Another Perspective on Gentrification
by Guest Contributor Joanna Eng
There is something extremely disheartening about walking into a bar called “La Negrita” to find it full of white people, and white people only. I already cringe when someone brings me to a bar in New York City where I’m the most “ethnic” face in the room; it hits me over the head in a city as diverse as this. But La Negrita is especially bugging me, not only because of its name and lack of explanation for the name; but because we’re on 109th Street and Columbus—Manhattan Valley—a rapidly gentrifying neighborhood where most of the longtime residents are black and Latino (and most of the newcomers are white).
For the past couple of months, I’ve been staying with a friend who lives in this neighborhood. (It’s a temporary living situation while I wait to make a more permanent move back to Queens.) I’ve been hyper-aware of gentrification and racial dynamics since my first day here.
There are a string of new restaurants that look like they’re attempting to convert the neighborhood into an extension of the Upper West Side: Thai restaurants, gourmet brunch spots, places with frozen margaritas and tofu-filled burritos. It seems clear to me who these restaurants are for—white (and the occasional Asian) yuppies, people coming north from the Upper West Side, and Columbia students venturing south. Now, I love outdoor dining as much as the next person, and the prices aren’t even high for Manhattan. But I don’t like being on display. As I eat my Massaman curry, I could be mostly imagining it, but I think the “natives” walking down the sidewalk are staring, and I feel like an impostor even being here.
Sometimes, as I walk down Amsterdam Ave here, I feel like apologizing to the old-timers, who are chatting while sitting on milk crates on the sidewalk, about what this place is becoming.
Maybe I’m unfairly attributing opinions and values to groups of people based on broad stereotypes. Maybe I’m exaggerating the tension, and the area’s really more of an idyllic melting pot than I think. Well, I know it at least has a more complicated history than I can understand—I am a newcomer, after all.
Maybe I’m over-sensitive because I’m currently reading a novel (Ellington Boulevard by Adam Langer) about an old jazz musician on 106th Street getting displaced from his apartment. But I’ve also read articles that affirm that in the real world, real estate prices have been rising dramatically, and young people are being encouraged to snatch up property in this “last frontier” area before the prices get too high.
Maybe I’m so uncomfortable because, with my white ear buds and newcomer status, I know I’m much more like one group than the other.
Carmen Van Kerckhove is co-founder and president of 
merq wrote:
I used to live in that neighborhood, and spent many a night as one of the only “ethnic” faces at La Negrita.
Rest assured, your gentrification worries aren’t only in your head.
Don’t get me wrong, there was still a bit of a crime problem in that area — something I and a friend who lived on 108 & Columbus called the “Freaks (i.e., Crackheads) Come Out at Night” phenomenon — but it’s was still a generally charming neighborhood to come home to.
…And don’t get me started on Columbia’s NY imperialism.
Posted 17 Jun 2008 at 6:52 am ¶
Fiqah wrote:
Joanna: This warmly-greeted, well-received new (Black) Striver’s Row resident confirms that the hostility aimed at you is real. merq: ROFF! Ah, Whodini. Genius.
Posted 17 Jun 2008 at 7:30 am ¶
Jane wrote:
Another racist and anti-white article on a supposedly anti-racist website. Gentrification drives comparatively few low-income residents from their homes. Although some are forced to move by rising costs, there isn’t much more displacement in gentrifying neighborhoods than in non-gentrifying ones. Lance Freeman, an assistant professor of urban planning at Columbia University, concluded that living in a gentrifying neighborhood there actually made it less likely a poor resident would move — a finding similar to that of a 2001 study of Boston by Duke University economist Jacob Vigdor. When they studied New York City and Boston, respectively, they found that poor and less educated residents of gentrifying neighborhoods actually moved less often than people in other neighborhoods — 20% less in New York.
Posted 4/19/2005 8:02 PM Updated 4/20/2005 3:13 AM
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Studies: Gentrification a boost for everyone
By Rick Hampson, USA TODAY
Everyone knows gentrification uproots the urban poor with higher rents, higher taxes and $4 lattes. It’s the lament of community organizers, the theme of the 2004 film Barbershop 2 and the guilty assumption of the yuppies moving in.
Carole Singleton lives in Harlem in New York City where she is a tenants rights activist in her community.
Eileen Blass, USA TODAY
But everyone may be wrong, according to Lance Freeman, an assistant professor of urban planning at Columbia University.
In an article last month in Urban Affairs Review, Freeman reports the results of his national study of gentrification — the movement of upscale (mostly white) settlers into rundown (mostly minority) neighborhoods.
His conclusion: Gentrification drives comparatively few low-income residents from their homes. Although some are forced to move by rising costs, there isn’t much more displacement in gentrifying neighborhoods than in non-gentrifying ones.
In a separate study of New York City published last year, Freeman and a colleague concluded that living in a gentrifying neighborhood there actually made it less likely a poor resident would move — a finding similar to that of a 2001 study of Boston by Duke University economist Jacob Vigdor.
Freeman and Vigdor say that although higher costs sometimes force poor residents to leave gentrifying neighborhoods, other changes — more jobs, safer streets, better trash pickup — encourage them to stay. But to others, gentrification remains a dirty word.
