Gentrification has Nothing to Do with White Hipsters

by Guest Contributor M. Dot, originally published at Model Minority

Last year, it took me roughly six weeks to earn $5,800. This is significant because during the late eighties and early nineties my mother received public assistance, subsequently she and I lived off of $5,800 for an entire year.

Yes, $5,800 per year.

Given these facts, last year, I thought a lot about the ways in which I could personally serve as a gentrifying factor in my hometown of Oakland, California. Often times, in popular media, there is very little talk of gentrification, or if there is, it is discussed in vague terms, such as”those hipsters are moving in” or “those white people are moving in” or “this area is becoming nicer.”

Gentrification has very little to do with white hipsters moving into the ‘hood and everything to do with process of people who earn higher incomes moving into neighborhoods where folks reside who are earning comparatively lower incomes.

If I am a Black women, in Bed-stuy, East Oakland or the South Side of Chicago, and I earn $60K per year and I am willing to
pay $1000 for an apartment that everyone else, who earns between $10-15K/year, pays $500 per month, then I am
serving as a force of gentrification in this neighborhood. It bears being stated that I in may ways I am a gentrifying force in the same way that a white person earning $60K who moves into the same community.

What becomes pivotal is my willingness to be engaged with the community that I have moved into.

A more sustainable, honest and comprehensive conversation about gentrification would involve a discussion of the income of the gentrifiers and not just the race of the gentrifiers.

Wikipedia defines gentrification as,

…the change in an urban area associated with the movement of more affluent individuals into a lower-class area. The area experiences demographic shifts, including an increase in the median income, a reduction in household size, and often a decline in the proportion of racial minorities (if such minorities are present). More households with higher incomes result in increased real estate values with higher associated rent, home prices, and property taxes. Industrial land use can decline with redevelopment bringing more commercial and residential use. Such changes often result in transformation of the neighborhood’s character and culture.

Most of what I understand about gentrification is derived from brilliant scholar and professor at City University New York,
Neil Smith.

Professor’s Smith scholarship is meaningful because he discusses gentrification not only as it pertains to urban communities but also on a global scale. In an interview with Jens Sambale, Volker Eick of Policing Crowds, Smith writes,

Early examples of gentrification might include the Islington area of London or Greenwich Village in Manhattan but by the 1970s there were many recorded cases of gentrification in Europe, North America and Australia. In Berlin, early examples of gentrification were recorded in Schöneberg and Kreuzberg, among other neighbourhoods, but the fall of the Berlin Wall released a huge stock of housing that had undergone considerable disinvestment, leading to a widespread gentrification of Prenzlauer Berg and Mitte.

Professor Smith’s general premise is that gentrification is a natural feature of capitalism. If the goal capitalism is both the endless accumulation of capital and the extraction of all possible profit from a piece of property, then it makes sense that once a neighborhood becomes more desirable it will then be sold to the highest bidder.

Smith goes on to explain the nuances of gentrification when he writes,

Gentrification occurs in urban areas where prior disinvestment in the urban infrastructure creates urban neighborhoods that can be profitably redeveloped. In its earliest form, gentrification affected decaying working class neighbourhoods close to urban centers where middle and upper middle class people colonized or re-colonized the area, leading to the displacement and eviction of existing residents. The central mechanism behind gentrification can be thought of as a ‘rent gap’. When neighborhoods experience disinvestment, the ground rent that can be extracted from the area declines meaning lower land prices. As this disinvestment continues, the gap between the actual ground rent in the area and the ground rent that could be extracted were the area to undergo reinvestment becomes wide enough to allow that reinvestment to take place. This rent gap may arise largely through the operation of markets, most notably in the United States, but state policies can also be central in encouraging disinvestment and reinvestment associated with gentrification. But only wealthier people are able to afford the costs of this renewed investment. Integral with these economic shifts are social and cultural shifts that change the kinds of shops, facilities and public spaces in a neighbourhood.

After reading this, I thought word? Gentrification in West Oakland and East Germany? Rent Gaps? All of this brought me back to San Francisco and the film Medicine for Melancholy.

The process of gentrification and the impact that it is having on African Americans is a central aspect of the film Medicine of Melancholy. In some ways, Jo, one of the main character’s in the movie, has a sense of entitlement with regard to living in San Francisco.

San Francisco is the largest urban city with the smallest Black population.

Jo’s rationale is that he shouldn’t have to be middle class to live in San Francisco. There is nothing wrong with a sense of entitlement. Entitlement compels people to act , to change the world. However, given the systematic removal of African Americans from San Francisco, I was curious about the intersection of entitlement and the history of African Americans in this city.

In the book, Black San Francisco, Albert Broussard describes how San Francisco has always resisted the presence of African Americans, how historically San Francisco has upheld racist policies towards African Americans.

By an large, African Americans came to the Bay Area during WWII to work in the shipping yards and other war time jobs, however they found that after the war, the game changed. Broussard writes,

The question of whether blacks were qualified was not an issue, but whether or not private business and industry would break long-standing precedent and integrate their work forces in the absence of statutory pressure or coercion from the local, state, or federal government. Fearing low employee morale and adverse public opinion, many companies were reluctant to integrate. Others were satisfied to hire black workers only for menial labor.

