Revitalization in Chester County: Displacement and the Need to Fight Back

In 2001 the Chester County Commissioners office launched the Community Revitalization Program (CRP) under the Landscapes 21^st Century Fund. The CRP was created to offer financial assistance to the County’s 15 boroughs and the City of Coatesville. The money was, and is, for infrastructure and streetscape updates to attract new businesses and residents.

To qualify for funding individual municipalities must have an Urban Center Revitalization Plan (UCRP). To help develop UCRPs boroughs have partnered with national organizations like Main Street America that claims to have “helped” revitalize more than 2000 downtown areas throughout the U.S. A number of local non-profits have been created to manage this public/private partnership, such as the Revitalization Task Force in Kennett Square [1].

Displacement Across the U.S.

The biggest threat to working class communities within areas targeted for revitalization is displacement caused by sudden spikes in rent. If an area’s revitalization plan is causing displacement, then what is happening is gentrification.

Displacement is so common in revitalized areas that many working-class communities have been fighting back. The struggle against gentrification has become so widespread that some business groupings behind revitalization plans seem to feel threatened enough to at least acknowledge the threat of displacement.

For example, the Knight Foundation, in a summary and assessment of their own efforts in helping Detroit, MI and Charlotte, NC revitalize, acknowledge, and seem to advocate against, the threat of displacement:

Proactively mitigate displacement risk: Organizations committed to advancing revitalization must contend with the pressing risk of displacement that arises with new investment. Responses must be proactive and community-specific—the displacement risk in a city with rising rental prices and an influx of new residents is much higher than in a city where there is overall population loss. [2]

However, while this summary and acknowledgement is sound, nowhere in the report do they identify even the most obvious concrete forms of displacement mitigation such as rent control. They simple identify the risk and the need and move on. Perhaps even more surprising is that in their summary of the revitalization efforts they supported in Detroit and Charlotte they admit that displacement was not mitigated.

For example, regarding Charlotte, the report notes that, “the ongoing loss of the neighborhood’s Black population highlights the importance of mitigating against displacement to preserve the West End’s historic and cultural role as a Black neighborhood.” Similarly, for Detroit, the report plainly states that “the North End is losing its Black population.” [3]

Rather than offering real solutions to stop this displacement in Detroit the report just states that, “It will be important to monitor the outcomes of new developments in the area, and the subsequent impacts on demographics, most especially the economic conditions for Black residents.” [4]

Displacement in Chester County

Turning our attention back to Chester County it is clear that revitalization is causing displacement. In a previous article we reported that the Black population of West Chester has experienced dramatic displacement since revitalization efforts began over twenty years ago [5].

Similar to the Knight Foundation, Chester County’s application guidelines to receive CRP funding offers rhetoric but little else. For example, the CRP Guidelines include special reimbursement incentives for projects that “support the development of affordable housing” in areas with “the least affluent populations” [6]. However, such calls have seemed to offer little more than lip service to a growing need. Where is the new affordable housing in Chester County sufficient enough to mitigate displacement as the cost of living skyrockets?

Beyond the application guidelines what does the Chester County Strategic Plan offer in terms of prioritizing the needs of working people? Unfortunately, nowhere in the Priorities and Goals of the Chester County Strategic Plan is mitigating against displacement mentioned. Instead, the plan appears to be talking directly to investors noting that the County Commissioners Office is prioritizing things like entrepreneurship, business growth, and maintaining financial strength. Rather than supporting the victims of displacement, the Plan calls for placing even more emphasis on policing and “supporting crime victims” [7] (a common euphemism for intensifying the war on the poor).

Fighting Displacement

The working people of Chester County deserve better. We deserve a government that truly prioritizes workers and refuses to put the profits of a few above the needs of the many.

Talking to working people on the street throughout Chester County, it is clear to Liberation Center volunteers that the lip service the County Commissioners office pays to the need for affordable housing is not enough to pacify the demand for justice and basic human rights like housing. It is apparent that the only force capable of stopping displacement and all injustice, the people united, is gaining momentum.

We demand the Chester County Commissioners enact concrete steps to mitigate displacement, such as rent control. In a previous article we outlined the demands of a housing campaign ran by Chester County Liberation Center volunteers directed at Coatesville City Council, such as enacting an eviction moratorium, and an eviction diversion program. These demands would also go a long way in mitigating displacement [8].