Greed, Gentrification, and Corruption in Small Town United States
A vibrant city nestled in the valley between two mountains, once a hub for innovation and industrialization, today sees little development for the working class. Homelessness has grown exponentially, vastly above the national median, while housing remains increasingly expensive. Gentrification, often called into question when it comes to the city of North Adams, has left behind many citizens, all the while uplifting those who are already wealthy. The story starts in North Adam’s history, stretching to the present day, where the working class has been abused needlessly.
The history of North Adams is relevant to the gentrification of today because the people have always been treated negatively. North Adams was valued for its production during the wars, but this came at the cost of horrendous work conditions for many people – they were underpaid and overworked. After the war’s end, this became even more of an issue. Sanford Blackinton, one of the most notorious figures in the industrialization of North Adams, had a large number of immigrant employees whom he promised a better life to. However, with the economy in shambles, workers would see decreases in their pay and scheduled work hours. Most lower-income employees of Blackinton lived in company-issued housing, millhouses surrounding the main mill, which can still be seen today. When his employees would strike for better wages, he would evict them from company housing and ban them from going into any stores in his mill town. Another example of people being treated poorly in North Adams, but in the more recent past, was the closure of Sprague Electric in 1985. Although this sudden shutdown wasn’t inherently malicious, it left the city of North Adams struggling to make ends meet. Many had moved to North Adams to work here, much like what had happened with the mills in the past. They saw fantastic work opportunities in North Adams, and engineers and scientists came to Sprague Electric to help develop components for the atomic bomb during WWII. These circumstances created specialized workers in North Adams, and when the shutdown happened, many would have a hard time finding work. Those who couldn’t find other jobs or get out of North Adams became stuck, and there are hundreds like this still in North Adams today. At its peak in North Adams, Sprague Electric employed “…over 4,000 at its North Adams facilities.” (The Sprague Log, MCLA). With a population of around 20,000 at the time, Sprague Electric was the main employer of the town. Needless to say, its closure destroyed the economy of North Adams.
The creation of Mass Moca in 1999, although improving the economy in North Adams, did not do enough to help the people it had promised to support. First, newsletters like the Berkshire Eagle have noted that Mass Moca has created a self-contained campus where, instead of encouraging tourists to shop at local shops, they tend to stay around the museum, shopping there. This has caused local shops to close rapidly, with the downtown area constantly undergoing changes. I, along with other North Adams citizens, haven’t seen many small businesses truly prosper with Mass Moca’s creation, perhaps besides restaurants – although those close frequently as well. Many also argue that Mass Moca hasn’t created many jobs outside of service jobs, and those who have gotten into the arts notice they get paid much less than in other sectors in North Adams. This has pushed North Adams into a hard spot – those who want high-paying jobs have to leave, but getting out to somewhere else is difficult if you do not have a good income already. Mass Moca also receives tax breaks, as it is a non-profit. In public discussion forums on Facebook, citizens tout this as a slap in the face. According to MassLive, as of 2020, Mass Moca was generating over 50 million dollars a year. Stephanie, a citizen of North Adams, in a North Adams Now post on Facebook, says that “Mass MoCA is like a rich boyfriend who has a girlfriend who is really poor. He doesn’t plan to marry her, he’s not going to help her, but he thinks she should be grateful to have him because being with him gives her so many opportunities to network with other rich people… ” (Stephanie Borns, Facebook, 2024). People living in North Adams do not believe that they are being sufficiently supported economically by Mass Moca, as they have countless tax breaks and even have a hard time paying their own employees. Mass Moca has undergone many strikes for pay, “Unionized workers at MASS MoCA, in North Adams, Massachusetts, went on strike March 6, 2024, seeking a higher hourly minimum wage.” (Kaufman, 2024)
After Mass Mocas creation, many hotels – like the Porches Inn and Tourists resort – were created as a result. However, while this creation may have helped the economy, a website called the Berkshire Record exposed the shady side of this strategy in the Porches Inn’s case. Porches Inn, originally called River Street Inn, was proposed as a project in the 2000s. From there, one of Mass Moca’s board members, Nancy Fitzpatrick, utilized her firm worth $50 million to purchase homes to convert into the hotel we see today. However, what happened revealed the reality of gentrification processes like this. Twenty-three families in one of the poorest sections of North Adams, River Street, where given thirty days to find new housing, or they would be homeless. The Fitzpatrick firm had bought their homes from underneath them, and offered no support with finding new housing: “When one River Street resident was asked whether the new owners of the property are helping her to get resettled, the woman replied, “No. We’re just given thirty days notice to find a new place.” Asked how she feels about having to move so quickly, she said, “I’ve spent years buying paint and wallpaper to fix-up my place. I don’t know where I’m going to go.” (Ransom, 2000). According to the same article, the mayor at the time, John Barrett III, threatened the landlord of the River Street homes, claiming he would send the city inspector after him if he didn’t sell these homes for cheap.