According to Broussard, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors knew that the businesses were practicing open and aggressive employment discrimination. Civil Rights leaders sought to implement a local Fair Employment Practices ordinance in 1950. This ordinance was met with resistance on both the state and the local level from the California State Assembly and the agricultural lobby.

There were an intense effort to ensure that there was legal recourse for African Americans who were discriminated against by employers.

Broussard describes,

…there were attempts in 1945, 1946, 1949 to create a commission whose most controversial feature was its “broad sweeping power over employment discrimination, including the authority to receive, investigate, act in, and render decisions” on complaints that alleged discrimination in employment.

This was an incredible amount of power, to say the least, and it wasn’t going to be obtained without a protracted fight.

There was also open and aggressive housing discrimination in San Francisco. Broussard writes,

Seaton Manning was so distressed over his personal housing situation that he threatened to resign as executive director of the Urban League and return to Boston. “After two full years,” Manning wrote Lester Granger, ” we have been unable to find a house or apartment in San Francisco. The housing shortage is acute …Anything good is restricted.

Black leaders thought that the housing shortage could be addressed with a permanent low income housing unit. They soon learned differently. Broussard describes how the San Francisco Housing Authority allowed African Americans to live in only one of six newly constructed housing projects. He writes,

The housing authority adopted a resolution in 1942 by unanimous vote which stated…..In the selection of tenants for this project, this Authority shall act with references to the established usages, customs and traditions of the community.” Nor would the Housing Authority “insofar as possible enforce the commingling of races, but shall insofar possible maintain and preserve the same racial composition which exists in the neighborhood where a project is located.

No commingling of races in “liberal” San Francisco? Who knew?

The state of 2009 Black San Francisco can only be examined in the context of its history. Given the discrimination that African
Americans faced historically, the fact that San Francisco’s African American population grew from 43,460 in 1940, to 55,000 in 1951, and the restrictive covenants that kept working class, middle class and prominent African Americans from moving out the ‘hood, the fact that African Americans are leaving San Francisco in droves isn’t that surprising.

At the end of the day, when we look at shifting demographics, it is important for us to turn to history and to what is going on in the world at large in order to understand how our economic system and legal policies affect our lives.

If we do this, I think we will be on the road to having a meaningful conversation about the sustainability of our communities.

Want more?

Tania Ketenjian conducted an interview with Medicine for Melancholy director Barry Jenkins. Tom Wetzel’s essay, What is Gentrification? is informative.

Experience any gentrification lately?
Can you afford to buy a house in the neighborhood where you grew up?
Why do people hate hipsters?
Was this post informative? Is there anything you wish I would have discussed?

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Trackbacks & Pings

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[...] Gentrification: it’s about more than just white hipsters. [...]
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[...] from ModelMinority has great piece on gentrification, that partialy inspired this post read it here…when i first moved to Anacostia, i tried to convince myself that i was otherwise, but i had a [...]
A white resident’s dilemma: gentrification or segregation? « Belonging Community: Being at home in an urban neighbourhood on 08 May 2009 at 1:21 am

[...] CUNY Professor Neil Smith provides some insight into the dynamics of these shifts (See the blog Racialicious for more). The forces underlying these moves and improvements to the the neighbourhood are economic [...]
More Notes on Gentrification at Racialicious - the intersection of race and pop culture on 12 May 2009 at 8:00 am

[...] covered gentrification quite a bit on Racialicious, but we haven’t really spent time discussing the [...]

Comments

elle the elephant wrote:

Woah, this article was great and informative. You never really read about gentrification anywhere except when its to talk about hipsters and is usually derided, I admit I don’t know much about gentrification and thanks for clueing me in.

Posted 24 Apr 2009 at 10:52 am ¶
Blu2 True wrote:

I’m guilty of hating the hipsters . . . I’ll admit it. . . . I’m in Bushwick, Brooklyn NY and nowadays when I tell ppl that they have visions of lofts and art shows in thier minds meanwhile I’ve been there since the crack habits and drug shoot-outs/arsons. . .

I appreciate and understand the points being made. . . . no I can not afford a house, a condo or hell even full rent in the neighborhood I grew up in and it’s heartbreaking. . . . everyone who has lived there has to move out to survive and all these ambercrombie hybrid folks with license plates from minnesota are moving in. . . . OK OK that’s me hating the hipsters again. . . sigh. . . it’s not a race thing. . . it’s an income thing but the visual change in the neighborhood is easier to note than the billfolds in the pockets. . . even the corner bodegas are changing up what they sell to accomodate. . . well. . . goodbye Bushwick :-/

Posted 24 Apr 2009 at 11:08 am ¶
atlasien wrote:

What I see in my own neighborhood is a kind of generational gentrification. White flight really affected the eastern metro Atlanta area, but a lot of older white households stayed put. Then middle-class African-American families began moving into the neighborhoods from the North and West. In these subdivisions, when I walk around, maybe one house in three or four will have a white resident, and they all appear to be over 60.

