demolition

In 2004, much of the stable, working class community of Cramer Hill in Camden, New Jersey was slated to be bulldozed. The City Planning Board had authorized $1 billion redevelopment plan that would have demolished 1,200 homes under eminent domain law. Although parts of the Cramer Hill waterfront had fallen into disrepair, residents say that their charming neighborhood on the Delaware River had a vitality that the City failed to recognize. An isolated neighborhood adjacent to a marina, Cramer Hill's forested shores are a unique natural sanctuary.

With its run-down housing, neglected infrastructure and isolated location, residents of Grays Ferry say the city paid little attention to their neighborhood before the infamous street confrontations between working class whites and blacks in the 1990s. The media dubbed Audenried High School a "prison on the hill" after a spate of violent incidents between students. A racially diverse but segregated South Philadelphia neighborhood isolated between a highway and a river, the phrase Grays Ferry had become a slur to some Philadelphians.

The Taking of Bodine is a harrowing glimpse into one of the darker episodes of Philadelphia's urban revitalization saga. In 2002 and 2003, residents of the multi-ethnic Norris Square/West Kensington neighborhood received notices that their homes would be repossessed by the city under the Neighborhood Transformation Initiative, a redevelopment plan. Blight criteria included "economically or socially undesirable land use," allowing developers to make requests to the city repossess land belonging to long-time residents.