“All you have to do is talk to people around here,” says James Lewis, a tenant organizer in Harlem, New York’s most famous black neighborhood. “Everybody with money is moving into Harlem, and the people who are here are being displaced.”
Even residents who have survived gentrification tend to believe it forces people out.
Maria Marquez, 37, has slept on the sofa for 12 years to give her mother and son the two bedrooms in their apartment in Chicago’s gentrifying Logan Square area. But eventually, she says, “we’re gonna get kicked out. It’s a matter of time.”
Kathe Newman, assistant professor of public policy at Rutgers University, argues that Freeman’s research in New York understates the extent of displacement. But she says he has raised a good question: How, in the face of relentlessly higher living costs, do so many poor people stay put?
A hot-button issue
Gentrification has spawned emotional disputes in cities around the nation:
• In northwest Fort Lauderdale, where streets are named for the district’s prominent old African-American families, three of four new home buyers are white, according to a survey by the Sun-Sentinel. City Commissioner Carlton Moore told the newspaper his largely black constituency fears displacement, even though he says it won’t happen.
• In the predominantly Latino working class barrio of East Austin, the new Pedernales Lofts condominiums have raised adjacent land values more than 50% since 2003. Last fall, someone hung signs from power lines outside the lofts saying, “Stop gentrifying the East Side” and “Will U give jobs to longtime residents of this neighborhood?”
• In Charlotte, a City Council committee voted in December to remove language from a city planning department report that downplayed gentrification’s threat to neighborhoods. Development could uproot some people, councilman John Tabor told the Charlotte Observer “If there are people in these neighborhoods who have to move because they can’t afford their taxes, that’s who I want to help,” he said.
• In Boston’s North End, the destruction of the noisy Central Artery elevated highway promises to attract younger, more affluent new residents and dilute the traditional Italian immigrant culture.
In the two decades after World War II, government urban renewal schemes tore down whole neighborhoods and scattered residents.
Gentrification, which appeared in the 1970s, was something else. Motivated by high gasoline prices, suburban sprawl and a new taste for old architecture, some middle class whites began moving into neighborhoods that had gone out of fashion a generation or two earlier.
Here’s how it works: A dilapidated and depopulated but essentially attractive neighborhood — solid housing stock, well laid-out streets, proximity to the city center — is discovered by artists, graduate students and other bohemians.
Block by block, the neighborhood changes. The newcomers fix up old buildings. Galleries and cafes open, and mom ‘n’ pop groceries close. City services improve. Finally, the bohemians are joined by lawyers, stockbrokers and dentists. Property values rise, followed by property taxes and rents.
To some urban planners, gentrification is a solution to racial segregation, a shrinking tax base and other problems. To others, it is a problem: Poor blacks and Hispanics, who’ve held on through hard times and sometimes started the neighborhood’s comeback, are ousted by their own success.
Jose Sanchez, an urban planning expert at Long Island University in Brooklyn, says some changing neighborhoods stabilize with a mixture of people. But he says the poor — and the bohemian pioneers — can also be “washed out” by scheming landlords or government policies such as rezoning and urban renewal.
The poor stay put
Freeman and Vigdor say gentrification has gotten a bad rap. When they studied New York City and Boston, respectively, they found that poor and less educated residents of gentrifying neighborhoods actually moved less often than people in other neighborhoods — 20% less in New York.
For his national study published this year, Freeman found only a slight connection between gentrification and displacement. A poor resident’s chances of being forced to move out of a gentrifying neighborhood are only 0.5% greater than in a non-gentrifying one.
So how do some neighborhoods change so dramatically? Freeman says it’s mostly the result of what he calls “succession”: Poor people in gentrifying neighborhoods who move from their homes — for whatever reason — usually are replaced by people who have more income and education.
Freeman and Vigdor say skeptics who view gentrification merely as ” ‘hood snatching” should remember three things:
• Many older neighborhoods have high turnover, whether they gentrify or not. Vigdor says that over five years, about half of all urban residents move.
• Such neighborhoods often have so much vacant or abandoned housing that there’s no need to drive anyone out to accommodate people who want to move in. A quarter of the housing in one section of Boston’s South End was vacant in 1970; the population had dropped by more than 50% over 20 years. Today, the population has increased more than 50%, and the vacancy rate is less than 2%.
• Rising housing costs in gentrifying districts may ensure that poor residents who do move leave the neighborhood, rather than settle elsewhere in it. Since their places usually are taken by more affluent, better educated people, the neighborhood’s character and demographics change.
Vigdor argues that hatred of gentrification is largely irrational: “We were angry when the middle class moved out of the city,” he says. “Now we’re angry when they move back.”
He asks whether Detroit, which in 50 years has lost half its population and most of its middle class, would not have been better off with gentrification than it has been without it.
Mod Note - If you have an issue with how gentrification is defined, please say so. However, I am finding it difficult to see where this article is anti-white.
Posted 17 Jun 2008 at 7:35 am ¶
Fiqah wrote:
@Latoya: neither the site nor the article is racist or anti-white. And your post on gentrification broke all of this down brilliantly. @Jane: I am not sure where you live, but here in NYC rising rent prices are driving people out. Also a lot of buildings go co-op in gentrifying areas. If you can’t buy you have to move. I wonder how much of Freeman’s data came from landlords’ oft-doctored rent rolls as opposed to the NYC Housing Authority’s records.