Housing prices and homelessness are other factors that have left behind the poor in North Adams. A vacant school in North Adams, the former Johnson School, is being converted into “55 market-rate apartments.” (New Life for Century-Old Johnson City High School). “Market-rate” essentially means unsubsidized housing, a program that many North Adams citizens are apart of to make housing more affordable. Not only that, but we are in a housing deficit: “Across income categories ranging from extremely low- to middle-income, there exists a total deficit of 808 units affordable to North Adams households. Currently, North Adams contains 718 housing units affordable to 1,861 households within the extremely low-income category, representing a deficit of 1,075 units.” (North Adams Housing Needs Assessment). Historical homes are also being revamped, bringing in residents from out of state to live here. Although this isn’t all negative, the rising housing prices, while the average North Adams citizen’s income declines, indicate that the economic environment is being further changed without the citizens being supported. Places like Greylock Works have also popped up around North Adams, taking the places of the once vacant mills. They are being turned into event locations and spots for small businesses, and beyond that, luxury housing. According to Coby Lefkowitz, luxury housing like this increases the rent of homes around it. Needless to say, this fact will make it all the more difficult for the working class in North Adams to find affordable housing in the future.
At the same time, many argue for the positive benefits of gentrification. Gentrification can raise the income of working-class people in the right circumstances. It can create new job opportunities, and it can revitalize a once-dead economy. Mass Moca and the hotel’s openings around North Adams have certainly done this, bringing in massive revenue to North Adams since its opening that the city had not seen since Sprague Electric. However, we must remember that while gentrification has its positives in theory, these are not always seen by the people in the city in which they live. Gentrification must be managed with affordable housing so as not to offset the lower-income families who are trying to make a living. We have seen this in North Adams, with council members as recent as the past summer stating that we must have an Affordable Housing Trust.
North Adams was once an industrial powerhouse for the wars in the United States. However, once those wars ended and deindustrialization occurred, many citizens would see struggle and poverty. We must remember these people in every city and every town – they are what make up the history and culture, and they add important perspectives to the conversations we have. As a society, we must push for affordable housing for everyone, even through gentrification efforts. While many may be simply trying to make money off of rust-belt cities and towns, everyone must keep in mind that every human deserves basic respect and dignity. Instead of pushing these people out, we need to carve out spaces for them and allow them to feel safe and a part of the efforts made in the city to revitalize the economy.
Works Cited:
Bob Joseph. “New Life for Old Johnson City School.” WNBF News Radio 1290 AM & 92.1 FM, 10 Nov. 2025, wnbf.com/new-life-old-johnson-city-school/. Accessed 7 Dec. 2025.
Contakos, Pamela. “Research Guides: Local History and College Archives: The Sprague Log.” Library.mcla.edu, library.mcla.edu/localhistory/spraguelog.
“Gentrification Pops up as North Berkshire Coalition Forum Topic.” Iberkshires.com, 2025, www.iberkshires.com/story/58328/Gentrification-Pops-Up-As-North-Berkshire-Coalition-Forum-Topic.html. Accessed 7 Dec. 2025.
Housing Needs Assessment City of North Adams, Massachusetts Funding for This Document Provided Through: The FY2020 District Local Technical Assistance Program Administered By: Berkshire Regional Planning Commission (BRPC) 2.
