ABOUT THIS BOOK

Philadelphia’s urban renewal efforts in the 1950s, which re-envisioned the city as a residential enclave, were an early example of gentrification. In West Philadelphia in the 1960s, a coalition of universities and hospitals went further, initiating K-12 public school improvements meant to attract an affluent and whiter population. As Edward Epstein details in Race, Real Estate, and Education, these interventions discounted the negative impact they could have on neighborhood residents.

Epstein outlines the citywide context for the plan to create “University City” in West Philadelphia. He recounts the attempts to correct the segregation, overcrowding, and authoritarian management that plagued Philadelphia’s public schools. As the West Philadelphia Corporation, the proxy for the universities and hospitals, initiated gentrification efforts, the local community resisted and protested, causing the project to fail. The effort was revived with spectacular success, however, with the launch of the well-funded Penn Alexander School in 2001.

Race, Real Estate, and Education shows how the pursuit of urbanist ideals sometimes deepens neighborhood injustice. Epstein’s exploration of whether Philadelphia’s overall approach was beneficial or misguided presents a cautionary tale.

In the series Urban Life, Landscape, and Policy

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Edward M. Epstein is the Alan J. Lee Director at the Teachers Institute of Philadelphia. He is the coauthor of Race, Gender, and Leadership in Nonprofit Organizations.

REVIEWS

“Epstein presents a nuanced, textured history that is enriched by personal accounts, informative maps, and wonderful, vivid illustrations. In clear prose and with thorough documentation, he fleshes out the many ways that good intentions, naivete, and idealism have combined with greed, concentrated power, and racism to shape West Philadelphia.”—Hidden City

"[T]he strengths of this book are its primary source materials—especially the oral histories with local residents, members of the not-for-profit groups, and other Penn faculty and administration. Epstein’s efforts to historicize and complicate gentrification as something rooted in postwar urban planning and Keynesian-era economics, rather than ascribing it solely to the market forces of the last thirty years, is [sic] commendable…. [T]his is a book that will appeal to historians interested in public education, deindustrialization, gentrification, and Philadelphia, and it does well to illustrate how historically racist planning undermines efforts to reduce inequality today.”— Journal of Planning History

“Epstein’s book is a valuable contribution to the literature on gentrification and to the history of West Philadelphia. It will be most valuable to students of gentrification who have a solid understanding of the process and can place the analysis in the broader context of urban transformation since the 1960s.”—History: Reviews of New Books

“This case study, including detailed stories of strategies used to engage individual schools in the 1960s and the founding of two new schools—a high school that opened in 1971 and was deemed a failure and an extremely successful elementary school that opened 30 years later—is a rich contribution that bridges school reform and community development. It should be thoughtfully read by those working in both fields.”—Journal of Urban Affairs

“Epstein provides a careful, well-documented delineation of the synchrony between local public education improvement efforts in West Philadelphia and attempts to stabilize (reputationally and financially) the neighborhood’s major institution of higher education. He shows how the initiatives, while effective in some ways, also reproduced privilege and provided less help than they might have to historically disadvantaged K–12 students. Race, Real Estate, and Education is novel in centering education policy as an element of ‘revitalization’ near Penn’s campus.”—Laura Wolf-Powers, Professor of Urban Policy and Planning at the City University of New York–Hunter College, and author of University City: History, Race, and Community in the Era of the Innovation District

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Contents

Acknowledgments

A Note on Racial Terminology

Names of Organizations and Abbreviations

Introduction

1. Salvaging a Run-Down City

2. An Embattled School System

3. Developing the Mind, Developing the Neighborhood

4. Conflict and Disillusionment

5. Dark Years in West Philadelphia

6. A Jewel in Gentrification’s Crown

7. Good Causes, Evil Effects

Notes

Bibliography

Index

REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE

If you are a student who cannot use this book in printed form, BiblioVault may be able to supply you with an electronic file for alternative access.

Please have the accessibility coordinator at your school fill out this form.

It can take 2-3 weeks for requests to be filled.