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ABSTRACT
This study examines the landscape of gentrification and Black residential displacement within the West Philadelphia Promise Zone (WPPZ). Our intergenerational community-driven participatory action research team conducted a comparative longitudinal spatial analysis between Census data from 2008 to 2012 and 2013 to 2017 investigating variables of both gentrification and displacement including changes in population, racial demographics, per capita income, and housing costs and value. Our findings demonstrate that targeted block groups within the WPPZ are exhibiting indicators of displacement; however, they are not progressing at the same rate. We found that Black residents are impacted by the neighborhood changes at the highest rates and are being displaced from the north and the south, being squeezed to the middle resulting in a racialized pattern of gentrification that we deem a sandwich effect. Recommendations to respond to the displacement of Black residents in the WPPZ and other university-adjacent urban communities are presented.
Acknowledgments
This paper is dedicated in memory of Dean Penny Hammrich of the Drexel University School of Education who wholeheartedly supported this work. Many thanks to our Second Story Collective partners as well as Dr. Melissa Gouge for reviewing and editing a draft of this paper.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1. Black and African American will be used interchangeably throughout this article to encompass the diversity within the African diaspora.
2. Guided by Crenshaw’s (Citation1990) argument, Black will be capitalized because “Black, like Asians, Latinos, and other minorities, constitute a specific cultural group and, as such, require denotations as a proper noun. By the same token, we do not capitalize white, which is not a proper noun, since whites do not constitute a specific cultural group” (p. 1244).
3. The U.S. Census data from 2008–2017 refers to Black/African-American as one demographic population. Beyond our methods and findings, we use Black to refer to this same group.
Additional information
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Notes on contributors
Ayana Allen-Handy
Ayana Allen-Handy is an associate professor of urban education and interim chair of the Department of Policy, Organization, and Leadership (POL) in the School of Education at Drexel University. She is also the founding director of the Justice-oriented Youth Education Lab (JoY Lab), a diverse, intergenerational collective of youth and community, faculty, undergraduate, and graduate research partners who center JoY through a humanizing, asset-forward, and critical-participatory action research approach.
Alysha Meloche
Alysha Meloche is an assistant professor of practice at the Villanova University School of Business. She currently teaches creativity and innovation courses for graduate and undergraduate students. Her background in design thinking and human centered design informs her research, in which she utilizes participatory methods to ensure that participants’ voices are represented accurately and fairly. Her contributions to creativity research are focused on making creativity more culturally responsive and socially just.
Rasheda Likely
Rasheda Likely is an assistant professor of science education in elementary and early childhood education at Kennesaw State University where she teaches science methods courses to pre-service teacher candidates. She takes great delight in building teacher capacity for engaging students in and expanding the evaluation of science and engineering practices. Her research interests include developing decolonized science curricula, activities, and assessments, as she continues to reimagine learning experiences that reflect and center the brilliance of minoritized students.
Kimberly Sterin
Kimberly Sterin is a post-doctoral research fellow and research operations Manager in Drexel University’s Justice-oriented (JoY) Youth Education Lab. A teacher at heart, she has seven years of experience as a public school English teacher in both middle and high school settings. She earned a PhD in education policy and leadership from Drexel University, a master’s degree in secondary education from Johns Hopkins University and holds bachelor’s degrees in English language and literature and Spanish language and literature, as well as a minor in creative writing with a concentration in poetry, from the University of Maryland, College Park.
Shawnna Thomas-EL
Shawnna Thomas-EL is the director of PennKIPP at the University of Pennsylvania and an adjunct faculty member at the Drexel University School of Education. Gentrification and the disproportionate access to and equity in higher education comprise the foundation of her research which has as its focus on the intersections between housing, education and politics, and its impact on the lives of Black Americans. Her career in the field of higher education is committed to recruiting Black students into higher education and advocating for more welcoming higher education environments.
