Divide and Rule: Gentrification of Philly’s Chinatown

The billionaire co-owners of the Philadelphia 76ers—David Blitzer, Josh Harris, and David Adelman—continue to push Philadelphia officials to approve plans for a lavish $1.5 billion sports arena to be constructed practically on top of Chinatown. These social parasites are happy to gamble away the well-being and livelihoods of the thousands of workers and youth living there as long as they can profit from it.

If approved, construction of the 18,000-seat arena would begin in 2026—coinciding with the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. Fighting the project will require a steadfast and united working-class struggle. The capitalists understand this as well as anyone and are leaning on poisonous identity politics and treacherous union bureaucrats to turn the workers against each other.

Philly’s Chinatown is one of the largest and oldest in the country. It has already paid the price of gentrification. It was divided in half in the 1960s to make way for an extension of the Vine Street Expressway. The capitalists seized and demolished some 300 properties for the highway’s construction, forcing thousands of workers from their homes.

Behind the new gluttonous project are the capitalist co-owners of the 76ers basketball team. Blitzer and Harris are both private-equity speculators. The landlord Adelman made his first real-estate investment at age 13 and was handed Campus Apartments at 25. He “earned” his wealth by ruthlessly profiting off college students and workers living in his mold and rodent-infested properties across the country.

A previous attempt by the Philadelphia Phillies to build a baseball park near Chinatown was defeated by determined working-class resistance two decades ago. The capitalists learned from this defeat. This time they’re using their trusty tool—identity politics—to push the project through. By promising 40% of concessions to “Black-owned” businesses, they worked out a deal for a public endorsement of the arena by the African American Chamber of Commerce of PA, NJ, and DE. They were joined by prominent clergy from Black churches across Philadelphia. Claiming to speak on behalf of the entire “Black community,” these figures argued that the new arena would “benefit Black workers and entrepreneurs.”

Where is the leadership of the working class? Unfortunately, many local union “leaders” are backing the capitalist boondoggle, framing it as a “benefit” to workers in the building trades who might get some jobs from the increased construction. This is entirely wrong. Why not demand that construction workers be marshaled to rebuild the area’s crumbling infrastructure rather than line up behind a brutal capitalist scheme that will only exacerbate the city’s housing crisis? The union tops should be explaining that while the plan primarily targets Asian workers, it will inevitably harm the entire working class in the form of higher rents. Labor must mobilize for class warfare against these legalized gangsters! Instead, the union bureaucrats have allied with the capitalists and their political hangers on.

This is not the way forward! Workers need unions that use class-war tactics like strikes and occupations to draw a line in the sand and fight for workers everywhere. We need a political party that will propagandize and agitate against private ownership of the means of production, and for public ownership under democratic workers’ control. As long as we rely on the capitalists, their state, their reformist pawns, and the sell-out labor bureaucrats, we will lose.

An injury to one is an injury to all! The only way to raise the living standards of all workers of all races and ethnicities for all time is by uniting the working class in a communist party that can lead the struggle to overthrow the bosses’ system once and for all.