Market Street, looking east from 11th Street, shows part of the Fashion District’s three sheer, inward-facing blocks at left. Community and professional groups have been brainstorming other uses to bring new life to the corridor.Such a district could centralize services in housing, health care, employment, and language access, while cementing Philadelphia’s status as a city that embraces newcomers from around the world.
PCDC and the Welcoming Center, an immigrant-support agency, joined the project. Earlier this month, Chin and Phillips were among those who spoke to designers, developers, advocates and architects about a new move on Market East. More than 100 people showed up to see concepts at the, according to a new study by Pew . The foreign-born population more than doubled from 105,000 in 1990 to 232,000 in 2022, even as the overall city population grew very little, census figures show.
Some businesspeople there see the team’s billion-dollar investment as the chance of a lifetime, a means to dramatically redirect a thoroughfare that’s been slipping for years. The future must be built on facts, Gupta said. That there will be no second baby boom like the one that injected 70 million people into the population after World War II. That the droves who areThe Welcoming District forum was hosted by the Design Advocacy Group , which pushes for high-quality planning and architecture in Philadelphia.
Panelist Tayyib Smith, a real estate developer, entrepreneur and consultant at S&R Holdings, said he would frame a Welcoming District as being “for immigrants and long-term residents.”