Photographer: H Fruchtman for the Health of Philadelphia Photo-Documentation Project.
About The Photograph
The city has responded to blight with the wrecking ball, investing upwards of $300 million in demolishing abandoned properties. The city's hope is that a clean slate will invite development and economic recovery. But residents are skeptical: what they see are homes and neighborhoods being razed. Not only that, but once blight is gone, with fenced green space left in its place, neighborhoods lose the potent visual symbols that testify to the underlying suffering of the community.
The city came in and tore that property down so now it's just a vacant lot. And there was no opportunity for the community to have maybe a discussion about properties coming down in the community and okay, when they come down what happens to the space? Can we have classes that could have came through the community center to teach kids how to do landscaping, teach them how to take care of an empty lot, how the lot can be used for learning experiences. None of that stuff happened; they just came down. It's still an unkempt piece of property, which has now become like an alleyway for drugs and substance abusers who kind of use it at their convenience.
-Health of Philadelphia Participant
