The picture in the article is at 20th and Fitzwater, which is in South Philly, not north; it’s about a mile from where my Italian great-grandparents had their pharmacy prior to the Depression, at 10th and Christian. Before the neighborhood was Italian, it was Swedish, and before that it was Irish, and before that it was English. ‘Hoods change.
You are correct; and that area has been gentrifying for the past 30 years. It's just Center City spreading a little farther south as high-rise office buildings and stores push residents out of Center City and farther out in the ring around the main area, "Vine to South and River to River." Fitz is only two blocks south of South Street. It's not like a bunch of white people suddenly arrived in the depths of North Philly and bought up a few blocks.
That said, 50 years ago people said "Vine to Pine and River to River", so the outward push from Center City has gobbled up some blocks. Since the 60s, people have developed different patterns: although people have smaller families and fewer people living in each household, they now have one or more cars per adult, as opposed to one car for the whole family in the old days. Many acres of city real estate are now devoted to parking spaces, either commercial or private.
We lived in Germantown until 1955, when things began to change.