New Book: Race, Real Estate and Education: Inventing Gentrification in Philadelphia, 1960-2020

Posted by Temple University Press on August 26, 2025

Race, Real Estate and Education: Inventing Gentrification in Philadelphia, 1960-2020, by Edward Epstein will be published September 12 by Temple University Press. The book is about the connection between efforts to change K-12 schools and Philadelphia’s transformation from an industrial city into one focused on tourism, higher education, and medicine.

Philadelphia’s urban renewal efforts in the 1950s, which re-envisioned the city as a residential enclave, were an early example of gentrification. In West Philadelphia in the 1960s, a coalition of universities and hospitals went further, initiating K–12 public school improvements meant to attract an affluent and whiter population. As Edward Epstein details in Race, Real Estate, and Education, these interventions discounted the negative impact they could have on neighborhood residents.

Epstein outlines the citywide context for the plan to create “University City” in West Philadelphia. He recounts the attempts to correct the segregation, overcrowding, and authoritarian management that plagued Philadelphia’s public schools. As the West Philadelphia Corporation, the proxy for the universities and hospitals, initiated gentrification efforts, the local community resisted and protested, causing the project to fail. The effort was revived with spectacular success, however, with the launch of the well-funded Penn Alexander School in 2001.

Race, Real Estate, and Education shows how the pursuit of urbanist ideals sometimes deepens neighborhood injustice. Epstein’s exploration of whether Philadelphia’s overall approach was beneficial or misguided presents a cautionary tale.

Read more and order the book.