Your views on Gentrification

[musiccity]

What are your views on gentrification? Do you like it or disagree with it?

Share with us.

[musiccity]

I personally dislike it.


Here in Nashville, the gentrified neighborhoods are traditionally the poorer neighborhoods of Nashville and since they were gentrified the prices have skyrocketted making the area unaffordable for the original lower class inhabitants. This has caused these poorer inhabitants to shift towards the northern and western parts of town while bringing the problems with them.

I dislike it and I don't think it's fair to the original inhabitants who were essentially kicked out by the new yuppie, hipstery people who gentrified the neighborhood they've lived their lives in. Most of these yuppie/hispstery folks aren't even from Nashville!


Now this is an issue in many American cities, but I'm not sure about elsewhere. It may be a good thing in many places so I would like to see other opinions.

[El_Greco]

Gentrification is, by far and large, social cleansing. What we need is mixed-income neighbourhoods, not gates communities.

[musiccity]

Social cleansing, I like that term.

And mixed-income neighborhoods would be great! We just have to fix our income inequality problems

[Suburbanist]

Inhabitants of gentryfying areas that were in severe decay (ghettos) usualy are kicked out because they didn't dare to invest in buying their units first place.

I have nothing but contempt for people who live 30 years in a decaying area, never buys their houses, and then whine that the owner of their house sold their $80.000 house (2 years ago) for $300.000 for a condo developer. Had they invested in buying the house first place, they would be the ones "cashing in".

It is not the function of a government to interfere in the socio-demographic making of a neighborhood. That is social engineering and should be avoided.

This being said, I think some protections should be in place to avoid excessive and sudden increases in property tax values for people who have been living in a place for long, as long as they are owners and keep actually living there. Property taxes should be slowly increased to give people time to make arrangements that could keep them living in the area if they wnated to.

Even so, in many cases 'ghettos' are populated by people with low mobility (at least in US). Once the commercial activities are replaced by others that can paid 10x the rent (and I'll make a firestorm whenever someone suggests protection to stores or other business), people will lose their local below-minimum-wage jobs or out-of-code food stands, and they will be displaced by lack of services and stores catering to them.

As I have not much sympathy for the usual people that are displaced by gentrification, I generally support it and praise its results. At least in the context of how it happens in Western Developed World where people are not being thrwon on the streets, but indeed just having the "inconvenience" to move 20 miles away.

Want a stake in the future of your place? Buy it, sign a mortgage. Otherwise, you are just risking eviction. That is how I see it.

The funny thing is that, on a rent-per-area-unit ($/sq. ft, E/m2) basis, ghettoized neighorhoods are usually MORE (not less) expensive than non-ghettoized suburban low-middle-class areas. Which means people are paying more money for sh#tty housing, increased crime being just a bonus. So the more rational and responsible people usually moves out before the place is gentrified.

[musiccity]

Alright, I guess I can see it...

I don't really agree with you but I won't argue, we all have different opinions.

[Suburbanist]

Originally Posted by musiccity

I dislike it and I don't think it's fair to the original inhabitants who were essentially kicked out by the new yuppie, hipstery people who gentrified the neighborhood they've lived their lives in. Most of these yuppie/hispstery folks aren't even from Nashville!

There are no ancestor rights to live in a place. That retired bankers are coming from New York and paying more to buy a place is their business only.

If you were the owner of a derelict house renting out for $ 700/month and suddenly got and offer to sell if for $ 1.100.000, would you pass the opportunity?

As I wrote before: people who own houses and keep them in good state of repair just are not "kicked out". The only "victims" are renters or owners that keep their houses in decaying state (a nuisance).

[musiccity]

What city do you live in Suburbanist?

[diablo234]

Honestly I think gentrification is a good thing overall.

If you look at Washington DC's U Street neighborhood as an example it is nowadays bustling with people going to various business establishments in the area and are clammoring to buy/rent apartments and condominiums just to be able to live in the neighborhood, but if you were to look at the same neighborhood back in the 90's or early 00's it was more known for decay and crime and people with no business in the area tended to avoid it.

[Slartibartfas]

Gentrification is a somewhat good development but it has downsides. These downsides can be addressed by pro-active social policies. This means politics has to make sure a sufficient minimum number of affordable apartments remain also in the most gentrified areas, leading to the creation of somewhat mixed neighborhoods.

