Development and displacement go hand-in-hand, but every situation is unique and gentrification isn’t always an entirely accurate assessment. Contributor David Hilbert takes a look at the North Philadelphia neighborhood surrounding Temple University where new construction for student housing is putting pressure on long time residents

Urban life-loving millennials are at least partially responsible for the growth of Greater Center City, and a good dozen other neighborhoods around the city. With this in mind, David Hilbert looks at Philadelphia’s young adults circa 1950-1970, during suburbanization. Where did they live and why?

Everything is coming up papal. Data junkie Davie Hilbert compares the city’s preparations for this weekend’s visit from Pope Francis with Pope John Paul II’s stay in 1979 and reveals the gradual streamlining of a city

Discussion has grown in the media lately regarding law enforcement’s detachment and potential bias for the neighborhoods they patrol when they commonly call home elsewhere, particularly in larger cities. In Philadelphia, where police officers lived at the turn of the century looks dramatically than it does today. David Hilbert dove into the City Archives to compare the residential zip codes of the Philadelphia’s police force in 1925 and wonders if the migration toward the Northeast and elsewhere has eroded an inner city connection to communities they protect

The city is full of incidental boundaries that can often shape an area’s socioeconomic character and influence housing prices and future development. More often than not, rail lines break neighborhoods into highly divided sections, creating an urban rift between prosperity and blight. David Hilbert examines the economics behind the “right” and “wrong” side of the train tracks in West Philly and Port Richmond

Grays Ferry and Northern Liberties are both two miles from City Hall and mirror each other in percentage of renters. Tracing the addresses of landlords in both areas, David Hilbert examines affluence and poverty through property owner distance and neighborhood investment