Kaufman, Jill. “Seeking a Higher Minimum Wage, MASS MoCA Workers Begin “Indefinite Strike.”” New England Public Media, 6 Mar. 2024, www.nepm.org/regional-news/2024-03-06/seeking-a-higher-minimum-wage-mass-moca-workers-begin-indefinite-strike. Accessed 7 Dec. 2025.
Lefkowitz, Coby. “The Dangerous Myth of Luxury Housing.” Medium, Marker, 10 Aug. 2021, marker.medium.com/the-dangerous-myth-of-luxury-housing-8df526dfb556. Accessed 7 Dec. 2025.
“North Adams Now | Any Business as Big as MoCA That Is Non-Profit Should Have Their Non-Profit Status Reviewed Periodically | Facebook.” Facebook.com, Facebook Groups, 2022, www.facebook.com/groups/821412675450672/posts/1455398495385417/. Accessed 7 Dec. 2025.
Ransom, Marjorie , and G.M. Heller. “Fitzpatrick’s Porches Inn Displaces 23 North Adams Families — (BerkshireRecordDotCom).” Berkshirerecord.com, 2025, www.berkshirerecord.com/porches.html.
Propaganda Advertisements on YouTube
YouTube is a video-sharing site where anyone can upload a video and get thousands of views within minutes. When browsing YouTube, you get ads that typically last anywhere from five seconds to a minute, depending on how long the video is that you are watching. Over the past few months, an increasing number of advertisements from the Israeli government have surfaced. The one that I saw that sparked this very discussion detailed the life of young children in Gaza. It showed the children surrounded by abundant amounts of food, with huge smiles on their faces. Big letters covered the screen: There is no famine in Gaza. However, if you look elsewhere, the news seems different. According to the United Nations, there are over 50,000 cases of acute malnutrition in children under five in Gaza. Around 90% of all children in Gaza are at risk of famine. So, this made me wonder why these ads seem to portray the opposite.
However, to understand the state of the conflict today, you must understand the history of Israel and Palestine. Of course, there are a lot of nuances that go into this, but I am focusing purely on the human rights portion of this and how Israel is trying to avoid repercussions. The history of Israel and Palestine is strife by conflict since 1947, when the UN created a partition plan. They decided to split the land of Palestine into three sections: the West Bank, Gaza, and Israel, giving Jewish people a homeland after the Holocaust. Both sides disagreed about the land they were given, and their plights were never resolved. Instead, through military force, the people on both sides were forced into submission. This conflict came to a head again when Palestinian worshippers were attacked at Al-Aqsa mosque and then again when a Jewish concert was attacked on October 7th – often cited as the beginning of the conflict – catapulting the land once again into a war. No matter what, this is a heartbreaking conflict full of people who have been impacted by the decisions that people in power have made. Land that was full of culture has been reduced to rubble, and there have been countless deaths. Children, the elderly, women, and innocent people of all backgrounds have been killed. More people have begun to look at this conflict and bring up the disparities, including reputable organizations such as the United Nations. In response, the Israeli government has come out with various ads that portray the conflict in a much different light than what the reality is.
Propaganda is defined as information that is usually biased or misleading, which is used to support a certain set of beliefs. This is typically done as a way to control the masses or cause them to act in one way or another. For example, the Rosy the Riveter artwork was a propaganda poster for women in the workforce. Today, propaganda is used, but not limited to, to control the populace, create support for various topics, and even to cause hatred, as I stated before. The propaganda videos I am talking about in this essay include YouTube adverts that have popped up while I have been watching videos unrelated to the Israeli-Palestinian war. They are full of emotion, using huge, bold fonts to push the points they want to make. They depict people in restaurants, sitting down, enjoying food, and there are children surrounded by a surplus of fresh fruits and vegetables. Watching these ads, I wondered why Israel was trying to depict the citizens like this when organizations such as the United Nations and even the United States government have condemned the famine occurring. It comes down to both the history and current-day politics of Israel.