Posted 17 Jun 2008 at 8:42 am ¶
dave wrote:
The article from Freeman seems fairly well balanced, although dismisses dislocation through rising rent without getting into the specifics … (just mentioning the tenacity of some poor folks), which undermines its believability.
Also “Jane” … this article was very clear in identifying how it might be “hypersensitive” to gentrification, and was addressing the real issue of community displacement. (even if you say that gentrification “embetters” the neighborhood and most people stay, there can still be an erosion of the strength of community because its more difficult to stay cohesive).
Posted 17 Jun 2008 at 9:00 am ¶
garbage wrote:
i find it ironic that a columbia university professor did this study to legitimize his institution’s strong-arming of harlem residents. There is a huge conflict of interest in that case, and judging by personal experience…my electric bills in my harlem apt increased 200% over one year without any change in use. TELL me that isn’t done on purpose. And, if gentrification causes “comparatively few” (whatever that means) residents to move from their neighborhoods, then WHERE DO ALL THE NEW RESIDENTS LIVE?????
what a joke. don’t just accept an “expert” opinion. they can use their elite standing to justify whatever they want. If you watch “like it is with gil noble” and live in the neighborhood, you know damn well what’s really going on.
Posted 17 Jun 2008 at 9:07 am ¶
Slush wrote:
@jane
Thanks for the interesting articles - and citation/attributions.
It seems to me that even if what’s his name is right that gentrifying and non-gentrifying neighborhoods have roughly the same amount of movement in and out, that although rising prices and property taxes may not be the main force driving people out, nonetheless only affluent white people come in to replace them. Which has the stark effect you see in Boston or Washington that the city center gets richer and whiter while poor folks and especially immigrant communities can only set up shop futher and further to the perimeter. So even if you don’t see it as ‘driving people out’ it’s more just like ‘keeping low income people out.’
Posted 17 Jun 2008 at 9:07 am ¶
cacy forgenie wrote:
If the numbers of new and old are the same, how come I’m only seeing new young white people in some of these hoods? Where are the old people? Are they having lattes on their milkcrates on the sidewalk in Morningside or Indwood? No, they’re gone.
Posted 17 Jun 2008 at 9:47 am ¶
Eva wrote:
This is happening in every neighborhood in NYC, not just in Harlem where I still live. Just look at the stories in the news lately of all those cranes falling down, they all happened on the upper east side where many middle class people are being bought out left and right and high rises are on the rise.
As for where I live, a gate was placed around the property (to protect the landscaping I believe), the place was re-wired and some apartments were re done, hopefully when they go co-op I’ll be able to buy my apartment.
But my question is, with so many high rises going up all over the city, are there really that many people in the country who can afford them, do they even want to live in the city and for how long?
Posted 17 Jun 2008 at 10:06 am ¶
Mickey wrote:
In Dallas we are not facing this problem…yet. I mean, there are some “gentry” areas, but not as bad as it is in NYC.
But I think with gas hitting $4/gallon here and the expansion of the light rail service, we may start to see it over the next 5-10 years.
Posted 17 Jun 2008 at 10:40 am ¶
L-K wrote:
If people aren’t moving out (like in my case, where I live in a rent-stabilized apartment in Williamsburg, Brooklyn for the past 25 years along with my family) from gentrifying areas, it’s because, hell, where are we suppose to go that has comparable rent ranges? There aren’t areas where there are comparable prices, except perhaps all the way at the end of Queens, probably Jersey. So, of course people are going to hold on to their rent-stabilized apartments, even if it means overcrowding.
And the main researcher in said article is a professor at Columbia U.? The same Columbia that bought up apartment units at a now-former Mitchell Lama development at W135th Street for dorming, after rent was drastically hiked up, even doubled in many instances and many families had no option but to leave? Then, what’s that called?
Posted 17 Jun 2008 at 10:41 am ¶
CVT wrote:
I like the claim that gentrification produces “new jobs.” Like the waiters for the upscale restaurants, the salespeople at the trendy boutiques, the landlords for the new condominiums . . . They’re all people of color from the original neighborhood, right?
Maybe the “better garbage pick-up” was a reference to the old tenants . . .
Posted 17 Jun 2008 at 10:56 am ¶
LizzyGetBusy wrote:
Joanna did a wonderful job of posting about an issue that touches so many people’s lives across the country. Despite her attempt to question her own feelings, citing books that may have influenced her and made her “oversensitive” she is still called out for writing an anti-white article. How apologetic do POC have to be when writing about issues of race for people to stop blindly defending whiteness? Also, Joanna raised a more complicated issue in her final words:
“Maybe I’m so uncomfortable because, with my white ear buds and newcomer status, I know I’m much more like one group than the other.”
This is something that I have come across in my neighborhood in Brooklyn, a community with beautiful brownstones that have been historically owned by black residents. The complications arise when many of the gentrifying new residents are professional young POC, people who are attracted to the neighborhood because of its multicultural nature. As a result the situation is not as clearly delineated as Joanna’s case, black people are displacing black people. What’s more is that there are an astonishing number of new couples in interracial relationships, which adds another level of cultural “friction” between the new residents and the old residents. Don’t get me wrong, white people are certainly moving into the neighborhood as well, I just think gentrification is a far more complicated issue that has to do with race, class, and gender. Thanks to Joanna for the great post!