Carol Richardson McCullough
Carol Richardson McCullough is a community researcher in the Justice-oriented Youth Education Lab and a founding member of Writers Room. Carol who has been an integral part of each stage of the program’s growth—from its regular programming to the NEA-funded festival celebrating the life and work of Zora Neale Hurston to TRIPOD, an intergenerational photo-essay project. Her work as Cultural Liaison has helped forge partnerships with institutions including the Free Library of Philadelphia and Mural Arts Philadelphia. Her work as a researcher on the AmeriCorps study utilizes her expertise as a writer and her experience as a secondary language arts teacher. Holding a BA in Language Arts, Marshall University ’76, she is Old School. Vintage.
Keyssh Datts
Keyssh Datts is a multimedia creator/community organizer from Southwest Philly who uses the love of the past, the now, and Afro-futurism to help people learn and unlearn for the betterment of society and humanity. They are also the founder of DecolonizePhilly where their major research lies in the area of environmental justice and colonialism.
Rachel Wenrick
Rachel Wenrick is the director of Arts and Civic Innovation and the founding director of Writers Room, a university-community literary arts program at Drexel University. She has worked as a waitress, a roofer, and a personal assistant. All of these jobs required paying attention. Being a writer has trained her to look for the through-lines that intersect to make a larger narrative. She received an MFA from Columbia University’s School of the Arts and is co-author of singer and activist Angelique Kidjo’s memoir, Spirit Rising.
Diana Nicholas
Diana Nicholas is a registered architect, fine artist and certified interior designer. She researches, designs, and advocates for services and strategies to bring health and the security of living spaces to people in urban environments. In 2013, Dee established Integral Living Research (ILR), an umbrella lab that houses her research on housing and the scholarship on process and inter-professional teaching. Dee is the director of the MS Design Research program, and holds a bachelor of architecture from Carnegie Mellon University. She then received an MFA from the University of the Arts and is a registered architect, an NCIDQ certificate holder and LEED Green Associate. For almost 10 years, she ran a solo practice in Philadelphia executing residential interiors, experimental materials reuse, storefront revitalization, space planning and adaptive interior nonprofit reuse and also holds a certificate in Health and Design from Cornell University.
Kirsten Kaschock
Kirsten Kaschock is a poet, a novelist, a critic, and an editor who works in several genres but whose work consistently addresses intersections between language and body. Her most recent book of poetry, The Dottery, won the Donald Hall Poetry Prize from the Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP). She is currently the editor-in-chief of thINKing DANCE, an online journal produced by a consortium of dance writers in the Philadelphia Area.
De’Wayne Drummond
De’Wayne Drummond has been involved in family and community engagement and leadership for most of his adult life. He has served as the chairman of the 24th Ward Democratic Executive Committee from 2010 to the present, Committee and the President of the Mantua Civic Association since 2012. His passion for serving the children and families of his community and the City of Philadelphia has been realized in his increased involvement in the development of the Mantua Transformation Plan, completing the Citizen’s Planning Committee Institute and the completion of the Mayor’s Office of Community Services, Fatherhood Initiative. Furthermore, his ongoing participation in the Promise Zone Initiative Collaborative Engagement efforts has insured that his community and constituents remain current and involved. Over the last 14 years, DeWayne worked his way from volunteer, to intern, to Head Start Policy Council and currently a full-time employee in the Office of Head Start at the School District of Philadelphia.
Uk Jung
Uk Jung is an architect and educator in the Department of Architecture, Design, & Urbanism. He founded a design and consultation practice in 2016 in Philadelphia. His research is focused on the availability of affordable housing and affordable commercial spaces in underserved communities undergoing rapid development and gentrification.
George Jenkins
George Jenkins has 25 years of construction and building energy efficient housing experience. For the last 10 years he has been the green building coordinator of YouthBuild Philadelphia Charter School. Where he certifies students in construction and educates them on the importance of renewable energy. He holds a BS in building construction technology, a LEED GA and OSHA 30 Certification. He loves his job as educator, mentor, role model and being an inspiration to young people.
Devin Welsh
Devin Welsh is a MS in social policy graduate student at the University of Pennsylvania. He is also a writer and photographer from Hatfield, Pennsylvania. He has been a part of Writers Room since he was a freshman in 2016, and served as an ArtistYear AmeriCorps Resident Teaching Artist in Philadelphia from 2020 to 2022.