Gentrification in Pittsburgh: Mapping Stakeholder Relations

TEAM CATALYST

Team Members

• Charmaine Qiu, charmaiq@andrew.cmu.edu
• Aman Sinha, amansinh@andrew.cmu.edu
• Gloria Moon, gmoon@andrew.cmu.edu
• Yongwen Dai, yongwend@andrew.cmu.edu

Assignment Overview

Assignment #2, Mapping Stakeholder Relations, is the second of five assignments that explores the transition design approach for tackling complex, wicked problems and initiating systems-level changes. Building upon the last assignment, our team dove deep into the wicked problem of Gentrification in Pittsburgh. For additional context, gentrification is the process of changing the character of a neighborhood by the influx of more wealthy residents and businesses, usually accompanied by the displacement of the current inhabitants. Pittsburgh is one of the most gentrified cities in the US with some of the famous neighborhoods continuing to be gentrified. For this assignment, mapping stakeholder relations is the second part to really understand the wicked problem in its current stage before we start to look into the next and future steps for change.

Research Process

Identifying Multiple Stakeholders

Categories of Different Stakeholders

List of the Stakeholders

The first thing we did for the stakeholder map was trying to write down all the involved people based on 4 different attitudes toward the gentrification problem: the group most adversely affected by the wicked problem, the group with a lot of power & privilege, a group that has the leverage to help solve the problem, a group that might be benefiting from the problem.

After grouping these people, we realized that the people with less power such as local residents, and lower-income families are most negatively affected. At the same time, we noticed that not only humans are badly impacted by gentrification but the non-human environment gets hurt as well, such as pollution. People with privilege may not long to solve this problem since they just want to make sure that their interests are not hurt. The attitudes towards gentrification for people who have the power to solve the problem vary a lot, some of them are eager to help solve it, and some of them just try to ignore what happened. The competitive, materialistic mindset promotes many of the people who deteriorate the process of gentrification.

By emphasizing and analyzing the benefits of different groups, we attempted to unfold the mindset that really affects them. The next step for us was to define 3 key stakeholder groups and figure out what they think and feel about.

Selecting 3 Key Stakeholders

Native Pittsburghers are a crucial stakeholder in the gentrification of Pittsburgh due to their deep historical and emotional connection to their community. They may have family members who have lived in the area for generations and a sense of pride and ownership in their community, making them invested in the future of the neighborhood. Gentrification can cause rising property values and rents that force long-time residents out of the neighborhood, which is a concern for many native Pittsburghers. They also value the unique architecture, local businesses, and cultural traditions that make their community special, and gentrification can often result in the loss of these features.

Native Pittsburghers as Stakeholders

Private developers are a significant stakeholder in Pittsburgh gentrification because they are often the driving force behind the development of underutilized or blighted properties in gentrifying neighborhoods. This can lead to the construction of new high-end housing and amenities that attract higher-income residents and drive up property values in the area. For example, East Liberty was once a low-income neighborhood but has undergone significant gentrification in recent years. Private developers have played a key role in this transformation, investing in new high-rise apartment buildings, luxury condos, and upscale retail stores. However, this has also resulted in the displacement of many long-time residents who can no longer afford to live in the area.

Private Developers as Stakeholders

The last key stakeholder we identified in the map is the three rivers in Pittsburgh. The rivers as the components of non-human environments are not only adversely impacted by the social phenomenon but are also witness to it. Gentrification often involves an influx of investment and development in previously neglected areas. This can lead to increased construction and pollution, as more buildings and infrastructure are built along the riverbanks. One of the main sources of pollution in Pittsburgh’s rivers is stormwater runoff, which carries pollutants from city streets and other surfaces into the water. As more development occurs along the river, the amount of impervious surfaces increases, leading to more stormwater runoff and increased pollution in the river. Additionally, as more development occurs along the river, the cost of living in the surrounding areas has increased, making it more difficult for lower-income residents to afford to live there. This has led to concerns about displacement and gentrification, as well as the ongoing pollution and environmental challenges that persist along the river.

The Three Rivers as Stakeholders

Understanding Hopes & Fears

After landing on three key stakeholder groups with different levels of impact on Gentrification in Pittsburgh, our team proceeded to fill in the speech bubbles that represent each stakeholder’s hopes and fears regarding the issue. To begin with the activity, our team referenced the wicked problem map as our preliminary research allowed insights into the developers’ motivations behind emerging and expanding gentrification efforts, as well as how the locals will be affected by displacement. With each speech bubble representing a stakeholder’s direct relationship with aspects of gentrification, our team also interpreted their reactions to gentrification with a speculative approach. For example, resources that we can find online often highlight negative opinions and effects of gentrification; yet as human beings, we need to acknowledge that there is still hope for the society’s future, and our team visualized the city’s hope through the characteristics of the three perspectives. Similarly, the voices of the rivers of Pittsburgh are portrayed in a personified manner addressing sustainability issues related to Gentrification. Since the effect on nature is often overseen when addressing challenges in stakeholder relationships, incorporating hopes and concerns of the natural resource also helped our team to understand complex relations between human actions and our environment. When wording each statement from a perspective, we kept in mind to see ourselves in the shoes of the stakeholder and word each statement in the form of hopes and fears, instead of proposing solutions to various problems. This step provided our team with insights into the three stakeholders’ complex emotions, and we begin to see similarities and disagreements between their hopes and fears, which lead us to our next step of making connections between groups.

