When redevelopment worked -- Philadelphia's Yorktown
Ron Blatman
Executive Producer/Producer at Saving the City: Remaking the American Metropolis documentary series
One of the most elusive goals in cities today is how to create affordable housing for working and middle class residents. It's something we hear about in cities from expensive San Francisco to relatively affordable Pittsburgh, and is increasingly an issue in places such as Dallas, Houston and Miami.
We are examining different aspects of housing in the Saving the City documentary series about how to make cities better places, as we continue production and fundraising -- please help support us here.
While filming in Philadelphia, we ran into the fascinating story of Yorktown, a pioneering community from the late 1950s and early 1960s where redevelopment mostly got things right. Yorktown was envisioned as an integrated new neighborhood for middle class and first-time homebuyers in the heart of the city. ?Most notably, it attracted Black buyers, who were shut out of other parts of Philadelphia and its suburbs. ?They bought most of the new homes in Yorktown and were able to participate in the American dream of stable home ownership.
Rochelle Johnson Gray talks about growing up in Philadelphia's Yorktown below:
Comprised of 635 single-family homes, Yorktown continues to fulfill its original mission today even as there is turnover from the original homebuyers, several of whom we interviewed for our story.
A handful of other 1960s redevelopment projects aimed at creating integrated middle-class communities also remain desirable places to live, such as Lafayette Park in Detroit and St Francis Square in San Francisco. ?So it can be done.
Houses in Philadelphia's Yorktown are below:
We are filming in Toronto this week and next, mostly focused on the transformation of Regent Park, Canada's oldest, largest and, at one time, most notorious public housing project.?
Often cited as a model of how to remake a distressed neighborhood, Regent Park's 69 acres on the east side of downtown are now a mixed-income community of 12,000 people with schools, stores, parks, cultural centers and an elaborate social service infrastructure.
Noted Toronto architect Don Schmitt, who helped master plan Regent Park, is being interviewed below:
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All funds go through the International Documentary Association, a 501c(3) non-profit.?
Thanks to generous funding from the William Penn, Packard, Hewlett, Pittsburgh and Philadelphia Foundations, Heinz Endowments, an Urban Land Institute leadership group and individuals led by George Miller and Chris Larsen, we have raised over $938,000 to date. A more complete list of contributors is here.
A big thank you to Carolyn Sloss Ratliff of Birmingham for joining her sister Cathy in generously supporting our production.
CITY QUOTE?
“It is difficult to design a place that will not attract people. What is remarkable is how often this has been accomplished."
William H (Holly) Whyte – author and noted city observer
FUN FACT
There are no rats naturally living in Edmonton (or in all of Alberta), but the city is home to over 30 species of mosquitoes.
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