What Midtown Detroit can learn from West Philadelphia college district's renaissance

BY TODD SPANGLER
DETROIT FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER

PHILADELPHIA -- Many of the streets of this part of West Philadelphia used to be considered mean, despite the proximity of the University of Pennsylvania, an elite Ivy League institution. The advice was: Don't go west of 40th.In the last 15 years, that's all changed, thanks to a program of homeowner incentives and investment like one being attempted in Midtown Detroit.

In West Philadelphia today, restaurants bustle and coffeehouses abound along tree-lined streets as trolleys whoosh past toward Center City.

Similar efforts are under way in other places -- Baltimore, Cleveland -- but the Midtown effort is a direct descendant of the Philadelphia example. The top consultant to the Detroit project was part of Penn's program to improve the surrounding area and the first to take the incentive to move in. He still lives in the neighborhood.

So what could it mean for Detroit's Midtown, where employees of the Detroit Medical Center, Henry Ford Health System and Wayne State University are being offered incentives to move in? If the outcome in West Philly is an indication, it could result in higher property values, a drop in violent crime, better schools and a neighborhood where former suburbanites are eager to move.

Doug Jerolmack, a 32-year-old geophysicist at Penn, bought into the neighborhood just four years ago, continuing a trend that started in the late 1990s, when homeowner initiatives were launched to bring professors and other employees in. He walks to work and has all the services he needs -- plus dozens of friends -- within a few blocks.

"Now that we're there," he said, "I don't want to live anywhere else."



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Good article. Hopefully midtown can emulate the success of this particular Philadelphia neighborhood.

I lived west of Philly for awhile in 1981, and some times drove through that neighborhood. I remember it being scary. But I loved the row house architecture.

According to the article, there is "much much more" interest in Midtown then there was in the West Philly project when it started which is encouraging. On the other hand, West Philly had the advantage of density since those blocks are almost all row houses.

In DC, like in Philly, a lot of the movement into the city happens in areas where there are cool row homes and less in areas that don't. Does midtown have the architectural character to make it desirable to outsiders?

One of my closest friends [[we've known each other damn near 50 years now, both born and raised in the burbs of South Jersey) lives with his wife in a row house on Osage between 45th and 46th in Philly [[she works for Penn, so was eligible for the incentive), and loves it. Plenty of restaurants in walking distance, good transit into Center City. I wish Midtown good luck in attempting the same kind of revitalization.

Regarding the rowhouse vs. not question, yeah, the rowhouses let you know you're in a city. There's a definite city vibe about West Philly. Having said that, even though the houses in Midtown actually have yards, you wouldn't mistake it for a suburb.