Pushing Back the Gates: Neighborhood Perspectives on University-Driven Revitalization in West Philadelphia

5. Comparative Views of Contemporary University-Driven Neighborhood Change

Despite the economic downturn, many universities are working to expand their campuses. Ideally, we would have data on patterns of neighborhood change around university campuses, as we do for revitalization programs carried out by other institutions. Failing that, by examining patterns of neighborhood change around comparable urban-located research universities, and combining those data with studies of significant cases of change, we can assess how similar the Penn/West Philadelphia case is to those of other communities whose futures are entwined with the development of universities or similar institutions. However, with Penn as the flagship for this type of work in many ways, outcomes and metrics of change and renewal are even more difficult to find in other projects given their status. Westfield state College president Evan Dobelle, author of the Savior of Our Cities Survey, provides a useful framework for evaluating and comparing what universities are doing in urban engagement .However,the criteria he gives are difficult to enumerate given how porous they are.1 For example, Dobelle suggests that one criterion should be the length of community involvement programs, but Comparative views of Contemporary University-Driven neighborhood Change 5 96 C h a P t e r 5 involvement with a community may not be formal and is therefore not easily located in time.The informal nature of university− community relationships is not a negative.The social embeddedness of an institution through its informal relationships is actually something to encourage and support. The qualitative spirit of engagement is highly subjective and subject to debate within and beyond each institution mentioned in the survey. Expanded comparative research into the subject might take some of Dobelle’s factors into consideration. The cases in this chapter provide not a comprehensive comparative study of completed work but an exploratory meta-analysis of comparable institutions and the frameworks they have or are engaging in. For example, Columbia and Harvard are easily regarded as two of the best and richest schools in the nation. The University of southern California and northeastern University, although less wealthy and prestigious, are still, with comprehensive research and teaching, embedded in inner-city neighborhoods where their institutional aspirations are inhibited by their geographic and social contexts . In the case of Penn, southern California, and northeastern, there are factors tied to problems of local contexts and the urgency with which each institution sought to solve its problems. Columbia and Harvard also deal with problems of context, but these are not of the same scale, magnitude, or urgency as those of West Philadelphia, south Central losAngeles,or the Roxbury neighborhood in Boston. Columbia University Earlier in the 2000s, the “roaring” of the Columbia lion into the Manhattanville section of new york City attracted the attention and ire of nearby Harlem, for several reasons.The university’s plan was to expand in a northwestern direction toward the George Washington Bridge, revitalizing industrial land for academic purposes .2 There were several key differences between Columbia’s and Penn’s approaches to neighborhood revitalization. Most important, Columbia lacked a comparable social engagement and service infrastructure .second,the university“in the City of newyork”explicitly C o m Pa r at i v e v i e w s o f U n i v e r s i t y- d r i v e n C h a n g e 97 attempted to capture property for academic purposes. Most notably, the university claimed to be expanding its strengths in biotechnology research.3 The politics of land conveyance and speculation in new york exacerbates the tensions that would exist in any example.Columbia’s topographical and historical social relationships with Harlem and Upper Manhattan are simply context for a bitter fight for land and dominance.Most important,a key difference between Columbia and Penn is the rhetorical frame constructed by each university around its real estate projects. In both cases, historical incidents do much of the framing for these institutions;however,Columbia’s plans to expand make much less sense in the context of Upper Manhattan. The topography of West Harlem creates a natural boundary between Columbia and central Harlem that reinforces the exclusivity of and division between the two entities.The Metropolitan Transit Authority’s subway line, which comes above ground at 120th street and rises to an elevated line that towers over Manhattanville, creates yet another boundary that the university must cross. Columbia’s health sciences campus in the...