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

1. Cities and Their Universities: Logical Places to Search for Hope

In the wake of the “Great Recession,” there are many questions about how the U.s. economy will ultimately rebound and which institutions will help make recovery happen.The losses to the manufacturing, banking, and housing sectors have been nothing short of sensational. A common mantra spoken by politicians and pundits is that innovation will lead recovery and re-create the American economy in the coming years and decades. To a great extent, this is true. And investments in human capital and in the technological advancements that will increase future American competitiveness will most likely come out of American colleges and universities—particularly American research universities. yet many do not understand how universities work or how important they are to their local contexts or to the nation at large. The socially accepted narrative about universities is that they are wealthy, geographically bound islands of privilege and exclusivity with significant resources. In this narrative, colleges and universities are largely benign, and their impacts on society are generally beneficent and magnanimous, taking the form of education for society or breakthroughs in research; thus, universities are responsible for Cities and Their Universities Logical Places to Search for Hope 1 2 C h a P t e r 1 proving their own usefulness to society.In the face of declining public sector support for community revitalization,this narrative expands to include an obligation to resolve urban social problems and generate economic development at both local and regional levels. If Herbert Rubin is correct that economic developers must “shoot anything that flies; claim anything that falls,” then universities—particularly research universities—become just one of those things.1 Cities and their economic development professionals cannot make colleges and universities contribute to local economic development. They can only hope that the universities will.They are a form of “sticky capital ,” which means that they are fixed in place and unable to operate completely in virtual worlds or offshore, as other corporate entities so often choose to do. This chapter provides some historical background for these assumptions and discusses why many universities affirm the narratives about them.I contend that many colleges and universities,particularly those that are research oriented, are complex institutions that must serve many purposes.Teaching is but one of the roles they play, but it is often the aspect of academic life that receives the most attention from those who cannot see the intense focus on research happening within universities. Research and knowledge production have grown to dwarf other activities as the race to commercialize research and expand its economic benefits to institutions and their host cities and regions accelerates. Budget reductions in the most recent era have placed even more emphasis on sponsored research and the need to create new spaces for it. After decades of decline, many cities and metropolitan areas are now, at the beginning of the new millennium, starting to enjoy dynamic and dramatic reversals of fortune, which were nearly erased by the economic downtown that began in 2008.2 The dynamics of evolving postindustrial landscapes in northern and northeastern American cities reflect new modes of planning and policy making for urban regeneration.The new focus on improvements in quality of life instead of alleviation of poverty has brought new stakeholders to the forefront of urban revitalization. Among these new stakeholders are colleges and universities,whose role in the revitalization of urban places and neighborhoods is ever increasing.3 C i t i e s a n d t h e i r U n i v e r s i t i e s 3 This book presents findings from a study of a neighborhood revitalization project in which a private research university became a significant driver of change.At the center of the University City section ofWest Philadelphia sits the University of Pennsylvania (Penn),4 which between 1994 and 2004 implemented a comprehensive project that is now regarded as one of the most important examples of university-driven urban revitalization.5 At the start of the 1990s, Penn found itself surrounded by crime, dilapidated housing, poorly performing schools,and poverty,and confronted with a lack of amenities to serve its students, staff, and faculty.6 To address the concerns of students, their parents, alumni, and other constituents, the university developed a systematic plan of action for dealing with conditions in West Philadelphia. The central questions of this book are these: (1) How have the neighborhoods...