Posted 17 Jun 2008 at 11:20 am ¶
jed wrote:
“If you have an issue with how ………….. is defined, please say so. However, I am finding it difficult to see where this article is anti-white.”
Now you know how whites feel when someone accuses them of writing something anti-black.
I have a tangential question to this article. How much is gentrification influenced by the ethnic residents flipping their houses? That is, investing in remodeling and upgrades for the sole purpose of selling for a handsome profit? Could gentrification be a sign that the local ethnic residents had as a group more or less reached some level of affluence?
Posted 17 Jun 2008 at 11:21 am ¶
DEAF FEMINIST PUNK!! wrote:
I want to move to NYC so bad but I don’t want to contribute to the gentrification process. This is such a confusing issue.
Cities progress and change over time, but how do we know when that’s a good or bad thing?
It’s funny. Some people complain about gentrification and how it’s destroying the “soul” of the city. And others say that gentrification is “great” and that it should replace the “ghetto.”
It’s a no-win situation, I guess.
Posted 17 Jun 2008 at 11:30 am ¶
gatamala wrote:
garbate- I2I on the conflict of interest.
cacy-who are you going to believe? Lance Freeman or your lying eyes?
Posted 17 Jun 2008 at 11:38 am ¶
Erin wrote:
Jane says “Gentrification drives comparatively few low-income residents from their homes”
well, as one lowish-income person, I can tell you that I’m scrambling to find affordable housing in Seattle and gentrification is a part of that. it must be nice to not have to worry about how you’re going to afford rent. even when people aren’t being displaced, they face other economic setbacks: struggling to pay other bills (heating, water, food) in order to pay the ever-increasing rents.
instead of having a knee-jerk reaction, you might try examining your own privelege and your own ideas.
Posted 17 Jun 2008 at 12:03 pm ¶
NancyP wrote:
The solution to gentrification is mandated mixed income development. It can’t be stopped, only managed. It doesn’t stop the yuppification of retail in the neighborhood, but might result in some “standard” stores being put in place or retained (grocery stores).
Posted 17 Jun 2008 at 12:29 pm ¶
landlords wrote:
@Lizzygetbusy: about your point on middle-class poc moving into these neighborhoods… gentrification is not just about who lives in a neighborhood, it’s also about who owns the buildings, who owns the businesses, who owns the infrastructure. If the buildings, apartments and businesses were owned by the original residents, there’s really no problem, because they can all get rich from selling their homes (if they choose). The problem is that most of the neighborhood is owned by banks, white or foreign investors, or the city, so the residents have less control over their neighborhood because they don’t own their own property, which is why they rent. Tenants associations are but dead leaves in the wind compared to the capitol behind leveraged buyouts by investors/owners.
I think that the mortgage crisis also has something to do with the severity of what’s happening since so many low-income people and poc were targeted for subprime loans.
after researching the whole housing crisis, I came to the conclusion that the bust phase was deliberately used to swindle people out of their property, so banks and investors could consolidate their hold over large areas of cheap and foreclosed real estate, since the Gramm-Leach-Billey Act (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gramm-Leach-Bliley_Act)
was repealed during the CLINTON administration. This is significant and shows how gentrification can be planned by speculators, because the GLB act was passed after the great depression to stop the speculatory strong-arming by financial institutions which led to the stock crash!!!!
Gentrification is a manifestation of economic warfare, which i think will increase in certain areas within the next 20 years as the economy rebounds post-recession. Harlem is just another victim of people with huge amounts of capitol who can leverage it against residents.
back to the point…i think it is less the “fault” of middle class people who want a cheap place to live than it is about the people who are profiting off of that motivation that everyone has. Who doesn’t want a cheap apartment in an “up-and-coming” neighborhood in “north-manhattan”?
tenant associations are not enough. protests are ineffective. the only way to compete with capitol is with capitol…and i’m afraid the victims of gentrification don’t have enough of it.
if only harlem could become a corporation, and all the tenants become employees…maybe then they can keep their neighborhood, or expand it through eminent domain!!
Posted 17 Jun 2008 at 12:53 pm ¶
Temo wrote:
“Ethnic” face??? I would think this blog of any blog would not use such outdated terms. We all have ethnicity.
Posted 17 Jun 2008 at 12:54 pm ¶
Thea wrote:
The article that Jane posted is interesting but puzzling - almost anyone whose observed urban gentrification can see that once the doggie boutiques start moving in, there’s less housing for poor white/POC folks.
I think the answer may lie in the part where Freeman says: “Poor people in gentrifying neighborhoods who move from their homes — for whatever reason — usually are replaced by people who have more income and education.”
I think a lot of poor folks living in gentrifying neighbourhoods may move out because generally, before they gentrify, the hoods are crappy places to live - this is why they’re homes to poor folks in the first place. They’re often industrial neighbourhoods with air and soil pollution.
What happens though, is that when these populations get replaced by folks with more money and rent goes up, the stock of affordable housing in the city goes down as a whole.
