Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Community Displacement in Philadelphia

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was keep. – filelakeshoe (t / c)  08:47, 1 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Community Displacement in Philadelphia (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)

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I've declined a WP:PROD on this, as a number of different editors have worked on it for eight years without apparently seeing a problem so any deletion won't be uncontroversial; however, it's unsourced and possibly unsalvageable. Procedural nom so I abstain.  ‑ Iridescent 13:27, 8 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment The article is organized by neighbhorhoods. I wonder if List of Philadelphia neighborhoods can have a section on community displacement pressures and include material from this. There are also articles on the separate neighborhoods, but just mentioning the issue of community displacement in each one separately does not add up to a unified coverage of the issue in one place. --doncram 17:34, 10 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Iridescent, the article creator long ago moved her userpage and usertalk page to the article and article's talk page. Could you please reverse that move, and then re-arrange the banners and dead-link bot notices appropriately? Softlavender (talk) 04:51, 15 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete as WP:ESSAY, WP:OR, and completely lacking in inline citations. But only delete after the creator's talkpage and its history have been restored. Softlavender (talk) 04:55, 15 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of History-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 04:18, 16 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Geography-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 04:18, 16 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Social science-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 04:18, 16 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Pennsylvania-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 04:18, 16 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Possibly Rename/Refocus - Though it needs inline citations (and a lead, etc.) it does have a list of references and the parts I skimmed through didn't read like OR (which doesn't usually have lots of dates, statistics, basic facts, etc. My inclination is that this would overlap significantly with the subject Gentrification of Philadelphia, for which we have several comparable articles (San Francisco, Vancouver, Atlanta, etc.). It could also be merged into a newly expanded section on Philadelphia in the gentrification article, though I do think Philadelphia could sustain its own. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 15:01, 16 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

If that were to happen it would more than likely have to be userfied or draftified and then a lot of time spent verifying the information and providing the inline citations. I really don't personally think this can stand in article space unless it were to get a major overhaul beforehand. The article creator hasn't edited in 7.5 years. Softlavender (talk) 16:54, 16 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete Poor, mostly us-sourced (huge external links section - mostly to primary sources of information and a dead activist site) ESSAY about gentrification of various neighborhoods in Philadelphia without a proper lead section or any connection between the list of neighborhoods. I'm not sure this would merit an article (separate of the article on Philadelphia and the specific neighborhoods) - but at the current state it simply can't stay.Icewhiz (talk) 12:32, 17 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep, Rename and edit. I added a lede section primarily based on an excellent 2014 Philadelphia Daily News special pullout section of multiple articles: The Problems and the Promise: Gentrification in Philadelphia. The topic is notable and I think User:Rhododendrites suggests a better and more common WP:COMMONNAME with Gentrification of Philadelphia. I think what is here, while needing editing, is salvageable, though I would not object to anyone stubbing down what they think is original research. Lacking inline citations is not, I believe, a valid reason for deletion but perhaps this has been changed? 24.151.10.165 (talk) 17:15, 19 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete, unsalvageable WP:POINTY WP:ESSAY reliant on WP:OR. Plot Spoiler (talk) 02:47, 22 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep Deletion is a blunt instrument to improve this article. The problem seems to be in the form of references (none inline) rather than lack of references (plenty). It would take more than a week to fix it, probably. On another note, the article would improve with a brief discussion of the displacement of business, from the downtown area east of Broad as recent as the 1980s, to west of Broad today. Rhadow (talk) 15:09, 23 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the Article Rescue Squadron's list of content for rescue consideration. Rhadow (talk) 02:14, 24 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep. This is nowhere near "unsalvageable". It is a hot mess, badly under-referenced, and with the "External links" section and REF fields inside {{cite}} templates being used as a jury-rigged way to achieve the effect of collecting the references in one place and decluttering the main text—an effect better accomplished with list-defined references and the {{r}} template. It will be a lot of work to fix, but not nearly as much as some of the users favoring deletion seem to think. Many of the links are dead, but can be revived with a little searching. As an experiment, I revived one single dead link, Penn Offers Cash Incentive to Increase Home ownership in University City. A Google search on its title revealed this live link to the article as the very first hit. With that, I was able to construct a proper reference—which turns out to be a source for many, if not most, of the claims made in the section "University City". Granted, it's a primary source for many of the claims, but that's a different matter from complete lack of sourcing. This article doesn't look like WP:OR or an essay to me—it just looks badly referenced. A bit more searching easily turns up secondary references for the topic. For example, this Google search term:

"University City" Philadelphia displacement

yielded two very interesting references. Repeat as needed.

