The “Threat” of District Designation: Preservation or Gentrification?

In the summer of 2002, controversy erupted when community groups in West Philadelphia, led by the Spruce Hill Community Association and the University City Historical Society, launched a campaign to designate the neighborhood known as Spruce Hill as a historic district. Designation supporters envisioned that this would protect the unique collection of Victorian domestic architecture for which the West Philadelphia “trolley car suburb” was celebrated. Designation opponents feared that this would encourage gentrification in the neighborhood, raise property values and force out residents who could not afford to maintain their homes to preservation standards. Designation opponents succeeded in suspending the nomination, thereby effectively killing it. A key opponent in this saga was District 3 Councilwoman Jannie Blackwell, a staunch political figure who attempted twice to take the Philadelphia Historical Commission’s jurisdiction. Ironically, in the two decades since that campaign, Spruce Hill has become one of the most gentrified – and threatened—neighborhoods in the city of Philadelphia. This thesis aims to examine the extent to which people outside the historic preservation profession associate historic preservation and district designation with gentrification, and how politics may have contributed to the defeat of the Spruce Hill designation effort. Through the analysis of scholarship, news media, and interviewing key individuals, this thesis looks at the relationship between politics and preservation within the case study of Spruce Hill. It examines the pressures that exist between different political branches of local government, and the implications of a historic district, along with the perceptions of how preservation functions in Philadelphia, as well as how some people believe it should function.