The problem with this demographic shift is that while the income level is staying the same, our neighborhood has less statewide political power, and I think that’s because of the racial shift. So issues like poor public schools and crime prevention are not given as much attention and resources as in predominantly white neighborhoods.

In other neighborhoods there is sometimes tension between older African-American residents and newer ones. Newer arrivals tend to be solidly middle-class, have real estate that they sold in the North or West for a lot of money in the last decade, and moved to Atlanta to take advantage of a good job market (well at least until last year) and cheaper cost of living. Lower-income residents who were born and raised inside the perimeter of Atlanta sometimes see them as a gentrifying force… I think the term “Grady baby” (born in the public hospital) was coined to differentiate native Atlantans from newcomers.

In yet other neighborhoods, like Kirkwood or East Atlanta, there’s more classic gentrification going on (white “hipsters” pushing out black families). And in another neighborhood, Clarkston, white working-class families are getting crowded after it became a major refugee resettlement hub populated with African, Eastern European and Southeast Asian immigrant families. But that’s more of a lateral or downward economic move.

Basically, if you live in Atlanta and stay put for 20 years, you’re almost guaranteed to see some kind of radical demographic shift in your neighborhood.

One issue that I don’t see addressed a lot in gentrification debates is multigenerational living. I’ve visited San Francisco a few times, and I was a bit creeped out to notice that there were very few children anywhere, and all the really old people seemed to be homeless. It was a city too full of young people. I think healthy and stable communities should have spaces for everyone. Elderly people living on fixed incomes should not have to be forced out of neighborhoods as real estate taxes rise… children should have spaces as well. Generational segregation contributes to the breakdown of the extended family and increases the isolation and fragility of families. It’s an unstated assumotion in many cases that when you get married and have kids you’re supposed to move to a neighborhood geared towards young families with kids. When your kids get older you’re supposed to move to a different kind of neighborhood, and the same when you retire.

Posted 24 Apr 2009 at 11:19 am ¶
ghettoManga wrote:

well, i appreciated the information, but i’m not sure i got the point.

Posted 24 Apr 2009 at 11:32 am ¶
Whit wrote:

I used to live in a smaller, poorer city just east of Ann Arbor, MI, where the university of michigan is located. For the record, I didn’t grow up in Ypsilanti, just lived there while going to school and decided to stay. The average rent has steadily increased, to the point that I had to move out of the greater Ypsilanti-Ann Arbor area to find affordable rent. This is undoubtedly a byproduct of two public colleges in such a small area, with the new waves of students driving up rent prices.

Posted 24 Apr 2009 at 11:35 am ¶
inkst wrote:

Just want to say that I also very much appreciate all of the different aspects of gentrification that this post touches on. I currently live in a smallish, rust-belt town that is undergoing a slow and steady gentrification process that has been temporarily stalled by the poor housing market.

Personally, one of the most interesting things about gentrification for me is the fact that dominant white, middle/upper-middle class culture often dictates (both officially through policies and unofficially through business and community resource patronage) what constitutes a “better neighborhood.” I feel like between my work and personal life, I am often towing the line between that dominant culture (often conveniently labeled as hipster) and the underprivileged and disenfranchised young people of color that my agency serves.

When we talk about gentrification, I think that segregation is its equally troublesome twin and is not usually discussed openly (except in these exceptional places like Racialicious) but is, in my experience a big part of the issue, at least in the USA. Where I live, for instance, there is certainly a poor white population, but the most “visible” poor population are people of color, and primarily African-Americans.

The mainly white people who are investing their time and money into this town in order to make it a safer, more stable, and attractive community dominate any dialogues, meetings, or initiatives. They even ultimately define what “safe, stable, and attractive” even means.

So on one side you have people fighting for urban chickens, community gardens, local eateries, and acoustic guitars, while on the other, you have people who are more concerned about whether or not they will have to move again, or being harassed by the police or suffering from physical violence at home. Most of the young people of color I work with are not at a place in their lives where they have the time or energy to care whether or not the empty lot is bought by McDonald’s or a locally owned coffee shop.

For me, this disparity, which I am sure is a familiar story for many of you, is what ends up driving the racist aspect of gentrification. The cards are held by those with the privilege to be able to play them, and efforts to include poor people, and especially poor people of color are often at best patronizing and condescending, and at worst, blatantly bigoted and ethnocentric.

For anyone who recognizes the inherent injustice in the gentrification process, white hipsters are an easy scapegoat, but I think that this post does a very nice job of contextualizing the process.

I am also very personally interested in what other readers’ experiences have been or are with gentrification.

Posted 24 Apr 2009 at 12:27 pm ¶
wendi muse wrote:

thank you!!!!!!!! white hipsters often come before the super wealthy people come, but they are not a catalyst for their entry. i think it’s unfair to throw all the blame on the folks who like skinny jeans, or to call them all stupid, etc…when in actually, they are just trying to get a cheap apartment like the rest of us. sure, they are predominately white. does that mean they don’t have the right to live in affordable housing?!

