 2). From 1990 to 2011, the percentage of employed adults working in professional, managerial, and sales occupations – high-skilled, well-paying fields – doubled.

Measures of financial insecurity form a less consistent pattern, one that seems to tell the story of forces outside the neighborhood. Unemployment fell in 2000 but returned almost to its previous rate a decade later, likely due to the global economic recession in 2008 (see Table 2). Following a pattern directly opposite of unemployment, the poverty rate increased from 1990 to 2000 and then decreased in 2011. The dramatic drop in the percentage of households receiving public assistance income could be related to the rising financial status of neighborhood residents, but it is likely at least somewhat due to former President Clinton’s 1996 Welfare Reform policy, which cut 13 percent of welfare recipients off the national rolls almost immediately and removed an additional 50 percent during the next decade (Reuters 1996, Clinton 2006).

Who Left? And Who’s Still Leaving?

While there has clearly been a lot of migration into the neighborhood, not all of the movement has occurred in the same direction. The second wave of gentrifiers comprises a substantial proportion of the population: 76 percent of householders living in Northern Liberties in 2011 had moved there since 2000. Conversely, this means that only 24 percent of the 2011 population (about 1,346 people) had already been living there in 2000. Given that the neighborhood’s population that year was 3,954, it seems prudent to ask: what happened to those other 2,608 people?

As a couple picnicking in Liberty Lands Park put it, “the community that first established this is getting pushed out a little.” The couple, a white man and woman in their early thirties, was spending the day in Northern Liberties to help them decide if they want to buy a home there. They were looking to move out of their current home in Society Hill, where they relocated after living in Rittenhouse Square. Just a decade ago, neither of these two neighborhoods would have seemed like a logical funnel into Northern Liberties, but now, the three offer comparatively similar housing prices.

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Rising property values have had a profoundly racialized effect on the neighborhood’s demographic characteristics. According to a 2011 report by the Pew Charitable Trusts, Northern Liberties experienced the second greatest increase in its white population and the greatest percentage decrease in its black population of any neighborhood in Philadelphia (see Figure 5). This occurred while the opposite pattern was taking place in the rest of Philadelphia, as suburbanization has continued to draw white residents out of the city. From 1990 to 2010, Philadelphia as a whole lost nearly a third of its white population, and Northeast Philadelphia in particular fell from 92 percent to 58.3 percent white. The dramatic shift in black and white residents in Northern Liberties was not just due to an influx of white people moving into the neighborhood, though that did happen. Northern Liberties saw a drop in the real number of African American residents from 1,217 in 1990 to 810 in 2011.

A property tax reform initiative proposed for the city has recently brought concerns about displacement to the surface. Called the Actual Value Initiative, this measure would raise taxes on homes across Philadelphia to their values as determined by a citywide reassessment carried out in 2011 and 2012 (City of Philadelphia 2013). While renters are usually the most immediately vulnerable to displacement by rising property values, this policy would be more harmful to long-term homeowners. Some homeowners in Northern Liberties could experience up to a 1000 percent increase in their taxes, though most would see an increase of less than 400 percent (see Figure 6). However, the policy includes a component called the Homestead Exemption – colloquially referred to as “gentrification relief” – that would provide tax breaks for those who have owned their primary residences for more than ten years and whose properties have increased more than three times in value (Graham 2013). The City is looking into the possibility of “means testing” to restrict the exemption to only those who need it and avoid

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Figure 5: Racial Composition Over Time

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Source: Census 1990 and 2000, American Community Survey Estimate 2007-2011

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giving tax breaks to wealthy homeowners whose properties were inaccurately assessed under the former system.

Northern Liberties Now: The Urban Village

Besides their race, education, and socioeconomic status, the second wave of gentrifiers shared one particular characteristic that set them apart from their predecessors: they were more likely to have children. The percentage of households with children under 18 increased from 17.4 in 2000 to 26.6 in 2011, higher than the Philadelphia County average of 23.7 percent. One woman I interviewed, a resident for 8 years, observed that Northern Liberties is increasingly becoming a neighborhood for young families. She told me that her block is home to several families with young children and that she hopes to see that continue; she was raised in an urban neighborhood atmosphere and wants her granddaughter to grow up in a similar environment.