Even if gentrification is not forcing poor folks out of neighbourhoods (a fact I find hard to believe from first-hand experience), it does reduce reduce reduce the amount of affordable housing in a city till it is almost nil. So cities on the whole become only for rich folks, which is pretty upsetting - particularly for immigrant communities of colour that are located solely in cities. I don’t particularly want to live outside of a city because as a mixed race TCK of colour, I don’t really feel at ease anywhere else except in the city.
One thing I really like about Joanna’s article is how she discusses her own responsibility in gentrification. I used to live in the Toronto neighbourhood Leslieville, which is gentrifying at a breakneck speed, in a particularly ugly way. When I lived there, residents with more money were actively campaigning to get poor folks, people of colour and people with addictions out of the neighbourhood in the form of a mini class war.
I didn’t have as much money as my neighbours with $500,000 houses, but I had more money than my neighbours in social housing. As much as I criticised my classist neighbours, I needed to think long and hard about my own responsibility in the situation.
I think it leaves people like me in a bind. Should we live in neighbourhoods with cheap rent we can easily afford, or should we live in hoods we can barely afford, because otherwise we’re driving out poor folks? In terms of “urban ethics,” what *is* the right thing to do?
Posted 17 Jun 2008 at 3:03 pm ¶
cooper wrote:
seconds to thea’s comment, and her questions — what is the right thing to do? what is the right thing to do for white people, too? (if anything, that’s what seemed anti-white to me about the post, that white people are as relegated to spaces in the cities as people of color, they should just be happy that the parts they get are nicer. um, i can’t afford to live in the upper east side, thanks. where does that leave me? but i know part of whiteness means feeling entitled to all spaces, so wtf? as a white person, i acknowledge the dilemma for us as well.)
I’ve read freeman’s book, and others looking at gentrification, and its true that the displacement numbers are surprisingly less than what I expected at the beginning of my research–but 1. freeman investigates a city with rent control, which is certainly a contributing factor to finding less people moving, and he doesn’t really acknowledge it, and 2. in general, political economy doesn’t engage with critical race theory enough. talking about economics doesn’t address the potential cultural clashes or the motivations for moving — squeezed out? not interested? sick mom in jersey? there are a lot of things at play. that said, upon my own research of gentrification, public space, the history of suburbs and critical race theory, i would love to see real estate taken out of the free market entirely. there are enormous injustices done to MANY when real estate wealth is manipulated, protected, supported by biased tax structures, etc. Talking about gentrification by itself is really difficult because race and class intersect sharply there; anti-rich isn’t far from anti-white, and while I may be white and worry about how i’m going to pay rent this summer, i also know that my white body means something if i were to move to west oakland despite my low income.
at the end of the day, the concept of gentrification concerns me (especially in the increasing sustainability movement as white people want cities back so that they might be more ‘green’) because it stands to be really divisive as these issues compound one another, when really the problem is the system that makes it possible. we shouldn’t tear one another down about it, but work together to dismantle capitalism some. that sounds way idealistic and cheesy, i’m sorry. is there some way to get inspiring rhetoric back without sounding lame?
Posted 17 Jun 2008 at 5:02 pm ¶
Kirk Van Irvin wrote:
@ Jane: I don’t know where your professor is getting his facts about gentrification not happening in Detroit. I went to visit the neighborhood where my grandparents used to live , and it’s pretty different . The creeping gentrification iscoming from downtown , heading up Jefferson Ave.
Posted 17 Jun 2008 at 5:13 pm ¶
Joanna wrote:
@Thea & cooper:
Yes, I have a lot of the same questions, and I wish I could address them more productively. One small thing that I would like to think helps a little bit is supporting local independent businesses, and opting out of going to too many new chain stores/restaurants that are cropping up.
And here’s an interesting story that was linked to on Racialicious a little while back:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/29/us/29portland.html
Posted 17 Jun 2008 at 6:02 pm ¶
G.K. wrote:
@Kirk and landlords:
About the housing crisis—I work as a volunteer for a group called MECAWI (Michigan Emergency Committee Against War and Injustice)
http://www.mecawi.org
and our focus for the last 9 months has been on fighting to get a 2-year moratorium bill passed to put halt on all foreclosures and evictions here in the State of Michigan. It’s a HUGE crisis here in the Detroit area, one that’s being compounded by the terrible economy and higher-than-the-national average unemployment rate. You almost can not walk down the street in some neighborhoods without seeing at least up to 3 abandoned homes just sitting there,waiting to be stripped, used by homeless people to live in or be turned into makeshift crackhouse. The mention of gentrification naturally got me to wondering if a lot of these foreclosed on properties would wind up being snatched a cheap price by richer folk, thereby gentrifying all of the older neighborhoods. However, with the housing crisis hitting everyone across all class lines extremely hard out here, I’m not sure about that happening on such a large scale.
I do remember that when yuppies started moving back to Detroit in the late ’90’s, there was concern that this would cause rents to go up and force the poorer residents who had been stuck in the city and dealing with all the daily hassles and BS involved in living in the D (depending on which part you’re living in) to move out. I myself had to leave an apartment I’d lived in for only two years (and I loved it there—it was the first time I’d lived in my own place,and I enjoyed it, despite the crackheads/homeless folks hanging around, the drug dealers and the crazy-as-hell drunk couple always fighting and shouting at each other every other day, as well as my daily battle royales with the cockroaches infesting every damn crack in my room—they were there when I moved in) before an eviction notice appeared under all the residents’ doors claiming we had 1 month to vacate the premises. And this was the day after I’d paid my monthly rent.