Posted 24 Apr 2009 at 12:28 pm ¶
in a land w/o sea wrote:

i grew up in the richmond district of san francisco (26 ave/clement + california), in an “irishman’s special” — faux, de-ornamented victorians that sprung up like weeds in the western part of the city in the early 198os. my family paid something like $875 monthly rent in 1990 for a modest, 2br apartment. i left san francisco in 1991 to chase some guy across the country, got married to someone else and came back to the city in 1998. my husband and i tried to find an affordable apartment in the richmond that would allow dogs, but we were totally priced out. apartments similar to my parents’ old place were renting for $1600+, almost twice what they paid for rent 8 years earlier.
eventually, we rented a house in san leandro, near the oakland border, for $1390 a month, where we lived for 10 years. our rent represented just over one-third of our net earnings. at the height of the real estate boom, houses around the block were selling for $500,000! imagine, half a million dollars for a modest bungalow in the flatlands!
i understand your point about contributing to the problem by assenting to pay high rents in areas where many working folks live. however, in a place like the bay area, one’s choices are so limited. my husband and i looked great on paper; in another area with a lower cost of living, we might have even been considered well off. but we got by just okay in the bay area. we made too much money to qualify for affordable housing, and not enough money by a long shot to save up for a down payment for even a modest home. being a city girl, san leandro was about as far away as i cared to be from sf and oakland, so we didn’t even consider moving farther out, like to tracy or fairfield, though we knew many who did. our landlord, for example, commuted daily from stockton to palo alto.
we’ve moved 1600 miles away, where we bought a lovely mid-century ranch with a huge yard across the street from a golf course. i love my house but i would trade it in a minute for a smaller house in the dimond district or temescal.
i love the bay area. i love san francisco and oakland. as an immigrant these are the closest places i can call home. but i’m never going to be rich enough to afford a house there unless some deep structure change takes place, and if such a thing came to pass, i worry about the suffering it will visit on those with the least resources. i wonder if i’ll ever come home again to stay.
at least we had the option to leave; we are well aware that others have no choice but to stay where they are and hope that the rent doesn’t go up or that the building doesn’t go condo or TIC or that the owner doesn’t decide to move in.

Posted 24 Apr 2009 at 12:51 pm ¶
queerhapa wrote:

Excellent article. Also check out this interview with Danny Hoch, who created a one-man show about gentrification called “Taking Over,” and who also describes it as colonialism, and more of a class issue than a racial one: http://www.wiretapmag.org/stories/43902/

Posted 24 Apr 2009 at 1:01 pm ¶
embarcadero113 wrote:

Preach! Bay Area Black woman here. Our story is seldom, if ever, told and I wanted to thank you for the article.

Problem is, I live in a decidedly ungentrified barrio of SF. I live with homeowners and rich folks. I pay WAY too much rent as is, but feel a perverse pride in being one of the only Black people in my building. I guess its reverse gentrification– I don’t feel like I should have to move to Oakland in order to be around people who look like me, and its time these rich folks see me living next door. However, I NEED to find a thriving Black community in this town. I’m sick of integrating the lunch counter alone.

At the same time, I admit to my disdain of (nonBlack) hipsters who have completely changed the Mission and the Fillmore. It’s cultural commodification at its worst– people who want to sample the “exotic” part of a demographic without truly miring themselves in its “muck.”

An example is the herd-mentality that drives hipsters to The Front Porch, Farmer Browns (”neo-soul” restaurants that are more “neo” than any type of soul), and excellent Mission taquerias, yet have no interest in addressing challenges found in that same community. Another prime example is the (white) tattooed male hipster who told me that he “knows what its like to be discriminated against based on skin color” because people treat him “differently” due to his tatts. Get it? Cuz tatts change your skin color… True story.

Does this same guy join in protests against oppressive immigration practices? Does he boycott establishments known for racist behavior? Does he mentor or volunteer with youth of color? Hell, does he even care about the shrinking Black population or the treatment of POC in this city? Not really. It’s enough that he traveled to India once and now does yoga before eating barbeque and grits… and proudly tells me about it… because I’m the only Black person in the room.

Posted 24 Apr 2009 at 1:15 pm ¶
RJG wrote:

Great article. I absolutely agree that the major problem I have with gentrification isn’t that an area changes, but that it changes at the expense of the people who already live there. If those who already lived there were taken along for the ride and not displaced, I would see the improvements that gentrification causes as an overall good thing.

Experience any gentrification lately?

I actually feel that Brooklyn might de-gentrify a bit now, because of the economic collapse. People aren’t pushing forward making more and more eyesore condos and there’s less of a drive to kick current tenants out with the hopes of shooting rent up for more financially well-off people.

I don’t know any numbers that support this, though. I’ve just seen less land being broken and more condos still on sale like they were in the last few months. A year or two ago and those would have been grabbed in no time.

Can you afford to buy a house in the neighborhood where you grew up?

I’ll swap out “house” for “apartment” because my wife and I really don’t want that big of a place for ourselves (plus we like the idea of having a super who can take good care of us).