The alternative to gentrification would be that central ghettos of the poor simply deteriorate so much that at some point the buildings have to be torn down due to structural problems. The replacement could not be so dirt cheap either unless you'd replace inner city neighbourhoods, in prime location with dysfunctional commie block neighbourhoods. I doubt that is something we should aim for either, not to mention the often existing historical value of the neighbourhoods.

I think why many suburbian people dislike gentrification is because to some extend it means their wealthy ghettos in the suburbs become more mixed.

[Suburbanist]

Originally Posted by Slartibartfas

Gentrification is a somewhat good development but it has downsides. These downsides can be addressed by pro-active social policies. This means politics has to make sure a sufficient minimum number of affordable apartments remain also in the most gentrified areas, leading to the creation of somewhat mixed neighborhoods.

I think why many suburbian people dislike gentrification is because to some extend it means their wealthy ghettos in the suburbs become more mixed.

Suburban areas are rarely as rich as the "prime" inner-city districts. The scales needed for viable suburbs are much lower than that of a viable inner-city dense area, so on that front things wouldn't matter much as well.

[Slartibartfas]

Originally Posted by Suburbanist

Suburban areas are rarely as rich as the "prime" inner-city districts. The scales needed for viable suburbs are much lower than that of a viable inner-city dense area, so on that front things wouldn't matter much as well.

Usually not as rich as well developed inner city areas, but they are, especially in the US often white upper middle class ghettos. Things could change leading to some greater mix in some of the suburbs as a consequence of gentrification of poor inner city neighbourhoods. I can understand how this could be seen with negative feelings in the affected suburban areas. But from the distance I could imagine worse things to happen. The segregation of the city would not change that much after all, in the worst case the poor ghettos would move outwards. In some way it is funny anyway that the best located areas should be completely deteriorated and underdeveloped.

[Bricken Ridge]

Originally Posted by musiccity

What are your views on gentrification? Do you like it or disagree with it?

Share with us.

it's cyclical. people's penchant for "new" things goes beyond their penchant for new clothes, and that includes reinventing old neighborhoods that used to be new.

[kaligraffi]

This is a striking example of how the bourgeoisie solves the housing question in practice. The breeding places of disease, the infamous holes and cellars in which the capitalist mode of production confines our workers night after night, are not abolished; they are merely shifted elsewhere! The same economic necessity which produced them in the first place, produces them in the next place also. - Frederick Engels, 1872

Let us drop all pretense: gentrification is when those with money force out those with less money. Gentrification, oftentimes with the added charm of manipulating some species of misfortune (New Orleans after Katrina being such an agreeable instance), pushes away those who collectively define a neighborhood. The result is that cities become less distinctive and less dynamic (save the dynamism of chasing former residents here to there). In exchange, we get a balance of no improvement in society at large, simply a physical rearranging of the haves and have-nots in whatever pattern fits the whim of the former.

Gentrification is, I think, the urban manifestation of modern society's greatest ill: the subversion of all human activity and all human relation to the power of the perfumed paper bill. It is something that should be opposed whenever practicable.

Originally Posted by Suburbanist

There are no ancestor rights to live in a place. That retired bankers are coming from New York and paying more to buy a place is their business only.

Ah, but isolationism is no longer a viable policy, and it is undeniably the business of the community at large. The economic composition of a neighborhood, and the machinations that compel inhabitants to leave for the benefit of the passing fancy of this or that retired banker is indeed the business of the whole of the city.

Though you are right on a solitary point, in that legally, that there are no "ancestor rights" to a community. But in effect what you are proposing is not the rejection of "ancestor rights", instead you are proposing the rejection of the community. A community, after all, cannot be boiled down to a mere random grouping of renters and owners, it is far more than that. And we should not be so quick to reduce this to a simple business transaction, we both know it is far more than that.

[Suburbanist]

You are right in you perception: I only care about individual (renters and homeowners) rights, I mock and dislike the idea o people who are in a neighborfood to act as a "community". I don't recognize such collectivity because I care only about individual interactions and rights.

I only rwcognize nation-level community, eg the nation itself. On a local level, I wish all "unique" communities where the mere geographical place becomes a hotbed for some localist identity get disbanded and destroyed naturally . Be it things like Chinatowns or "bohemian districts" or what else. The more interchangeable places are and the weaker their own identities, the less people will care to move away if there are better opportunities elsewhere.