Basically,the whole apartment was being redone and updated, so we all had to move out, even though I was in no financial shape to move at the time. Anyway, I moved, the whole building was re-upholstered, and naturally,the rent shot up to twice its original price, which meant unless you had mad amounts of cash on hand, you had no hope in hell of moving back in. So,I ended up getting gentrified out of my own apartment, which sucked.
Posted 17 Jun 2008 at 6:15 pm ¶
sfsinger wrote:
Look I lived in NYC during the end of the Koch years, through Dinkins and at the beginning of the ‘end’ - the Giuiliani years. I saw Thomkin Square park go from tent city with homeless, drug dealers and undercover cops to playgrounds and rich people literally overnight. I know people who got evicted from apartments surrounding the park and how buildings went co-op. Avenue D used to be too dangerous to walk alone. Chrystie St. park was full of crackheads. I had a huge 2br apartment on Elizabeth Street that went for $1025 in 1991. At the time it was a rental and the entire building was vacant. I always wondered what had happened to the people who had lived there, but I was 19. I calculated with 4 of us doubling up in the bedrooms our split would just be manageable. I had a hard time getting friends to move there at the time because they complained about how rough the neighborhood was. That building went co-op and those units are now worth $2M - and no I don’t live there. I will also mention that I am Black.
My last apartment was on 179th Street in Washington Heights and our rent was $1100 for a 2.5 bedroom place - but the only reason we got the rent at that price was because one of my roommates was Dominican. We also had to give up any semblance of quiet on weekends during warm weather due to the music blasted from all the buildings.
Finally one of my friends who grew up in Harlem in a rent-controlled apartment had to move because the rent was doubled. She moved to Fort Greene when it was still up and coming and of course that neighborhood has it’s own rent increases but she had prepared for the eventual jump and was able to buy a place with her husband.
Posted 17 Jun 2008 at 6:39 pm ¶
merq wrote:
That’s right, Jed. ‘Cause this is the first time a black person complaining about society’s imbalances is accused of him/herself being the racist.
You really got her there, man.
Temo,
I’m sure there was a point you were trying to make, but please be reminded that both the OP and I used the word in quotes to (presumably, in Joanna’s case) mock said outdated notions of describing POC.
Jane and her ilk:
Listen, my friend. First of all, I want you to point out a line in Joanna’s post that read as anti-white to you. If you’ve got a point to make, stick to your flawed research, conducted by self-serving modern imperialist institutions, and leave the red herring out of it.
I lived in that neighborhood for 3 years, and while I was fortunate enough not to have been driven out by gentrification (my family still owns the property we lived in over there), I’ve seen more than enough of gentrification’s earmarks in that neighborhood to listen to the uninformed bunk you offered.
Living in the low-hundreds, between Central Park West and Manhattan Ave offered an interesting look at the class divide in America. (Yes, the America whose stately seat of power is only a few blocks from the hood.) But as time went by, things definitely began to change in the neighborhood.
Grocery stores closed left and right, leaving the last dog standing to be purchased, renamed, and rebranded by new management intent on raising prices on every last item (and this was a good while before the fuel-related general price hikes of the last two years).
This is the neighborhood in which dubious “noise complaints” from a couple of new buyers (in a formerly all-rental building) resulted in the mass-removal of all renting tenants before the building’s relaunch as a full co-op location.
This is the neighborhood in which another building (very near mine) has seen a majority of its tenants named as defendants in a disgustingly frivolous lawsuit from the building’s own management company, with the aim of removing them all and beginning anew as a luxury condo.
So Jane, my dear, there is no antagonism towards whites here. But I do have a healthy amount of scorn for people who bury their heads in the sand when faced with issues that expose their own privilege.
Yes, that would be you.
Posted 17 Jun 2008 at 6:49 pm ¶
Annie wrote:
Gentrification is beginning in Dallas and it is a very confusing issue. On the one hand there is a serious problem of displacement and homelessness. Along with gentrification though there is reduced crime rates in the area. The issue with that is crimes are just dispersed or moved to a different area. I acknowledge that I am a middle class person in the suburbs of Dallas. I feel a solution to this problem will be very difficult to come by.
Posted 17 Jun 2008 at 10:51 pm ¶
stickinthemud wrote:
i was amused to find this post here today. i used live right around the corner from that place and also wondered what inspired the name. I never went in though.
Posted 17 Jun 2008 at 11:38 pm ¶
the solution is: wrote:
incorporate the hood. towns and families must BECOME corporations in order to get the same privileges that these guys get…tax breaks, better loans, eminent domain…pass it on!
Posted 18 Jun 2008 at 1:07 am ¶
CVT wrote:
Jed -
The “ethnic” residents affected by gentrification don’t own their homes - they rent. People don’t “flip” their rental homes (it’s not really an option if you don’t have the money to begin with).
