As Coatesville’s revitalization plan surges ahead with new businesses opening and a new regional rail stop under construction, some people are wondering if “revitalization” is just another way to say gentrification. In other words, is the city of Coatesville being gentrified or is it undergoing revitalization? It depends on who you ask. If you ask me, I am telling you the same thing I said on June 27, 2017 “Gentrification” is taking place, but do you know how it is taking place?” The point I was making then is very much the same point that I am making now, the difference between gentrification and revitalization is how it either benefits you or harms you.
2nd Century Alliance
The City of Coatesville, in a public/private partnership for economic development, is aligned with 2nd Century Alliance, a 501 C 3 non-profit started in 2019. Bill Shaw, listed as their Principal Officer, also runs Life Transforming Ministries. These two entities do not seem to be unrelated projects as LTM lists “revitalization of the community” as a central goal. Explaining this LTM argues that the “degree” to which people “seek God for the peace and prosperity of the place they reside, is the degree to which they will contribute to its prosperity.” Poverty in Coatesville, from this logic, is not the result of capitalism or racism, but is due to people’s lack of faith. However, not even Shaw relies on faith alone but has mobilized government and corporate interests through 2nd Century Alliance.
A central part of 2nd Century’s plan is the so-called revitalization of the downtown area. It is therefore not surprising that 2nd Century has corporate leaders in leadership positions, such as Tom Taylor of Brite Realty and Greg Vietri of G.A. Vietri Electric. Perhaps less expected are the elected leaders of Coatesville City Government who also hold 2nd Century leadership positions such as Linda Lavender-Norris, a current member and Chair of the Coatesville City Council.
So how is 2nd Century attracting new businesses to Coatesville? Most of the City has been designated Qualified Opportunity Zones, which means that if you invest money (i.e. capital) in Coatesville and make money (i.e. capital gains) in the process, then, based on a few stipulations, you don’t have to pay taxes on that newly made money. In other words, if you have money to invest, say a million dollars, you can come into Coatesville and invest it. That is, you set up a business, maybe hire a small staff for minimum wage, and take home another million dollars in profit. Because you don’t have to pay taxes on that million dollars of profit, the community the profit came from doesn’t get to benefit from any of it. It is not revitalizing the community. It is not contributing anything to the City’s depleted tax base and therefore serves to further drain the community of its value. Community organizers have been protesting similar forms of corporate tax abatement in Philadelphia for years.
Like in Philly this revitalization plan will therefore do nothing to bring desperately needed funding to the City’s schools and infrastructure that would benefit current residents. The plan to increase the tax base, on the other hand, seems to follow the typical pattern of gentrification, with the construction of new luxury housing units thereby increasing property values and pushing current residents out.
The few new businesses that have popped up in Coatesville (along Lincoln Highway between 4th Ave and 1st Avenue) have therefore done literally nothing to slow climbing eviction rates, rebuild crumbling schools, rectify the lack of jobs, or even pay a livable wage to the handful of people hired. So even the most superficial of the promises of revitalization, job creation, doesn’t even really help those who get them. Not only do these jobs tend to offer below-subsistence poverty wages, but they also tend to be temporary, non-unionized, without healthcare benefits, and so on.
Beyond the pristine façade of these new establishments there remains an unkept filthy mess, with employees who are tired, overwhelmed, and desperate. Yet while they know their conditions are horrible, some hope that one day the beauty of the front will somehow make it to the back.
People Begin to Fight Back
However, more and more of our neighbors and friends in Coatesville, and across Chester County and throughout the whole US, know that mink coats do not trickle down. We are coming to realize, in greater and greater numbers, that only through collective organizing and unity can our class fight and win the world we deserve.
We cannot afford to lose sight of the fact that amid promises of bringing “economic opportunity to city residents” and improving “the overall quality of life,” the businesses 2nd Century Alliance attracts are not investing their money out of the goodness of their heart but to extract wealth from Coatesville, to exploit the people and the City. The long-term goal of revitalization plans from Coatesville, to West Chester, Phoenixville, and beyond, is to inflate property values and displace lower-income residents. It is worth repeating that revitalization leads to displacement.
Real Revitalization (If there was ever such a thing and frankly it’s not) would be the rebuilding of a community from the bottom up, in which the community remains affordable for low-income families. A key component of real revitalization would be led by the poor working-class people of the community, not hired guns from in and outside of the community.
All that to say…some of y’all will say Coatesville is being revitalized and is “rising.” The poor working class backbone of the city disagrees since we know we are being gentrified and we therefore know why we are being displaced. Only through unity and organization can we shift the balance of forces and compel the political establishment to meet the people’s more than justified and more than reasonable demands, which include no tax incentives (i.e. tax breaks) for new businesses. In other words, stop draining Coatesville of its vital resources leaving the people with nothing!