Income-wise, we could probably support a nice place in our area (The Windsor Terrance/Kensington area of Brooklyn), but since we’re young we probably don’t have enough money saved to make a down payment. I have been checking out craigslist out of idle curiosity lately, though, and it is nice to see 1-2 br apartments in our area starting to go for only [?] 200-300k as opposed to 400-600k. A lot of the major apartment buildings in our area were made during the 60s/70s, so those are the low-priced ones, but all the new buildings are still trying to grab half a mil or more.

Why do people hate hipsters?

Beyond hipster racism? I think I dislike hipsters in the gentrification scope mainly because they, in a generality, don’t embrace the community they move into. I see lots of hipsters in the Bed-stuy/Bushwick/etc areas move there for their “living poor” cred, but at the same time distancing themselves from those who already live there and instead making their own enclaves in the form of coffee shops, art communes, etc etc etc.

It’s like someone moves in with their grandma because the idea sounds fun and all their friends are doing it, but then complains about how grandma puts plastic on the furniture, has too many cats, and in the end tries to just take the apartment from her so they can do what they would want to do with the “wicked awesome” space.

In the end, I think the major reason people dislike hipster-driven gentrification versus “just some really rich folks wanting to do stuff” gentrification is because hipster-driven gentrification is less blatantly “yeah we’re here to fuck you over” and there’s a general level of community appropriation that takes place as they tend to do their own little gentrification things.

You don’t see “wealthy dude X” deciding to turn the local corner bodega into an ironic-for-the-community bar where they can have “angry white rapper” night. Sure, in the end both cause displacement and the loss of a local business, but at least the non-ironic-bar place doesn’t have jokey/ironic racism, classism, and other general insults toward the community associated with it. The wealthy-dude-X place is “just” capitalism sucking ass.

Was this post informative? Is there anything you wish I would have discussed?

I’m wondering if there are any communities where progress/improvements/gentrification was made that didn’t displace or marginalize the original community. Are there particular areas-of-note that were heavy on new buildings going up, new stores opening, etc which now include a new mid/higher-income community while still keeping the original low/mid-income community strong?

Posted 24 Apr 2009 at 1:26 pm ¶
CrzyCatDC wrote:

The issue of “white hipsters” is as much a cultural one as a racial one. Just as the issue of gentrication involves cultural factors–mainly the displacement of the culture of the community. For example, here in DC, a largely working and lower class black and hispanic community with a vibrant culture has been replaced by a largely middle to upper middle class suburban community. I can’t say that it’s primarily whites, I think it’s been mixed, but I don’t know the statistics. I’m happy about the new changes brought to the community. It’s created jobs and brought many new stories and restaurants to the area. The boost has also helped out much needed orgs like the Whitman Walker Clinic, which provides HIV prevention and care services.

But many new residents don’t bother learning about DC’s culture. In fact, I get this comment a lot: “Wow, you’re from DC. You’re a rare breed. Most people in this city are from somewhere else.” COMPLETELY UNTRUE. Most people in this city are from this city. The people who clean these new high rises and condos are probably from this city. There is a complete disconnect between the new and the old that is startling. Where do those who are pushed out go? What happens to the community’s character?

To give you an idea of the type of small cultural shifts happening, here’s an example:

In DC, people always speak to each other and know the people in the neighborhood, especially the neighbors on their block. But there is an understanding that there is some distance between your business and your neighbor’s affairs. A few weeks ago, a white male, new to the neigborhood who had moved in with a bunch of others in a house in DC, walked over to his neighbor’s house across the street (a black family). The police were at that house to mediate a dispute between the tenant and landlord (nothing violent, just a misunderstanding about tenant rights). The white male walked onto their property and asked the police (who were in the middle of working) to explain to him what was going on and then asked them to come over to his house and explain to his roommates and friends what was happening. Of course, the police didn’t go and told him to go back to his own home.

Posted 24 Apr 2009 at 1:32 pm ¶
Renee wrote:

What a wonderful piece. Yes when I think of gentrification I think of it as whiteness as invading a neighborhood that has been primarily an area for bodies of color. You are quite right to point out the role that class plays in who can reside in what areas. Regardless of whether or a person is of color or not their ability to change the understanding of a neighborhood still changes because of their ability to pay more for good and services. Businesses in the community will not only reflect the race of the residents but the class designation. Often class so ignored in our conversations because we have come to falsely believe that we live in a classless society.

Posted 24 Apr 2009 at 1:41 pm ¶
Holly wrote:

I would like to see more conversation about the alternatives to gentrification. How can we create and maintain quality and affordable housing for people of all incomes?

Posted 24 Apr 2009 at 1:42 pm ¶
Slush wrote:

I see two arguments here: 1. Gentrification is not about race; and 2. Gentrification is all about race.

I think both of those are true, but differently. I agree that POC are just as capable of causing and contributing to gentrification as white people, by operating with many of the same passive mechanisms – mainly wanting to live in the environment/neighborhood that appeals and being able to afford higher rents.