There may be a few who own, of course, but it’s the landlords of apartment buildings, warehouses, etc. that are benefitting. The people that actually LIVE there just end up losing an affordable place to stay (or losing in other ways to stay put).
Posted 18 Jun 2008 at 2:10 am ¶
Britta wrote:
Cooper, Thea,
As a white woman with not a lot of money who’s about to move to Chicago, I’ve been asking myself the same questions.
I think gentrification, at least in the early stages, is a prime example of how the institutionalized racism matrix means that white people (and sometimes POCs) with few resources end up oppressing those with even fewer resources. The powers that be (developers, local governments, zoning ordinance boards, etc.) make sure for those nearer the bottom of the totem pole, any gain is zero sum and generally at the expense of the weaker group. For example, in Portland in the 70s, the city decided to build a freeway through the heart of a working class Italian neighborhood. The neighbors got together and managed to prevent the freeway–so the government built it through the center of the black community instead.
I know that’s not exactly gentrification, but I think it touches on the way that these debates get framed for white people (and POCs) with some cultural capital: live where you can’t afford, or come in and kick the original residents out to someplace much worse. And even if you don’t want those to be the options, by very nature of being “more attractive” to landlords and the like, you end up doing exactly that. With these two opposing options, poorer people with cultural capital (grad students, artists, etc.) end up being pawns of developers and those with real power. Of course, many poorish white people do play a role, by being oblivious to this dynamic, and bringing a demand for chain businesses like starbucks, and end up playing right into developers’ hands.
Of course, IMO, the crack house or pottery barn dichotomy doesn’t have to be the case, neighborhood renewal doesn’t have to result in wholefoods yuppie-style gentrification. However, it would require a political awareness on the part of the people moving in, political clout on the part of the people already living there, and a genuine interest from city officials to keep their cities truly diverse and vibrant, instead of chasing the big buck from affluent people.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but mixed income housing, rent freezes for local businesses, start up grants for local residents, etc. seem like they could be promising.
Posted 18 Jun 2008 at 3:06 am ¶
Jess wrote:
Something people should realize — gentrification happens as part of a cascade effect, of sorts. Middle-class people can’t live in certain areas becuase they become unaffordable. Like, for instance, the Upper West Side, which used to be a place for middle-class people to move to back in the 1960s. (It’s really amazing to see how undesirable the place was at the time).
What happened? Everything above 59th Street to 70th and west of Broadway was rebuilt. A new high school (at the time — it’s old now, of course) named for MLK, the new location for the performing arts school, Lincoln Center, and the Lincoln Towers complex. The towers were for people who couldn’t afford to live on the Upper East Side or downtown.
Well, the folks got older and many cashed out. Prices went up. And now the only reason I can afford to live here is that I inherited the co-op.
That’s what happens when people own their places. When they don’t, it’s dicier. I offer the example of Phipps houses on 29th and Second avenue. It was a co-op for low income people. But then it got bought out and rents doubled and tripled, basically pushing everybody out.
Meanwhile, the Upper East Side (in the 80s and north) became affordable because there is no subway nearby (only the Lex Ave line). Who would have thought that younger people making less money would be moving to Eat 88th Street?
These cycles are long and complicated, and there are many things that go into them. The question is how to make sure people have a place to live.
Posted 18 Jun 2008 at 6:45 am ¶
Slush wrote:
@cooper
Cheers to all that. Free market capitalism is horrendous for housing. It’s horrible for lots of things that have to do with justice and great for lots of things that peddle in racism, but housing is an especially prime example.
Adding to your critique of Freeman, a point that’s sort of been made above but not so clearly - he might be right that poor residents of gentrifying areas don’t actually get squeezed out. And I think he’s reasonably well backed up on the argument that urban areas have pretty high turnover. Added together, that still means that the 50% turnover every five years is not replaced by a mixed population but only by folks who can afford to live in an ‘up and coming’ neighborhood. So within five years, half the population is yuppified, which is why everyone can witness the whole thing so clearly.
Also, Freeman totally failed to account for awesome government policies like bulldozing public housing and handing the residents section 8 vouchers to go find their own places in the ‘free market.’ That’s where the direct displacement comes in. Not to mention burning down rent-controlled buildings rather than repair them, so the landlord can just get rid of the tenants and sell to developers. (Okay, I don’t think anyone proved the landlord started the fire, but it was never disproved either.)
http://dc.indymedia.org/newswire/display/142684/index.php
I mostly think of gentrification as a class dynamic, albeit with some obvious racial overtones (http://www.racialicious.com/2008/06/06/the-trials-of-lola/).
But the ickiest racial part of it is that gentrification symbolizes white privilege and domination so directly. It basically says that white faces in a neighborhood cause rising property values and attract capital. That’s the free market for you. It loves white people. (Because it is owned and controlled by white people who love themselves.) It does, in fact, discriminate, quite a lot, and also finds it quite lucrative, no matter what some economists will tell you.
So what can we do? What can you or I as a white person do in the face of that? I’ve got no panacea, and I might also just be wrong about many things, but a few ideas are: 1. activism/lobbying/organizing around stronger housing rights for residents, and keeping developer hands out of your neighborhood. 2. Do more shopping at little mom and pop groceries or gift shops or whatever is around. Keep them in business and reach out to them. 3. Pay attention to city council elections and neighborhood associations. 4. Non-profit apartment buildings?
