Representing “neighborhood”: Growth coalitions, newspaper reporting, and gentrification in St. Louis

Newspaper reporters are important actors in promoting gentrification. This study of St. Louis examines their use of a prominent representation of neighborhood in this process: dying neighborhoods in need of middle-class technical salvationists. We examine its use to help drive two processes to promoting gentrification: legitimating restructuring at actual or anticipated sites and isolating “revitalization-contaminating” communities. We discover this neighborhood representation is applied primarily to legitimate restructuring at specific sites. Revitalization-threatening neighborhoods, represented differently, indicates this representation is task specific in this city's “gentrification project.”