But not only is there a really different history of home ownership and rental between whites and blacks in the US, I think there are pretty different results of gentrification by predominately white versus predominately black residents.

My own unsubstantiated theory is that one difference between black and white gentrification is actually in appraisal values. Appraisal values relate to who lives around as well as the qualities of an individual property, and given the premium on whiteness in America I think that literally the color of people on the street affects real estate appraisals.

I don’t really have proof of this, it just seems circumstantial. But it makes me cautious in my own decisions about where to live and move, thinking about not only how the neighborhood will affect me but how I will affect the neighborhood.

Posted 24 Apr 2009 at 1:55 pm ¶
cb3n wrote:

I think your point on class and gentrification is well observed and important, but I worry that an over-reliance on income as a way to describe neighborhood dynamics can be misleading.

Clearly race plays a part in the process of gentrification beyond and besides class exactly because of the types of institutional discrimination described in the second half of your post and that deserves to be included in any discussion of the phenomenon. For example, there is a historical precedent for race itself to have an impact on property values with the white dominated housing industry tending to devalue property in neighborhoods inhabited by non-white residents and encourage prospective white renters and homeowners to take the same view.

In addition and tied to this, there is the social aspect of shifting racial make-ups, IE the perceived levels of safety on the part of white (wealthy or not) prospective residents being related to the presence of white people already living in the community. I think this is also somewhat dependent on dress and lifestyle, which goes part way towards answering the “why does everyone hate hipsters?” question, but race is certainly a factor as well. When a white male moves into a neighborhood he inherently makes it seem like a safer place to live to other white residents who may be looking at apartments in the area and see him walk down the street. This happens to some extent regardless of his personal politics, whether or not he has a desire to be an active part of the community already existing in the neighborhood, style of dress or even personal income and class and has more to do with cultural stereotypes of race, violence and safety.

So by being white and living in a neighborhood a person can inherently help to increase or maintain property values and attract other white residents who will do the same, regardless of how much he/she/ze is personally paying for rent.

That said, class clearly plays a role as well and it is entirely possible for gentrification based on class to happen regardless of race and that’s important to include in the conversation as well. Most discussions of gentrification revolve solely around race and that’s probably not the best way to frame the topic either. But that doesn’t mean that a white recent college grad who works at a coffee shop or in a warehouse and who isn’t making much money and can’t afford to pay more for rent than the people around him/her/hir d0esn’t contribute to gentrification when they move to a working class black neighborhood.

I guess I just take slight issue with the statement that “Gentrification has NOTHING to do with white hipsters.”

Posted 24 Apr 2009 at 2:46 pm ¶
Jon wrote:

It’s true that gentrification doesn’t always correlate with race. For example, in Boston gentrification is taking place in both black and white neighborhoods. For example, the two most thoroughly gentrified neighborhoods are the white north end and the black south end, followed by white charlestown. White south boston and black mission hill are also seeing some significant gentrification. It’s possible that more whites have been displaced in Boston than blacks!

So gentrification most often correlates with race, but it’s important to say that isn’t always true.

Posted 24 Apr 2009 at 3:02 pm ¶
melanie wrote:

i appreciate you parsing out the separation between income on the one hand and race and culture on the other in the gentrification debate.

but what gets lost in framing this ONLY as a money issue is that crucial question of HOW we participate in the communities that we move into. i lived in brooklyn on a block that was 90% dominican, and there was just a huge gap in culture : me being middle class and my parents having paid a lot of money for my education and living across from a high school with barbed wire around it like a prison, me being vegan and the local street barbeques, my gender-queerness and latino concepts of gender, flirtation, sexuality; among many other things. there is an enduring power to how we are socialized — to look walk talk dream speak what we reference what we find funny.

and so its not just about money. its about me moving to a neighborhood and wanting to participate and build a sustainable, diverse community but not knowing HOW because im socialized so deeply through my whiteness and have such a shameful and difficult time trying to overcome it and learn intercultural competency (which i certainly never learned in any school).

and its about communities getting smashed up because white folks move in. maybe if we didn’t live in a racist world, dominican people wouldn’t feel the need to have to live on blocks where other dominicans live. (i dont know if people there felt coerced to do this, im just making an assumption here). maybe they would feel safe in any neighborhood, and feel able to relate to lots of different people without fear of people tokenizing them, making inappropriate comments, hurting them, etc. but insofar as we DO live in a racist world, im not exactly going to advocate, as a white person, — its totally fine to move into racially/culturally non-white neighborhood communities …

this gets to a debate ive often had about cultural appropriation and exchange. that we can and should share culture with one another — food, music, ideas, material goods — but that we have to be so careful about how white culture so easily buys, owns, masters, and manipulates the culture of people of color. im not sure the answer is just to ‘back off’ , retreat to white only enclaves to do our dominant-group-therapy-sessions, and advocate anything that could look like segregation. but how can we be more delicate/conscious/solidarity-ous about forcibly integrating a neighborhood? im living in brooklyn cuz im poor too… but im also white, and that is a commodity in this world. my ‘income’ in this way will always be higher because of my skin color.

