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The Politics of Urban Informality in Philadelphia’s Recovery House Movement

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  • Robert P. Fairbanks II

Abstract

There are some 60 000 vacant properties in the city of Philadelphia, 30 000 of which are abandoned row houses. In the neighbourhood of Kensington, street-level entrepreneurs have reconfigured hundreds of former working-class row homes to produce the Philadelphia recovery house movement: an extra-legal poverty survival strategy for addicts and alcoholics located in the city’s poorest and most heavily blighted zones. The purpose of this paper is to explore, ethnographically, the ways in which informal poverty survival mechanisms articulate with the restructuring of the contemporary welfare state and the broader political economy of Philadelphia. It is argued that recovery house networks accommodate an interrelated set of political rationalities animated not only by retrenchment and the churning of welfare bodies, but also by the agency of informal operators and the politics of self-help. Working as an alternative and partially vestigial boundary institution or buffer zone to formal regimes of governance, the recovery house movement reflects the ‘other story’ of the new urban politics in Philadelphia.

Suggested Citation

  • Robert P. Fairbanks II, 2011. "The Politics of Urban Informality in Philadelphia’s Recovery House Movement," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 48(12), pages 2555-2570, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:urbstu:v:48:y:2011:i:12:p:2555-2570
    DOI: 10.1177/0042098011411943
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    1. Finnemore, Martha & Sikkink, Kathryn, 1998. "International Norm Dynamics and Political Change," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 52(4), pages 887-917, October.
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    Cited by:

    1. Noah J. Durst & Jake Wegmann, 2017. "Informal Housing in the United States," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 41(2), pages 282-297, March.
    2. Lisa Freeman, 2017. "Governed Through Ghost Jurisdictions: Municipal Law, Inner Suburbs and Rooming Houses," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 41(2), pages 298-317, March.

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