I agree with Rhadow that deletion is a blunt instrument. So is draftification. WP:DRAFTIFY says little about the circumstances under which draftification is appropriate, but it refers back to its currently inactive predecessor WP:INCUBATOR, which makes it clear that incubation/draft status is a last resort for articles that would otherwise require deletion. As the section WP:ATD in the policy WP:DEL says:

If editing can improve the page, this should be done rather than deleting the page.

The essay section WP:NOTCLEANUP and the essay WP:DINC expand eloquently on this point.

—Syrenka V (talk) 03:16, 24 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep -- This appears to me to be a potentially useful article on changes in neighbourhood dynamics in a major city. This is a phenomenon that happens in many places. Similarly in London we have the gentrification of Islington and parts of the East End of London, which used to be regarded as working class areas are now desirable locations for city office workers. It is probably a subject that is going to be difficult to find multiple academic references for, but the criterion is not "verified", but "verifiable". Peterkingiron (talk) 09:43, 24 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep The article was mostly created by one user who put all the references at the end of the article instead of referencing them inside the article. [1] I have just posted on the editor's talk page telling them about this deletion discussion, since the nominator forgot to do so. This is ample coverage for this. Dream Focus 11:10, 24 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment - I still don't see sourcing required to change my vote (it's not just that all the refs are on the bottom - but most of them are simply not RS!). However, if kept at the very least this needs to be renamed - to gentrification + date bracket. Gentrification (or the opposite - slum creation) - is a process that occurred a few times over the years. The current article seems to focus on the present state/trend - and not cover past events in neighborhoods - this either needs to be addressed with an historic perspective or alternatively renamed to reflect the focus on current gentrification (which might be a failure of WP:NOTNEWS - which also bothers me here - I would expect gentrification/decline (e.g. North Philadelphia which initially housed rich estates and morphed into Philadelphia Badlands.....) - to be given equal weight and be covered in a historic perspective - not a current one).Icewhiz (talk) 14:45, 24 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• The first source above for University City is from 1998, and even the more recent second and third sources clearly refer to long-term trends. —Syrenka V (talk) 18:47, 24 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The Pew Charitable Trust source from 2014 is reliable, comprehensive, and covers trends back to 2000. This may not be much compared to the city's centuries-long history, but it is more than enough to rule out WP:NOTNEWS considerations. The comprehensiveness is especially important in view of the WP:CFORK issue with the pages on the individual neighborhoods. Much of the neighborhood-specific information in the present article may need to be moved into those pages, leaving only comprehensive information about the city as a whole. But even then, there will be enough like the Pew source to justify this page. —Syrenka V (talk) 23:54, 24 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Sources in true historical depth are not especially hard to find either. I tried a Google search on "philadelphia 19th century gentrification" and came up with this report from the Federal Reserve bank's research department: Philadelphia-specific and in multi-century depth. Moving the neighborhood-specific information to their individual articles will make room for more historical balance here. —Syrenka V (talk) 00:24, 25 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• You were ALL correct -- The article is worth saving, if we MOVE it to Gentrification in Philadelphia, rationalizing it with other Gentrification in ... articles. Community Displacement in Philadelphia was an unreferenced polemic. It is now ready for re-purposing. Look. Community displacement is a very real phenomenon, but not in Philadelphia. The growth there is too low. "displacement and higher mobility play minor if any roles as forces of change in gentrifying neighborhoods." That IS worthy of a well-researched article, but we don't argue about that here. Rhadow (talk) 17:17, 25 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Renaming to Gentrification in Philadelphia sounds good—most of the better references appear to focus on that specific aspect. Also, the more I think about it, WP:CFORK considerations do mandate moving the neighborhood-specific material to the individual neighborhood pages, where the sourcing from here will help with improving the referencing on those pages. There will still be enough comprehensive material about Philadelphia as a whole, like the Pew and Federal Reserve sources I linked above, to support the continued existence of a (smaller, better organized, and better referenced) separate page on the general phenomenon of Gentrification in Philadelphia. One of the aims of inclusionist opposition to page deletion is to ensure that individual pages do not become unmanageably large and poorly organized.

—Syrenka V (talk) 00:18, 26 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.