i live in berlin now and can say that race and culture are not big parts of the debate here in kreuzberg, which prof. smith’s excerpt mentions. it often gets framed as the corporate/rich big guy vs. the little guy (including turkish folks, the only large minority in this very white city, and leftist and punks, many of whom are poor by choice). but no one seems to be discussing that we as white people might have moved in and displaced poorer people, and turkish people, earlier. and now we are being displaced. so we are both participants in and victims of this gentrification process.
i was ‘gentrified’ out of an apartment in williamsburg, brooklyn, so that richer hipsters could move in. so again, how do i deal with this weird place. however, luckily, the fact that everyone in a neighborhood is going through this together can be a point of solidarity, a place from which to begin working together, organizing, and finding common ground. if we are willing to recognize that we too may have gentrified someone to gain our place in the neighborhood in teh first place.

Posted 24 Apr 2009 at 3:12 pm ¶
melanie wrote:

p.s. it does have something to do with hipsters, insofaras, as someone wrote in a uk zine called ‘race revolt’ — hipster artists are usually poor but they need rich people around to sell their art/handicrafts/homemade soap/etc. to… so its kind of in hipster artists’ best interest to invite rich people in. but like everyone else who thinks rich people coming in means bucks for everyone, the hipsters too will be gentrified out of town…

Posted 24 Apr 2009 at 3:16 pm ¶
Celeste wrote:

I have not personally experienced gentrification.
Unfortunately I can very much afford to buy a house in the Flint, MI neighborhood I grew up in that now seems to have a problem with home invasions. My step-dad bought a foreclosed house for 6k. Can you even get a Kia for that price?
People hate hipsters because they can give off the vibe that they don’t like or respect thier neighbors and wish that they would just more somewhere else already.
I thought the post was very informative. One thing I’d like to hear discussed is gentrification in different settings. There’s a lot of difference between a nice working class neighborhood with low crime and well-maintained modest homes and an absolutely blighted neighborhood that you don’t stop at the stop signs when you’re driving through.

Posted 24 Apr 2009 at 3:17 pm ¶
Jae Ran wrote:

Thank you for this article, it was really informative and reframed how I have thought about (and been taught about) gentrification.

Posted 24 Apr 2009 at 3:23 pm ¶
Asada wrote:

This is very difficult.
Please correct me If I am wrong:

I grew up reading about black families ( where women made the most money) lived in poor neighbor hoods, “perpetrating the underclass” because they had partners who did not make as much as they did, so they could not afford to live in a better area. Married Adults that do not contribute financially eventually become de-facto dependents on the woman, in addition to any other children they may have. I suppose,back then the couple were willing to pay the same rent as anyone else and didn’t put to much pressure to change things?
Until now, when may single blacks ( male or female) who have gotten an education and better jobs, demand to live in better areas, usually around other blacks. So they will pay more and expect the environment to change?

Can someone help with this?

Thank you for the article.
__________________________________

Experience any gentrification lately?

Yes and No. I live in an inner city so I have not seen it around here, there are Still local family owned stores and lots of underdevelopment ( cracked sidewalks , trash on the ground, violence , abandoned buildings) . However, when I take the city bus to the down town area there are some efforts to “clean it up”. I can literally walk across one of the blocks and see a totally different landscape.

Why do people hate hipsters?
From what I have read, they dont seem to understand how the world works. A true hipster comes from an upper middle class family.

Was this post informative? Is there anything you wish I would have discussed?
Very informative. That you discussed the issue for African Americans, but also branched out globally is significant. This isn’t simply a poor blacks issue.

I wish you would have covered the issue on “walls” ppl / governments are putting up ( like boarder patrols ) to stop ppl from moving round. However, I understand one article cannot DO everything!

Posted 24 Apr 2009 at 3:48 pm ¶
Eva wrote:

Very interesting.

I live in Harlem, I’ve always lived there. In the 1970’s many people moved out of Harlem, to Queens and Long Island. In the 70’s when I told people I lived in Harlem, (I’m talking about black people), they’d stare at me, “You live in the ghetto,” they’d say.

So I stayed. I got a job, I got my own place; where I work is near where I live. In the 80’s friends who were in real estate told me I was smart to stay in Harlem.

Now many of the people who moved out in the 70’s want to move back in but they can’t afford it now.

Sometimes gentrification is natural. People move into a neighborhood, raise their kids there; then their kids want to live elsewhere. Maybe the parents stay, maybe they don’t. But the houses sell to other people.

When I went to see a condo in Harlem, it was 700k, but that was before the recession. I went to see another apartment, a rental, they had to come down in price, and still no takers. Some of the condos are rentals as well.

Posted 24 Apr 2009 at 3:56 pm ¶
Melissa wrote:

Interesting articles. Honestly, I hate the phrase “gentrification” because it seems to imply something was wrong with the area beforehand. Affordable housing should be available to all.

Posted 24 Apr 2009 at 5:23 pm ¶
David Cone wrote:

As a black man who was born and raised in a city (Washington, DC) that is gentrifying, I have mixed emotions about the phenomenon of the “condoficiation” of Washington.

