University City hosts Winterfest

University City District and Class of 1923 Ice Rink will host the 7th Annual Winterfest on Thursday, December 16th from 5:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. For an admission fee of a dollar you’ll get complimentary cocoa, fountain sodas and holiday treats, plus free skate rental. For more information, visit www.ucityphila.org or contact Lori Klein Brennan at 215-243-0555.

Bookstore offers chance to win

Fill out the Penn Bookstore’s annual survey and you could win $100. All you have to do is complete the survey at www.upenn.edu/survey/bookstore and you’ll be entered to win one of three $100 Penn Bookstore gift certificates, good for books, music or Penn gear.

Let’s be clear

The headline and teaser we ran for an article in the Nov. 18 edition of Penn Current—“Immigration can hurt housing values” and “Immigrant influx may drive down neighborhood housing values”—offended at least one of our readers; the professor whose research we were presenting. That was certainly not our intention and we regret any confusion this caused.

To clarify, Albert Saiz, an assistant professor of Real Estate in the Wharton School, says that, “Immigration is associated with robust growth in housing values in the metropolitan areas where immigrants settle,” though prices are growing less fast in the neighborhoods where immigrants concentrate. One explanation for this, he says, is that “immigrants are more likely to move to less desirable neighborhoods, where prices would have been growing more slowly regardless of immigrant influxes.”

Also, he says, “Immigrants are more likely to reside in lower income neighborhoods and these neighborhoods are being deserted by individuals with middle and high incomes. Therefore, immigrants cannot be blamed for ‘driving down’ house values. Rather, they are becoming immersed in a general process of increased income inequality and residential segregation in the U.S.”