Previously outlying farmland, Cedar Park was built between 1850 and 1910 as a
streetcar suburb of
Center City. Its development as a suburb accelerated with the installation of
horsecars in the 1850s and again with the arrival of electric
trolley lines in 1892. The name of the neighborhood is derived from a city owned park, also called Cedar Park, that is at 50th Street and
Baltimore Avenue. The land was purchased by the city in 1908 and a
city ordinance was signed into law in 1911 declaring it Cedar Park. There is no official explanation as to the name, but it may have been derived from the Cedar Avenue Improvement Organization, who led efforts into ensuring there was a park. The neighborhood is racially and ethnically diverse, and much of the historic
Queen Anne-style architecture still stands. Since the late 1990s, the neighborhood has been undergoing
gentrification, stimulated by the
University of Pennsylvania's redevelopment plan for West Philadelphia. There is a distinct progressive-politics mien to the neighborhood and a sizable
African immigrant community located along and near
Baltimore Avenue between 45th and 52nd Streets. Cedar Park's residents are predominantly
Jamaican/Caribbean and
African immigrants, but many are U.S.-born
African-American,
Asian-American, or white. As of the 2020 Census, there were 8,752 people residing in Cedar Park. The racial composition of the neighborhood was 52.6% White alone, 31.0% Black alone, 5.4% Asian alone, 0.3% American Indian and Alaska Native alone, 2.0% some other race, and 8.7% multiracial. 7.1% of residents were Hispanic or Latino. == Education ==