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.”