Posted 18 Jun 2008 at 7:06 am ¶
Slush wrote:
Eish, sorry that was really long and kind of anti-climactic too.
Posted 18 Jun 2008 at 7:07 am ¶
Joanna wrote:
Thanks for all the thoughtful comments, everyone. I’m glad that my post (which was more of a spur-of-the-moment thing to get my reactions and thoughts out there) led to a more productive discussion.
Y’all seem to have a lot of ideas, so if anyone is interested, Idealist.org is currently looking for volunteers to put together a podcast about gentrification in NYC:
http://www.idealist.org/en/volunteeropportunity/150646-6
Posted 18 Jun 2008 at 12:05 pm ¶
lunanoire wrote:
Thank you for mentioning the woman who bought a place w/ her husband. As marriage becomes an indicator of economic class, it is just another obstacle for single renters w/ fewer resources who would buy a home if they could afford to do so.
Posted 18 Jun 2008 at 12:47 pm ¶
A. wrote:
Jane, suck it up.
Anti-white? Oh really? An article about how pro-white gentrification is (At the expense of People of Color, which is EXACTLY what it is), and here comes someone talking about anti-white.
Seriously, go play someplace else if you can’t cope with racist practices getting criticism.
Posted 18 Jun 2008 at 5:36 pm ¶
Kaonashi wrote:
Not sure where Jane lives, but I’ve definitely seen the effects of gentrification first hand in Chicago with not only minorities displaced but also artists, musicians and others who unfortunately made areas seem “trendy.” Lincoln Square used to be primarily German. The ones who owned made out like bandits. The people who rented those nice 2 and three flats? Not so much.
I find it laughable that she claims “very few lower income people are being driven from their homes” when whole neighborhoods are being razed here. There are new mixed income neighborhoods being developed, but time will tell how that works.
On the flipside I’ve seen newcomers pay 3x what a property is worth in new construction that the developers knew damn good and well had mold and structure problems but chose not to tell sellers. If you’re a seller you might make out okay, but in this downsizing market maybe not so much. Neighborhoods on the “fringe” might get fucked worse of all because they are the first ones affected when there’s a downturn in real estate.
Posted 18 Jun 2008 at 7:11 pm ¶
A. wrote:
Kaonashi, I see it too. And not just gentrification in the fact that white yuppies and trust fund kids are moving into these areas. They’re shipping the people from these areas downstate. They don’t even have them live all that close to Chicago.
Posted 18 Jun 2008 at 11:29 pm ¶
Kaonashi wrote:
It’s not just Whites either. There’s a lot of well-off Blacks who are moving back to Bronzeville from the burbs because of its historical significance, closeness to the lakefront, etc (not to mention that there’s a lot of absolutely gorgeous architecture there). A while back, one of the newspaper did an article about this and…let’s just say some of the attitudes of some of the people profiled were just downright nasty. The same situation is going on in Humboldt Park as well; there’s a lot of hipsters there who can’t afford Wicker Park but there’s a lot of Puerto Rican professionals who are moving back as well.
I’m of two minds of it, especially since I’m in an area that developers have been trying for ages to get their filthy mitts into. We go to every zoning meeting regarding new housing as much as possible becasue we are fortunate enough to have an alderman who actually cares about such things and any major project has to have at least 30 percent affordability written in before they can even break ground. I’m going got be blunt here; some people leaving (gangbangers, etc) is a good thing. What’s not a good thing is when it’s people leaving who have lived here for 3 generations, worked their asses off and were great neighbors but can no longer pay their real estate taxes. And it’s REALLY not a great thing when they are replaced by people who aren’t friendly, who stay in their own little clusters and who are only interested in using a neighborhood as their playground (until they get married and have children) with no concern about the community at large.
Posted 19 Jun 2008 at 2:49 pm ¶
cristine wrote:
I’m being kicked out of my home. My family and I have only a short while before the landlords want us out. They’ve recently been fixing up the building and our apartent so we knew something like this was coming but we weren’t expecting it to happen so soon. Now we don’t know where to go besides a shelter. That’s the reality of gentrification. It isn’t a “few” at all. It’s happened to our friends and their friends. The injustice is painful for those who have to experience it, those like my family, and it’s certainly not a matter that should be taken lightly.
Posted 18 Jul 2008 at 5:52 am ¶
maria wrote:
Thank you for this, thoughtful article. I am from the gentrified lower east side. I am not at all surprised that people like Jane will try to justify her presence and say that people are not really forced out. I know so many seniors that were harassed into leaving their home by young speculators buying up old buildings and forcing tenants out. One landlord took a tenant I know to court 8 times in one year in the end she broke down and moved unable to deal with the anxiety of not knowing if she would become homeless, where is she now? doubled up with family without a place of her own that she had for over 40 years.
Unlike other young wealthy people who have moved into our neighborhoods, you actually seem concerned about who you are displacing. That is completely missing from most who move in and speculate how long it will take them to move poor people out. Maybe if more people were human and cared about others they would be more thoughtful in their actions, would it change things? I think so.
Posted 12 Aug 2008 at 10:55 am ¶