This time last year, Philadelphia was debating whether to construct the 76 Place arena in Center City. Though the Sixers would eventually change their plans after community opposition, the debate echoed the experiences of communities throughout the country—and across the state in Pittsburgh.
That history was ruptured in the 1950s, when city leaders used urban renewal powers to demolish 1,300 buildings and displace some 9,000 residents to build the Civic Arena. The plan severed the Hill District and the adjacent Uptown community from Downtown, creating a cycle of disinvestment from which those areas have yet to fully recover.
The story of these communities has become an intergenerational struggle about who gets to imagine the future and who is forced to live with its consequences…