Gentrification and the political and ideological displacement of the Philadelphia Black Worker tradition

Abstract

ABSTRACT As major American cities lose Black residents in part through gentrification, the democratic political tradition they championed is being affected as well. While abundant literature documents the impacts of gentrification, less is known about political displacement. This study uses a novel theoretical framework to understand how residents rooted in the tradition of the Black Worker in Philadelphia, as defined by W. E. B. Du Bois, are impacted by the political activities of a professional managerial class (PMC). This paper argues that from the perspective of leaders in the Black Worker tradition interviewed, PMC-anchored new progressive and new urbanist movements are part of a hostile takeover of the neighborhood civic landscape and the erasure of a truly democratic political tradition. Residents reject new progressive movements for being unrooted in the city’s organic traditions, and new urbanist policies promoting density, biking, reduced parking, and multifamily zoning for eroding Black Worker neighborhoods created by progressive struggles for working-class self-determination.