A Qualitative Study of Development and Displacement in Pittsburgh’s Strip District: A Community at Crossroads Experiencing the Uneven Social Costs of Urban Revitalization

Abstract

Pittsburgh’s Strip District offers a look into how urban redevelopment disproportionately affects the communities within. Utilizing 20 semi-structured interviews, it was determined that individual experiences were dictated by certain characteristics that were investigated, like age or one’s social role in the neighborhood. These divergences in lifestyle and overall position in the Strip, therefore, complicate each individual’s perception of growth and their corresponding outcomes. Young residents, who occupy the new residential spaces introduced to the area, accept change as a positive, utilizing the refurbished environment and amenities to their advantage. However, business owners, belonging to an older demographic who better represent what the area once was, meet this change with apprehension. Concerns about fading identity, misguided policy, and displacement repeatedly expose the harmful effects of redevelopment in an urban context. Together, the findings demonstrate how growth presents itself unevenly, with any positive change benefiting only select groups.