The (fairly) good news
Cira Centre filled, the new Comcast building glints.
Downtown shows greater strength than the
suburbs.Buy if they don't own, hold if they do —
We've never been a slave to anything.The market gone home, buyers on the sidelines
wait
to see what happens. What's it like up there — is
it safe (white) safe (clean) safe (middle-class)?Is it my home? My small parcel, my lot,
my folly, my filet of a nameless neighborhood.
If you're not one of the large land projects, you're off
the radar.I've been complaining for months, a year,
a decade about the short shrift. The splintered
shack:
porch fallen in, the missing windows, the open doorpolicy. A platypus carcass molders on the first floor
all fur and bone and squirrel-gnawed bill. 26,000
properties
derelict(s) decaying — this western bloc(k) is not a
priority.On the edge of the edge, off the beaten, quiet track,
crack
heads come lately to live, all acrid smoke and
electrical
fire. Calls go unanswered, unreturned.It's been like a python swallowing a huge pig. Mine.
Erin Gautsche is the program coordinator at the Kelly Writers House. She lives in West Philadelphia. Contact her at gautsche@writing.upenn.edu.