In looking for housing, go west

There's an incessant hubbub about problems with on-campus housing at Penn: discriminatory vandalism in the Quadrangle, flooding in the high rises, the former housing-system refugee camp at the Sheraton, and so on.

Barring the unlikely realization by the Penn facilities wizards that purple paint doesn't fix chronic infrastructural deficiencies, these problems aren't going anywhere.

So to those suffering under the perpetually mediocre College House system, I offer Horace Greeley's timeless axiom: "Go west."

Unfortunately, the off-campus residential options closest to the University also have drawbacks. The "Penntrification" of University City is raising housing prices. Landlords of properties close to campus, aware of the inelasticity of student demand, often charge disproportionately high rent for poorly maintained houses and apartments.

And so to those dissatisfied with the conventional on-campus and off-campus housing options, I suggest a revision: "Go a little farther west."

I did. For a little more than a year, I've lived at 4425 Spruce St. Returning from abroad, my roommates and I were in a jam for housing, and that's where we ended up.

We were not thrilled to be living so far away, but we got used to the distance. Riding our bicycles, we make it to class in less than 10 minutes. And gradually, we realized just how good living out west could be.

First of all, property values are lower. While rent varies from place to place, the quality of the housing stock is significantly better farther from campus.

"I have more space and pay less rent than any of my friends who live closer to campus," College sophomore Laura Wasserson said. She and her seven roommates pay $3,600 a month to live at 329 S. 43rd St.

Patrick Dillon, a senior in the College who lives at 4418 Spruce St., agrees. "When Penn students come into my apartment, they immediately compare it to their own. They normally say that they ... like mine because it is larger, cheaper and 'like a real home.'"

In addition to enjoying better living arrangements at lower prices, students living farther west enjoy a different perspective of West Philadelphia. Distanced from classy Penn bastions such as Bucks County Coffee, and Qdoba, we're more familiar Rx, Koch's Deli and Fiume, all located west of 43rd Street.

College senior Katie Gunderson lives at 518 Woodland Terr., near 41st and Baltimore streets. "I don't think I would have wandered to the Green Line Cafe, Clark Park or any of the restaurants farther west on Baltimore if I lived farther away from them," she told me.

"There is a great community out here that most people are missing out on," Wasserson said.

Some students that live on or near campus have explored West Philadelphia, but others mistakenly assume that University City's western fringes are less safe.

"I would want to live there because it's cheaper," Nursing freshman Jessica Plantulli said, "but I feel like it's a scarier area."

"I think security would probably be an issue," College senior Jake Chanin told me. "It probably isn't, but it feels like it would be."

West Philadelphia landlord Mike Salisbury, whose brother Greg owns Rx and attended Penn, dismissed the suggestion that living past 42nd Street is more dangerous. "Maybe it was in the past," he said, "and I think that's why there's a leftover stigma."

The students I interviewed all told me that they felt just as safe living farther west.

"Students think anywhere past 41st is the ghetto, and they're completely wrong," Wasserson said. "I live on a street with students, families, doctors and twentysomethings."

Gunderson pointed out that the publicized crimes that fuel students' fears are taking place close to campus, including the shootings at Philly Diner and 38th and Walnut streets.

"Safety is an issue all over campus," she said.

Of course, the west side of 42nd Street is not intrinsically superior to the east, but students searching for housing shouldn't overlook options farther from campus.

"It's a compromise between price and location," said College senior Sam Rothberg, who lived for a semester at 4513 Kingsessing Ave. before moving to 4103 Pine St. this year.

Dillon's take on the trade-off was less forgiving: "Most of the apartments close to campus are either disgusting or expensive. So it's either walking an extra four or five blocks or getting screwed."

Daniel Nieh is a senior East Asian Languages and Civilizations major from Portland, Ore. Low End Theory appears on Fridays.

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