Philadelphia Badlands

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The Badlands refer to a section of Northeast Philadelphia that became known for an abundance of open air drug markets and drug-related violence since the 1980s.

Dubbed The Badlands by Philadelphia police and the media, the neighborhood of Fairhill, typically considered a subsection of the broader West Kensington neighborhood, is often considered the epicenter of The Badlands. The neighborhood boundaries lie roughly from 9th Street to the west, Front Street to the east, Allegheny Avenue to the north, and York Street to the south.

The term The Badlands was popularized in part, by the novel Third and Indiana by then-Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Steve Lopez. The neighborhood was also featured in an episode of ABC's Nightline featuring Ted Koppell and a similar report on MSNBC concerning drug activity around 9th Street and Indiana Avenue.

The intersection of 3rd street and Indiana Avenue was listed number two in a list of the city's top ten drug corners according to an article by Philadelphia Weekly reporter Steve Volk. Much of the article detailed how the narcotics trade is moving toward the northeast and although it is not in the typical boundaries of The Badlands the intersection of Kensington Avenue and Somerset Avenue ranked number one.

At one time a center of heavy industry, much of the urban landscape is characterized by now-vacant warehouses and tightly-packed strips of brick rowhomes constructed for the working class of the neighborhood. Like most industrial cities, Philadelphia took an economic decline following the deportation of industry to developing countries and has suffered as a result.

Today, neighborhoods due south and southeast of The Badlands have begun to gentrify as high prices in the once-blighted Northern Liberties neighborhood continue to drive out the artists that once called it home. As a result, real estate prices have risen dramatically around Norris Square in what is typically called Olde Kensington and in neighboring Fishtown, an area frequently compared to New York City's pre-gentrification Lower East Side.

Old factories have also been converted into low-cost artists lofts, including the a string of factories owned by Lasdon Properties along 5th Street from Girard Avenue to Cecil B. Moore Avenue. Other factories have been converted along Allegheny Avenue, due west of Kensington Avenue, in an area that borders the north-eastern fringes of The Badlands.