There is a strategy in Israel known as “Hasbara” – roughly translated to “explaining” – that works within public diplomacy, according to DW News. Their goal is essentially to explain away what they are doing to Gaza and West Bank citizens, with a focus on Gaza, the center of the war. As the news site states, Israel is currently facing international isolation. Most countries agree that the attack on Palestinian citizens has gone far beyond simply killing Hamas, but rather is now a targeted eradication of an entire group of people. Oren Persico, a journalist for a blog in Israel known as The Seventh Eye, says that what Israel is doing is ‘anti-journalism’. He states that, “The fact that there is one grocery store or two or ten with packed shelves doesn’t mean that 10 kilometers [6 miles] from there, people aren’t inside a house unable to safely get out and don’t have any food.” (Fact check: Israel spends vast sums on propaganda ads.) Israeli media is using a tactic known as cherry-picking to promote their ideas. When it comes to starvation in Gaza, 90% of acute malnutrition means that there are still 10% of people who are not starving. Israel uses examples and videos of those 10% of people to prove their point – they are not starving Palestinian citizens. However, DW debunks this by contacting the various cafes and restaurants featured in the advertisement. They tell them that the food they sell can cost upwards of $30 for one Nutella waffle, and if someone wants to buy a commercial bag of flour, that costs over $100. DW also contacted a Palestinian journalist, Majdi Fathi, who had originally posted some of the advertisements content of food stalls in Gaza. Fathi tells them that while there may be some food stalls in the less war-torn areas of Gaza, the fresh fruits and vegetables are so expensive that a majority of citizens cannot afford them.
These ads, made for Western audiences, have done their job in part. Many people will see these advertisements and assume that children in Gaza are not starving. However, that denies the reality of nine out of ten Palestinian children. At the same time, there are many people speaking out about these ads, like reputable news sites, governments, and the United Nations. Many people have also seen the dehumanization of Palestinians on a large scale, with Israeli officials using terms like ‘animals’, ‘dark’, etc. to describe Palestinians in Gaza, adding to their propaganda efforts. For example, “Defence Minister Yoav Gallant has termed Palestinians in Gaza ‘human animals’; Deputy Mayor of Jerusalem Arieh King, utilised the term ‘subhuman’; Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu dubbed Palestinian children ‘children of darkness’ and compared them to Israel’s ‘children of light’; while Israeli President proclaimed that there are ‘no innocent civilians in Gaza’.” (Tamimi, T., & Suárez Vargas, D., 2024).
Although the war between Israel and Palestine has been a long-standing one, full of strife and conflict, recently, people have begun to see the double standards in play. 90% of Gaza’s children risk malnutrition, while the Israeli government is undergoing an intense campaign to make it seem like the opposite. In order to avoid public scrutiny, Israel displays Palestinians as ‘animals’ and as ‘children of darkness’. At the same time, they show the people of Palestine with massive amounts of food, when this is simply cherry picking and not what most citizens are experiencing. Most Palestinians are experiencing a life full of conflict, never knowing when the next bomb may strike. There is misinformation on both sides, but the policy of ‘Hasbara’ has shown that Israeli news isn’t trying to spread the truth. Instead, their main goal is to gain public support for their side in the war.
Works Cited
Business. “Report Exposes Israeli Support Ads Campaign with Graphic Content on X & YouTube – Business & Human Rights Resource Centre.” Business & Human Rights Resource Centre, 2023, www.business-humanrights.org/en/latest-news/report-exposes-israeli-support-ads-campaign-with-graphic-content-on-x-youtube/.
Tamimi, Tamara, and Daniela Suárez Vargas. “Propaganda vs. truth: Israeli propaganda and Palestinian demonisation.” (2024).
Wesolowski, Kathrin. “Fact Check: Israel Spends Vast Sums on Propaganda Ads.” Dw.com, Deutsche Welle, 8 Sept. 2025, www.dw.com/en/israel-propaganda-downplays-gaza-food-scarcity-fact-check/a-73875380.
Wikipedia Contributors. “Propaganda Techniques.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 14 Dec. 2018, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_techniques.
Youtu.be, 2025, youtu.be/3usAK5h33iM?si=V6J9VsHoJkUW2NlL. Accessed 8 Nov. 2025.
American Lit Final – link
https://americanlitfinalproject.weebly.com/
Sanford Blackinton Video – link
https://youtu.be/lcwpo2695C4?si=FojXU9ewi1aQfuQS
Eugenics in Vermont Video – link
https://youtu.be/uBkfVdxojx4?si=HjjnZMmvOzeS2bm_