Philadelphia

Map of 10 year Property Tax Abatements
These are controversial as they subsidized upper-middle class housing, while taking money away from the city and school district. The goal is to encourage development and long term growth in the property tax base, but the tax abatements might just be subsidizing a "back to the city" trend that is caused by external factors.

I updated my Philly house price map with November 2017 Office of Property Assessment data.

I also created several new maps.

Change in Assessed Value from April 2014 to November 2017

Philly land value by square foot

I'm reviewing the original Philadelphia Tenants Union proposal that was proposed by David Thompson and Tim Horras for the Philly Socialists in August 2015. At that time, Tim Horras was chair of the organization. And David Thompson currently is chair.

For the record, I'm currently a dues-paying, but inactive, Philly Socialists member. I was very active in August 2015 and before.

Their proposal (see below) might have been slightly modified (before adoption) to include more of a time line.

Longer version of this article for statisticians (Open Office format)

Introduction

I have developed a very tentative prediction model for the Philadelphia District Attorney's race and the Democratic primary on May 16, 2017.

The incumbent, Seth Williams, dropped out due to corruption. This left the city with a wide-open race. The Democratic party establishment has not endorsed anyone. Instead individual Democratic leaders have spread their support among the seven candidates.

My model is based on several weighted factors. The weights are somewhat arbitrary. For instance, I would give polling more weight if there were independent polls and more polls in general.

Larry Krasner is running for Philadelphia District Attorney on a platform of ending mass incarceration. He is a long-time defense attorney who has defended numerous activists in court and has longstanding ties to social movements.

A couple months ago I made this property level map of
Philly Housing Age

A couple areas of the city are missing data (in my data source).

I made a new map of Philadelphia Exterior Housing Condition using the Office of Property Assessment data (2015).

It is part of a series of high resolution maps I've made for Philadelphia using property level data.

It is interesting to see what parts of the city have new construction, rehabbing, and vacant and/or uninhabitable properties.

As rent continues to rise at a rate faster than wages and inflation for most Americans, many people think that rent control could help.

Previously, I made a Rent Change Map for Philly that shows that most areas had rent increase faster than inflation between the 2000 Census and the 2009-2013 American Community Survey.

I decided to extend this analysis by looking at which demographic groups might benefit the most from rent control.

I wrote a summary of the fight that I'm involved in on behalf of the Winchester Tenants who live in the Winchester Building in West Philly. We are fighting the Quaker non-profit Friends Rehabilitation Program which has failed to do proper building maintenance since 2011.

Winchester Tenants Demand Justice from the Friends Rehabilitation Program