Henri Lefebvre's right to the city concept is increasingly used to challenge the development prerogatives associated with neoliberal development. These challenges are more common as gentrification becomes a global urban strategy. This article is an empirical investigation that examines competing claims to community legitimacy and authenticity in a conflict over gentrification in a Philadelphia neighborhood. This conflict emerged in Fishtown when long‐time established residents went head to head with upper‐income gentrifiers over the location of a casino in the neighborhood. Place‐based identities and the temporal connection individuals had to Fishtown contributed to the differences in perspectives on the costs and benefits of the casino and on the legitimacy of long‐time residents versus newcomers to be representative voices on behalf of Fishtown. The findings illuminate problems in applying the right to the city to neighborhood struggles when communities are divided over what constitutes a benefit to the community. The right to the city may not be a universal claim, particularly within a neoliberal urban context.

This study draws on 71 indepth, semistructured interviews with landlords and property managers in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. We find that the perceived burdens associated with evictions often make evictions less desirable for small-scale landlords than finding ways to work with tenants to keep them in their homes, including developing payment plans to help tenants catch up on back rent, adjusting rental rates, accepting services in lieu of rent, and aiding in referrals to housing and social service programs. Some landlords employ a technique of paying tenants to vacate, a practice referred to as cash for keys, which is an informal, off-the-books eviction. Our findings suggest that off-the-books evictions are far more prevalent than has been measured in official eviction data; therefore, the prevalence of residential displacement is more severe than previously documented.

Widespread gentrification has increasingly been accompanied by community-based conflicts between newer and long-established residents. These conflicts raise questions about the strategies long-time residents can use to resist displacement and neighborhood change. This article examines a conflict in Fishtown, a gentrifying Philadelphia neighborhood, over plans to build a casino in the community. It looks at the role of strong community ties based on shared place-based identities and experiences as a resource to galvanize community power for long-time residents. The findings show that strong ties can be a source of power used to challenge the interests of newer residents disputing the idea that the market power of incoming gentrifiers always overshadows and displaces the original community. Newer residents with their weaker but more widespread connections did not acquire the leverage to prevail over the strong relationships that long-time residents had with each other. Long-established residents supported the casino as a form of community investment somewhat akin to investments made by manufacturing establishments of yesteryear. Their belief in the concrete monetary benefits that the casino would accrue to their community propelled the organizational activities that the strong ties facilitated, making long-time residents partners in bringing a casino to their neighborhood.

Space, place, and its connection to social relations make up the study of urban sociology. Urban sociology views cities as the spatial basis for the reproduction of inequality and as an integral part of the capitalist accumulation process. It relies on qualitative and quantitative methods to explain urban development, neighborhoods growth and decline, and their effects on people and their communities. Urban sociologists also rely more heavily on spatial methods to connect social relations to place. Contemporary research topics include global cities, globalizing urbanization, culture and neighborhood change, community and social networks, segregation, neighborhood change, concentrated poverty, and gentrification.

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