One thing that enhances the neighborhood’s suitability to children – really, to residents and visitors of any age – is its public spaces, both organic and constructed. Matt Ruben describes it as an “urban village,” and anyone walking around on a sunny Saturday morning would have a hard time disagreeing. The neighborhood contains two main public spaces: the Piazza and

Figure 6: Percent change in Northern Liberties property taxes from 2013 to 2014, mapped by the Philadelphia Public Interest Network

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Liberty Lands Park, only a few blocks apart but each with a distinct character and purpose. Liberty Lands, owned by the community and built through fundraisers, exemplifies the area’s family friendliness and neighborhood appeal. It boasts a playground, a community garden, and a grassy expanse for visitors to use as they please. Signs posted around the area emphasize that its maintenance is also a community effort. “Don’t trash your park!” says one, and judging by the area’s appearance, neighbors seem to obey. I met a few non-residents while conducting interviews there, but the park is mostly used by those living within the neighborhood.

The Piazza, in contrast, attracts a substantial amount of visitors from elsewhere in Philadelphia and even from outside the city. Compared to the park, the crowd at the Piazza was younger, in their teens and early twenties. According to Ruben, many of the bars in the complex are managed by people with nightclub experience, which has helped them to generate publicity for their venues.

The Piazza is bordered by Liberties Walk (another Towers development) and 2nd Street, the neighborhood’s main commercial corridor. This concentration of commercial activity – other streets in Northern Liberties are almost entirely residential – makes shopping, dining, and nightlife more accessible to visitors, who play a large role in supporting the neighborhood’s businesses. Ruben estimates that these enterprises are patronized by locals on weekdays but mostly by outsiders during the weekends and that, despite the busy appearance of the shops and restaurants, the neighborhood would need far greater residential density to support much more business activity.

Dog Culture

Whether intentionally or accidentally, Northern Liberties has carved out a niche for itself in the city as a dog-friendly neighborhood. Liberty Lands and the dog park behind the Piazza create a

comfortable environment for dog owners to meet and interact with each other. One of the couples I interviewed in the park listed the neighborhood’s dog-friendliness as one of his favorite things about living there, and another young man had actually driven to 2nd Street from farther north just to walk his dog. Little formal research has been conducted on any link between dogs and gentrification (though Hardy presents an interesting local analysis of the topic in her 2007 thesis, Dog Eat Dog: Biological Metaphors, Identity Politics and Gentrification in Philadelphia's Northern Liberties), but Northern Liberties’ dog culture is not just an anthropological aside. The neighborhood’s vast number of pet owners has inspired a flurry of related business activity. The owner of Chic Petique, an upscale pet supplies store on Liberties Walk, chose to open her store in Northern Liberties to cater to the concentrated audience of dog owners. The neighborhood is home to a number of other dog-related shops and services: groomers, walkers, shelters, and pet stores. One restaurant even had a dog treat dispenser Figure 7: Dog treat vending machine

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outside its door (Figure 7). A sign posted outside one house, however, suggests that not all residents are equally thrilled about living in a dog-friendly neighborhood (see Figure 8).

Northern Liberties in the Future

Most of my interviewees predicted that Northern Liberties will continue to grow in the direction it has taken over the past decade: higher property values, greater population density, and more businesses. Though these same changes have clearly been beneficial to them, they are less enthusiastic about what they might mean in the future. One man foresaw “more people, less parking,” and Matt Ruben agreed that while residents no longer feel entitled to unlimited parking, they are reluctant to give up cars entirely. An employee working in a picture framing shop revealed that the rising property values have not only displaced residents, but that neighborhood businesses have also had to relocate after the rent for their commercial properties increased. She pointed out that many of the original shops in Liberties Walk were no longer there and that the Piazza’s recent sale to a Manhattan-based corporation had prompted even more to leave.

