Hawthorne: A Neighborhood in Transition

• Hawthorne is a 3-block by 5-block neighborhood on the southern edge of Center City Philadelphia.• In the 1960s, four 25-story public housing towers were built between Broad Street and 12th Street to the east

and west, and Bainbridge and Catharine Streets to the north and south.• By the 1990s, the towers were seen as a failure. The neighborhood was heavily impacted by crime and poverty.• In 1999, the towers were torn down.• Over a 12-year period, the projects were replaced with Hope VI mixed-income housing. There was also great

deal of infill development, knitting together the holes left by years of neglect. This summer (2012), work on a $2M park in the neighborhood will also be completed.

• This neighborhood once served low-income families, yet provided great access to employment opportunities downtown via walking, the subway, or buses. Have opportunities for affordable housing in the neighborhood been preserved?

• I looked at changes in median income in the neighborhood, as well as changes in home ownership rates and home values.

• The next step will be to look at parcel-level data and see when the last time each property changed hands. Who lives here? Original residents or new residents with higher median incomes?

By Rachel Neumann

Skills Used• Slide 1

– Inset map– Clip– Custom Shapefile

• Slide 2– Clip– Graduated Colors– Custom Shapefile– Aggregating Attribute Fields

• Slide 3– Graduated Colors– Graduated Symbols– Clip– Custom Shapefile– Aggregating Attribute Fields

• Slide 4– Graduated Colors– Graduated Symbols– Clip– Custom Shapefile– Aggregating Attribute Fields