So anything that create uniqueness on the social fabric of a negjborhood is negative and must be never recognized as something like " the right of Afican Amerixans to keep the Harlem black" or other bs (not necessarily on ethnic lines, could be any line)

[Suburbanist]

Just for clarity: by destroying a community naturally I don't mean I wish tornadoes or earthquakes but th collapse of the social fabric via passive microeconomic agents acting in a market context

[Sweet Zombie Jesus]

Originally Posted by Suburbanist

You are right in you perception: I only care about individual (renters and homeowners) rights, I mock and dislike the idea o people who are in a neighborfood to act as a "community". I don't recognize such collectivity because I care only about individual interactions and rights.

I only rwcognize nation-level community, eg the nation itself. On a local level, I wish all "unique" communities where the mere geographical place becomes a hotbed for some localist identity get disbanded and destroyed naturally . Be it things like Chinatowns or "bohemian districts" or what else. The more interchangeable places are and the weaker their own identities, the less people will care to move away if there are better opportunities elsewhere.

So anything that create uniqueness on the social fabric of a negjborhood is negative and must be never recognized as something like " the right of Afican Amerixans to keep the Harlem black" or other bs (not necessarily on ethnic lines, could be any line)

But many other people, and not just those on this forum, do care about communities, therefore they are worth protecting; a community is a number of 'individuals' coming together under a common interaction and right.

Communities disband naturally anyway, none is static, and many come into and out of existence regularly depending on the needs or desires of the people in that neighbourhood at any one time. People have a personal and individual right to community, and for a government or economy to pursue actions which would restrict community goes against an individuals basic rights.

I agree certain forms of 'community' can be dangerous, often when ethnicity is involved, but ethnic culture can also be a rich asset for a city, in increasing diversity of culture and economy when these communities are integrated into the rest of the city. By this I mean normalized and accepted, rather than dispersed. Cities are far more complex than simple economic engines, and a good city reflects the people who live there; whether these people are natives, immigrants, bohemians or the upper class they all have the right to a community.

[Suburbanist]

I don't think any city gains from having "ethnic" neighborhoods. Maybe tourism, but that is another league: amusement park, casinos, museums, restaurants all attract tourists.

What I didn't elaborate is that I see a problem not when people just create some social dynamic, but when they want to freeze it over time. Imagine if slave traders had wanted to keep Savannah port "unique" by not allowing any other activity and profession to establish on its premises!

Sometimes, this is how I see gentrification: people resisting changes because they are too attached to the place, even if changes are unavoidable in the current model.

I'm not even going into the criminal communities that flourish with decay. Not necessarily gangs, but quasi-felony extortionists that, acting as "community organizers", feel free to replicate unwanted social order and extorsion schemes back home in US, UK or else (this is a common problem in many Asian "ethnic" areas).

But let's put the other way: if not for gentrification, decay would usually stay. Who can sanely argue decay is good? Derelict housing? Crumbling buildings?

So if the buildings are not well-kept, this is a failure of the so-called "community". Why should the government throw in millions or billions to make the area nice just because its location is nice, but restricting the ability of owners to cash in and move out?

Finally, an interesting observation: the harsher bitterness of "community activists" on gentrification process is not much about displacement of housing in the early stages of gentrification, but displacement of business. Some feel "offended" if a "high-end" boutique or a "trendy" bar opens in the area, even if in a former and long closed store, because they can't afford the products/entertainment there and the people from the area are unlikely to be hired to work there.

[DiggerD21]

Originally Posted by Suburbanist

I have nothing but contempt for people who live 30 years in a decaying area, never buys their houses, and then whine that the owner of their house sold their $80.000 house (2 years ago) for $300.000 for a condo developer. Had they invested in buying the house first place, they would be the ones "cashing in".

What if market forces prevent someone to buy a house, because he simply can't afford a loan?

[Suburbanist]

Originally Posted by DiggerD21

What if market forces prevent someone to buy a house, because he simply can't afford a loan?

There are a multitude of programs to help home buyers in most Western countries.

If somebody is so poor that it needs welfare for a whole life enough to "lay roots" in a neighborhood, then it is not entitled to get a major handout in the form of a free house that is not only decent but in a prime location of a city.