Tony, I think we all can relate to your statements.
The debate started with stickers and banners, the question is why were
they placed?
Neighbors Against McPenntrification made the same statements and points
a few years ago, recently, many listserv members have complained about
the
marketing of the area by UCD and the forces behind the UCD.
What are we really talking about? The lack of stake in directing our
own community
is my guess. The larger resident base (mostly renters), local community
groups
(mostly home owners), have relinquished control over this section of
West Philadelphia
to a board of institutional representatives and their hand picked
bed-fellows.
The question is.just who are we today? Are we a university ghetto
entirely?
Are we "University City" .owned, directed and paid for by a university
near you?
How would we like our community to be perceived by the rest of the city
and beyond?
It is clearly time to take back the governing of our neighborhoods and
stop looking to
the local universities to tell us when, why, and how to market or
identify where we live.
The stickers represent a backlash against the oppression being felt by
residents who
feel disenfranchised by all the Left of Center, University City, NID,
HD, M..O..U..S..E!
The reality? There is a significant resident base here having no
connection to the universities
and would prefer not being treated like second-class citizens because
they are not affiliated.
I believe the stickers represent people saying..give us the right to
choose, give us something
we can ALL identify with, allow us to participate in the development and
marketing of our own
neighborhoods. So for many reasons, calling our combined communities
"West Philadelphia"
felt better to them.
I think we have an opportunity now, given all we know today, to design
our future in a better
way by examining our current community organizing and branding. We
should consider the
re-branding our collective neighborhoods and being more involved as
residents in the overall
marketing of our community.
S
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Anthony West
Sent: Sunday, April 08, 2007 3:40 AM
To: UnivCity@list.purple.com
Subject: [UC] We're the Fugawi ! (Was: New Marketing Campaign)
As a 30-year resident of West Philadelphia, I always identify myself as
a West Philadelphian first when someone from another part of the region
asks me where I live.
As a 30-year resident of Spruce Hill, I've seldom met anybody outside
West Philadelphia who knew where that is. In fact, I didn't myself at
first! For the first six years I lived here, I thought I lived in "Cedar
Park" and told everybody as much (I'm actually two blocks outside Cedar
Park's boundary). Truth to tell, if I polled 100 fellow West
Philadelphians, I'll bet more than half wouldn't know where "Spruce
Hill" was. They're familiar with the area, they are just unfamiliar with
the name.
Why this is, I can't explain. Fishtown, for instance, is a neighborhood
no larger than Spruce Hill. Yet everybody in Philadelphia seems at least
to think they know where it is. By contrast, its larger affiliations are
intensely debatable. Does Fishtown belong to North Philadelphia,
Northeast Philadelphia, the River Wards or Kensington? A myriad bar
squabbles along Frankford Ave. can be sparked by this debate. Spruce
Hill inspires no such debate. Nobody cares what part of town it belongs
to.
Spruce Hill isn't a "marketing scheme" either. It goes back more than
100 years. It just doesn't resonate outside a very narrow circuit.
"West Philadelphia" doesn't narrow down your address very well and it
doesn't tell much about you socially. So canny Philadelphians from other
parts of town will want more detail. I've learned always to answer that
second question, "Oh, yeah, whereabouts?" by saying, "In University
City." Everybody knows where it is, and also some basic socio-economic
information about me. There was a time when most other Philadelphians
thought that information was largely defamatory; today, it is largely
flattering. The fact remains, it works as a neighborhood name for people
from other parts of town in a way that nothing else does. That's why I
use it. It's not a marketing scheme, it's a descriptive tool.
-- Tony West
----- Original Message -----
From: Vincent/Roger <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: Anthony West <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> ;
UnivCity@list.purple.com
Sent: Saturday, April 07, 2007 7:16 PM
Subject: [UC] New Marketing Campaign
When we opened Abbraccio Restaurant, a local real estate person (not
anyone regularly involved on this list) said we should NEVER refer to
our place as being part of West Philadelphia! Considering that the
distance from us to the heart of the Drexel campus is about the same
distance to Cobbs Creek Parkway and most of Southwest Philly, I found
this just a little bit strange. Our customers come from all over this
range. Nowadays we much prefer to call ourselves a "West Philly" place.
(Although I do like Lew's "Western Liberties" also).
Roger
