See: Pigs at the State Trough
"Ivy's growth transforms a city; Penn's $500m expansion could be Harvard's model" by Tracy Jan, Globe Staff | May 3, 2009
PHILADELPHIA - .... The University of Pennsylvania began making risky forays into real estate....
The university persuaded one of the most vocal neighborhood leaders, Barry Grossbach, to join its efforts as a community representative, giving him a vote on a board created to oversee the new business improvement district. Grossbach helped Penn identify decaying residential blocks so the university could buy up dilapidated boarding houses, convert them to single-family homes, and sell them at a loss....
That's why your tuition costs went up, kiddo!
Why the school is in the real estate business, well....
Judith Rodin, a West Philadelphia native and Penn graduate, spearheaded Penn's remarkable urban transformation during her decade-long tenure as the university's president, had to defend the unusual investments to professors who thought the money should be spent on academic pursuits.
What, spend money on academics at a school? Ya' kiddin', right?
"The faculty had a right to say, 'If you buy houses in West Philadelphia, are you not funding the English Department?' " Rodin said.
No wonder our kids are stoo-pid.
Penn gave its employees $15,000 cash incentives to buy homes in the neighborhood. Block by block, century-old houses were made over with new lighting and fresh paint. Since 1998, more than 600 university employees have taken advantage of the homeownership program.
Omar Blaik, who oversaw Penn's revitalization efforts, was the first university administrator to move into the neighborhood. His six-bedroom Victorian twin, purchased for under $200,000 in 1998, is now worth more than $700,000, he said....
Nice to know what your tuition dollars went for, huh, kids (and parents)?
They went towards SOME ADMINISTRATOR GETTING a PLUM HOUSE!!!
In recent years, Penn also leased land to developers for market-rate apartments, putting retail and restaurants on the ground floor. To counter criticisms of gentrification - or Penn-trification, as some call it - the university has tried to address the need for affordable housing by renovating several hundred apartments and maintaining below-market rents. It also subsidizes rent for some retailers, to keep mom and pop shops, such as a used bookstore, in business.
When Whole Foods and other national chains passed on opening a grocery store at the corner of 40th and Walnut, citing demographic concerns, Penn filled the need with the locally owned Fresh Grocer, now one of the highest-grossing markets in the city. Another critical project was a six-screen cinema complex....
Hey, you should feel good, kid. Never mind that worthless degree for which you owe thousands; you helped develop a community. This society is screwed up, folks.
The key component to West Philadelphia's revitalization, residents said, has been its investment in the public Penn Alexander School, which opened in 2001. Professors from the Graduate School of Education design the curriculum and visit the school weekly to train teachers. The university also subsidizes operation costs at $1,330 per student, on top of public funding.
The school has attracted hundreds of families to the neighborhood, making it a safer place to live. Amy Neukrug, who lives across the street from the school, where her daughter is a seventh-grader, said the police call box placed at her front yard when Rodin became president was removed in 2004. Crime had declined so much it was no longer needed, Neukrug said.
"We recognized that what's good for Penn is good for Philadelphia and vice versa," said Pennsylvania's governor, Edward Rendell, who was mayor of Philadelphia when the West Philadelphia revitalization began and is a 1965 Penn graduate....
And what's good for General Motors is.... oh, ummm, never mind, Ed, you self-serving, Hillary-supporting, globalist piece of crap.
Penn is now setting its sights eastward toward the Schuylkill River, with plans to transform 24 acres of industrial land into athletic fields and a public park within two years. But as the university turns its gaze elsewhere, longtime West Philadelphia residents say it is imperative that Penn not forget about them....
And what is Penn again? Oh, yeah, a UNIVERSITY!!!
You know, where they are "supposed to" teach kids?
Looks like you are second in the forgotten sweepstakes, West Philly.
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