Symposium on "Race and Displacement in Pittsburgh"
Symposium on "Race and Displacement in Pittsburgh"
A two-day event on November 13 and 14, 2025, will commemorate mass displacements in the Lower Hill and Penn Plaza. The symposium marks the 10th anniversary of the eviction of residents from the Penn Plaza Apartments in East Liberty and the 75th anniversary of the demolition of the Lower Hill and displacement of 8,000 residents.
Keynote speaker, Professor Edward Goetz, director of the Center for Urban and Regional Affairs, and professor of urban planning at the Humphrey School of Public Affairs, University of Minnesota, will lecture on the relationships between race and urban displacement in the U.S. housing policy, from 4:30 to 6:00 p.m. on Nov. 13, in the William Pitt Union dining rooms A and B of the University of Pittsburgh.
From 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. on Nov. 14, panels of faculty, practitioners and community advocates will present analyses and opportunities for dialogue on the impacts of displacement on residents and explore strategies for reducing housing insecurity and displacement in our region. Those discussions will take place in the union’s Lower Lounge of the University of Pittsburgh.
The event is co-sponsored by the Pitt University Center for Social and Urban Research; Pittsburgh Human Rights City Alliance; Hill District Consensus Group; the Remaking Cities Institute at Carnegie Mellon University; NAACP Pittsburgh Branch; and Pitt’s Department of Sociology, School of Public and International Affairs and Urban Studies Program.