Making Connections between Groups

• Determining the relationships between the groups: Once we identified the different groups of stakeholders, the next step was to determine how they are related to each other. What are their key conflicts? What are their common motivations? This could be through direct interactions, such as partnerships or collaborations, or through indirect interactions, such as market forces or regulatory policies.
• Using lines’ hierarchy to indicate relationships amongst stakeholders: Using lines of varied weights, colors, and types helped us to visually indicate the relationships between the different groups of stakeholders. For example, Red lines depict conflicting agendas while green lines represent agreement.
• Labeling the relationships: To make the system map more clear and more informative, labels add to the description of the relationship.
• The essence of a stakeholder map is the connections between the various groups — the intricate relationships between the pain points of one stakeholder with the hopes of another are interesting to dig deeper into.

Challenges

A challenge that our team faced during the mapping process was identifying the hidden connections between agreement and conflict between the stakeholders. We often see ourselves going back and forth between making connections and adding statements for another stakeholder group that can make a connection happen. For example, one hope from private developers is to have cost-efficient resources to sustain their business. Our team then realized that using fewer resources leads to sustainable efforts even though the original intent may not be directly related to sustainability. We were able to further add a speech bubble to the Rivers voicing the hope for sustainability in urban development. This was an agreement connection that emerged as we proceeded to make connections, and it often surprises us when new discoveries are being made through the process. At the same time, this challenge also alerts us that there may be even more hidden connections between the three stakeholders that are unidentifiable with our current team’s experience, and would require more expertise in different fields to see the full picture of stakeholder relationships.

Insights

With our three most critical stakeholders — Native Pittsburghers, Private Developers, and the three rivers, upon mapping these together, the following key insights emerged.

• While the three stakeholders have their own set of desires and concerns, this map highlights how most of them revolve around a central theme of ‘Pittsburgh’s good taking along their’s own’.
• Native Pittsburghers and Private developers both value the importance of consistent growth and development of Pittsburgh, but their end goals seem to conflict — Developers aren’t much concerned about ‘who’ benefit from this growth (profit being their primary concern) while native Pittsburghers see themselves as the beneficiaries.
• It’s interesting to note how the stakeholder without a voice — the three rivers, have their fears and concerns heard and acted upon more than the stakeholders with a voice — the native Pittsburghers. This might stem from the fact that the rivers have solid backing from other powerful stakeholders sharing common goals.
• Profit-making is the single biggest hurdle to ‘collective growth’.

Next Steps

After completing the detailed process of mapping the stakeholder relations, our team has a stronger understanding of the groups, views, and complexities involved in the gentrification of Pittsburgh. Our next step is to map the evolution of the wicked problem to see how the dynamics of change and transition within a socio-technical system give rise to many interconnected wicked problems.

Reflection

Overall, the stakeholder map highlights the interconnectedness of gentrification and the importance of considering multiple perspectives when addressing the issue. It is also important and interesting for us to note that there are many common or opposite concerns among various stakeholders.

The stakeholder map provides us with a chance for further analysis and engagement with the issue of gentrification in Pittsburgh. By considering the interests and power dynamics of different stakeholders, it may be possible to develop more effective strategies for promoting equitable and sustainable development in the city.

Lastly, it was nice to consider a stakeholder that is not an actual human entity. It brought a more interesting and unique perspective to the table and helped us consider even more challenging issues and conflicting viewpoints between other stakeholders. Now that we understand the three main stakeholder groups that are most apt to disagree and have conflicting needs and interests, we are excited to see how the past can inform both future visions and interventions in the present.

References

1. Contributor, PESTLEanalysis. “What Is Steep Analysis and 5 Steps to Conduct One.” PESTLE Analysis, 1 Dec. 2022, https://pestleanalysis.com/what-is-steep-analysis/.
2. Klein, Daniel. “Artists and Neighborhood Change, Probing Gentrification — EVOLVEEA.” Evolve EA, 12 May 2020, https://evolveea.com/artists-and-neighborhood-change/.
3. Ncrc. (2019, April 9). Pittsburgh City Paper: Pittsburgh is one of the most gentrified cities in the U.S. “ NCRC. NCRC. Retrieved January 24, 2023.
4. Special to the Capital-Star, P. C.-S. M. 4. (2021, May 4). How rising rents and renovations have displaced Pittsburghers and added to the city’s ongoing issues with gentrification — pennsylvania capital. Star. Retrieved January 24, 2023.
5. The Pittsburgh Neighborhood Project. (2022, November 19). Gentrification and displacement in Pittsburgh. The Pittsburgh Neighborhood Project. Retrieved January 24, 2023.
6. You don’t have to go far to find gentrification in Pittsburgh. utimes. (n.d.). Retrieved January 27, 2023.