Nathan Mollway (MArch'21) describes the confluence of issues leading to the Occupy Philadelphia Housing Authority encampment on Philadelphia’s Benjamin Franklin Parkway—set to be closed by the City on Wednesday—in an article for Places.
“Lack of affordable housing has been a different kind of pandemic in Philadelphia for decades,” Mollway says.
In his article, Mollway highlights the conflict between the city's "functional shortcomings" with rapid real estate development.
"The occupation of the Parkway is clearly not a long-term solution to the housing crisis in Philadelphia, or to the inequality spotlighted by the BLM movement," he says. "But it is is a defiant stand in the face of a city that continues to fail its most vulnerable citizens."