Columnist Ingrid Holmquist explains the contradiction between reaping the benefits of an institution that has an extensive past of harming its community.
Credit: Oscar VasquezThey said it was the perfect plan. They called it “urban renewal” and “redevelopment.” They brought in new academic buildings, shops, and restaurants. They also displaced over 7,000 people.
We all know this story. There is ever-increasing awareness about Penn’s violent history of gentrification, especially after developers announced the demolition of the University City Townhomes last year. Penn students were instrumental in protesting this stream of evictions, as was the community at large. While the townhomes were ultimately not spared, these protests did contribute to the allocation of a portion of that land to permanently affordable housing complexes, along with some compensation for the victims’ cost of relocation. And during this fight, students didn’t hesitate to hold Penn accountable for its previous encroachment on their community.
All of this to say, Penn students are some of the University’s biggest critics. We know our institution has caused horrible problems and has harmed countless people. We blame it for its problematic historical and present actions daily. But we still go here. So does that fact make us at all accountable for those actions?
It’s true that Penn started gentrifying long before any of us were born. Its greatest violation was in the 1960s, during which Penn spearheaded the destruction of the Black Bottom neighborhood, upon which the UC Townhomes were later built as a consolation prize. Collaborating with other institutions of higher education, including Drexel University, Penn formed the West Philadelphia Corporation. This group identified the Black Bottom as a “blighted” neighborhood they would work to “revitalize.”
The WPC seized buildings from Walnut Street to Lancaster Avenue under eminent domain: the taking of private property for public use. But it wasn’t for public use. It was for private use — our private use. And it certainly didn’t benefit the common good.
People were pushed out of their homes. We got high-rise dorms. Children were forced to change schools. We’ll be getting more retail locations. The list goes on, and it makes one thing perfectly clear: When West Philadelphia loses, we gain.
Being at Penn means adopting a kind of cognitive dissonance. Many of us know the history of this institution — the way it has stepped on and pushed out the people to whom this neighborhood truly belongs. Still, we benefit from that displacement. How, as Penn students, can we square that? Sure, none of us are singlehandedly responsible for Penn’s actions. If we weren’t students here, other people would be. It would all still be the same. But it gets to be a slippery slope when we are the beneficiaries of an institution that harms its own community. Can we in good faith criticize a system that we actively participate in?
This is something I have thought about a lot, and I have come to the conclusion that we can. And more than that, we must. Every day, we walk streets that are not ours. We enter buildings constructed on top of graveyards. We live on bloody land seized under false pretenses. And for that, we owe something. We owe every single person whose loss has been our gain. We owe it in our time here at Penn and in our futures afterward — when we use this education to do something good in the world. That is the only way we can justify being here.
Right now, as students, we have somewhat of a voice. We have the power to threaten the school’s image and that carries weight. This is evident in our history. The UC Townhomes partial victory, made possible in part by the activism of Penn students, is not the first student action to secure wins in public housing. Back in 1969, Penn students staged a 250-person sit-in at College Hall, resulting in a $10 million commitment for affordable housing from the University. There have always been activists among us. There have always been people who care.
So while we’re here, we need to pressure Penn to do more. Because Penn can do more. We have the sixth-largest endowment of any school in the country. While the University may claim they are taking steps to “enhance” West Philadelphia’s residential communities, these attempts are largely symbolic and almost always self-serving. They are not enough and do not come close to rectifying the damage caused by Penn.
Just because we didn’t personally terrorize West Philadelphia doesn’t mean we don’t have a hand in Penn’s atrocities. By being students here, we do. And so we have to counteract that by remaining aware of and opposed to the cruel actions of this institution. Then, we have to keep that attitude in our lives after Penn, using what we learned here. If we don’t, our time at this University will be an act of violence and nothing else.
INGRID HOLMQUIST is a College sophomore studying urban studies from Silver Spring, Md. Her email address is ingridhh@sas.upenn.edu.
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