Northern Liberties’ transformation is not yet complete, and its unsettled elements could either intensify or moderate gentrification. The key now, says Ruben, is figuring out how to promote responsible development, to encourage growth “without losing the character that makes us want to live there.” Social and economic trends show a neighborhood that is rapidly becoming more and more like Center City Philadelphia, and the people living there don’t want that. Northern Liberties has reached what its occupants consider an appropriate balance of economic vitality and community ambiance, and they would prefer that it not stray too far from this equilibrium. Efforts like Liberty Land Park demonstrate that residents are invested in their neighborhood, and it possible to imagine that community-driven attempts to preserve the “urban village” will help make it accessible to a more diversified population.

Figure 8: Sign outside a row home in Northern Liberties

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Sources

Adams, Carolyn, David Bartlet, David Elesh, Nancy Kleniewski, and William Yancey. 1991. Philadelphia: Neighborhoods, Divisions, and Conflict in a Postindustrial City. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

Beauregard, Robert A. 1989. “The Many Face of Gentrification.” Philadelphia Inquirer, September 11. Retrieved April 13, 2013 (http://articles.philly.com/1989-09-11/news/26101056_1_gentrification-historic-tax-credits-neighborhoods).

Center City District and Central Philadelphia Development Corporation. 2013. “Living Here.” Center City Philadelphia. Retrieved April 8, 2013 (http://centercityphila.org/life/nhood_northliberties.php).

City of Philadelphia. 2013. “Mayor Michael A. Nutter delivers the proposed Fiscal Year 2014 (FY14) Budget and Fiscal Year 2014 – 2018 Five-Year Plan to City Council.” Press Releases. Philadelphia, PA: City of Philadelphia News and Alerts. Retrieved April 23, 2013 (http://cityofphiladelphia.wordpress.com/2013/03/14/mayor-michael-a-nutter-delivers-the-proposed-fiscal-year-2014-fy14-budget-and-fiscal-year-2014-2018-five-year-plan-to-city-council/).

Clinton, Bill. 2006. “How We Ended Welfare, Together.” New York Times. Retrieved April 19, 2013 (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/22/opinion/22clinton.html).

Graham, Tony. 2013. “Philadelphia City Council mulls "gentrification relief" from property taxes.” Philadelphia Inquirer. Retrieved April 23, 2013 (http://articles.philly.com/2013-04-17/news/38589323_1_gentrification-relief-tax-abatement-tax-rate).

Hardy, Lisa Jane. 2007. Dog Eat Dog: Biological Metaphors, Identity Politics and Gentrification in Philadelphia's Northern Liberties. PhD dissertation, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA.

Northern Liberties Neighbors Association. “Mission.” Retrieved February 20, 2013 (http://www.nlna.org/about-us/mission/).

Pew Charitable Trusts. 2011. “A City Transformed: The Racial and Ethnic Changes in Philadelphia Over the Last 20 Years.” Philadelphia Research Initiative. Retrieved March 3, 2013 (http://www.pewtrusts.org/our_work_report_detail.aspx?id=85899360312).

Thomas, Casey. 2013. “Property Tax Changes.” Philadelphia Public Interest Network. Retrieved April 19, 2013 (http://apps.axisphilly.org/avi-map/).

Reuters. 1996. “Clinton hails 13 percent drop in welfare rolls.” CNN. Retrieved April 19, 2013 (http://www.cnn.com/US/9612/07/clinton/).

Ruben, Matt. (2013, April 8). Telephone interview.

All other interviews are anonymous.

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U.S. Department of Commerce. United States Census Bureau. 2013. American Fact Finder. Retrieved February 20, 2013 (http://factfinder2.census.gov/faces/nav/jsf/pages/community_facts.xhtml).

______. (http://www2.census.gov/geo/maps/dc10map/tract/st42_pa/c42101_philadelphia/ DC10CT_C42101_003.pdf).