Marketing Schools, Marketing Cities: Who Wins and Who Loses When Schools Become Urban Amenities
Maia Bloomfield Cucchiara
Abstract
Discuss real estate with any young family and the subject of schools is certain to come up—in fact, it will likely be a crucial factor in determining where that family lives. Not merely institutions of learning, schools have increasingly become a sign of a neighborhood’s vitality, and city planners have ever more explicitly promoted “good schools” as a means of attracting more affluent families to urban areas, a dynamic process that the author critically examines in this book. Focusing on Philadelphia’s Center City Schools Initiative, she shows how education policy makes overt attempts to prev ... More
Discuss real estate with any young family and the subject of schools is certain to come up—in fact, it will likely be a crucial factor in determining where that family lives. Not merely institutions of learning, schools have increasingly become a sign of a neighborhood’s vitality, and city planners have ever more explicitly promoted “good schools” as a means of attracting more affluent families to urban areas, a dynamic process that the author critically examines in this book. Focusing on Philadelphia’s Center City Schools Initiative, she shows how education policy makes overt attempts to prevent, or at least slow, middle-class flight to the suburbs. Navigating complex ethical terrain, the author balances the successes of such policies in strengthening urban schools and communities against the inherent social injustices they propagate—the further marginalization and disempowerment of lower-class families. By asking what happens when affluent parents become “valued customers,” the book uncovers a problematic relationship between public institutions and private markets, where the former are used to leverage the latter to effect urban transformations.
Keywords:
real estate,
schools,
city planners,
affluent families,
urban areas,
Philadelphia,
Center City Schools,
education policy,
suburbs,
urban schools
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2013 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780226016658 |
| Published to Chicago Scholarship Online: September 2013 |
DOI:10.7208/chicago/9780226016962.001.0001 |