I recognize the need for new housing stock. I recognize that there is a need for safer neighborhoods. What I don’t understand is why, all of a sudden, when a certain demographic moves to a formerly rough neighborhood (Shaw, Eckington, Columbia Heights, to name a few), policing, street lights, and Chipotle/Baja Fresh/Starbucks/Panera Bread all come arunnin’.

Please don’t label me bitter. I’ve been the black interloper (”college boy”) renting in a black neighborhood where I don’t “fit in.” My main issue with the removal of the “bad element” in a community to make it all pretty and cute, there’s not a SURGICAL effort to do so. There are thousands of elderly people and small families that heldover in these gentrifying neighborhoods while, to a degree, city officials and law enforcement ignored their responsibility to make life in those places livable. Some didn’t have the money to move. Some wanted to keep their homes. And when a new demographic (racial or social) move in, I can understand the friction that results. The folks that are being economically forced out have a legit beef, renters or owners.

I think the problem with gentrifying a neighborhood is while the new folks ooh and aaah over the loft condos and brownstone shells or the subway nearby or the Restoration Hardward up the street is that the potential loss of affordable housing for the faceless nameless holdovers that made that old neighborhood viable for decades is something that should be treated as a well-heeled person flipping a nickel to a pauper on their way up the steps to their brownstone.

To a degree, the loss of the nameless faceless holdovers IS the loss of the old neighborhood. You’re left with something that’s a neighborhood in name only. I don’t know if that’s good or bad, that remains to be seen.

Posted 24 Apr 2009 at 6:15 pm ¶
Ada wrote:

This was very informative and well-written. Thanks.

Posted 24 Apr 2009 at 11:08 pm ¶
Claudia Leung wrote:

A more sustainable, honest and comprehensive conversation about gentrification would involve a discussion of the income of the gentrifiers and not just the race of the gentrifiers.

Totally, although race is still salient. I attended a talk last week in Minnesota where activist Sushma Seth from the Miami Workers Center talked about resisting displacement in the face of gentrification, and a panel of local NGO leaders responded. A comment was made during the meeting (I can’t remember who said it) that fighting displacement and gentrification around more ‘visible’ axes like race and income is self-defeating. It makes gentrification into a ‘poor people’ issue, or a ‘people of color’ issue, and we all know what a great track record this country has in dealing with those. Additionally, and even more importantly, it oversimplifies gentrification and its ill effects.

Gentrification isn’t bad because white people are moving into a black neighborhood. It’s problematic because the rising cost of living displaces people, and that destroys culture, relationships, social capital. Even if all the people who are displaced are moved into new, affordable housing, even if the jobs that are lost are replaced, these less tangible, measurable effects of displacement persist. Race and income of the people involved are, at best, proxies for the actual communities affected by displacement.

Posted 25 Apr 2009 at 12:11 am ¶
Kat wrote:

>Experience any gentrification lately?

In the sense that I feel unable to keep up with my own city, yes. I also live in SF, born and raised here. I’m a graduate student, but going into a profession in which, in the Bay Area, I will max out my income around the median, and will never be able to afford to buy property like my parents did.

>Can you afford to buy a house in the neighborhood where you grew up?

Nope. My parents would not be able to afford to buy their house today either.

>Why do people hate hipsters?

I think for me it’s just an old culture/new culture thing. CrzyCatDC has this great quote about DC: “But many new residents don’t bother learning about DC’s culture. In fact, I get this comment a lot: “Wow, you’re from DC. You’re a rare breed. Most people in this city are from somewhere else.” COMPLETELY UNTRUE. Most people in this city are from this city. The people who clean these new high rises and condos are probably from this city. There is a complete disconnect between the new and the old that is startling.” which I think applies to SF as well. I’m white and in my mid-20s, so people tend to assume I’m not a local. The accepted default for San Franciscans seems to be, no one is really born here. There are no children in the city. People move out of the city to have families because they can’t afford to buy a house here. Because that is true now (of lots of white people, who are profiled in newspaper stories), it has always been true and applies to all demographics equally. So I guess my kneejerk reaction to hipsters is–these people are a different culture than my own, as people who were predominantly not born here and had a reason for moving to the city (often a preconception of what it should be like). And because I am so sick of being thought of as a rare specimen, someone who is staying in the city because of family ties and history and community…when this is true of thousands and thousands of people across the city, many of whom are apparently invisible to the hipsters I know. That a large number of my high school classmates are back in the city can’t be a complete fluke. When people express surprise that I am living in my hometown, have they spoken with many of the people in their own neighborhoods?

(Sorry to get all rambly…this issue has been weighing on me all week. I’ve had jury duty, which is a fairly random sampling of adults registered to vote in the city, and my long-held suspicions about how many fellow born-and-raised SFans there actually are was anecdotally confirmed by the interviews.)

Posted 25 Apr 2009 at 3:38 am ¶
Tony Figueroa wrote:

This was an excellent piece of work. To answer your questions: Yes, I live in a working class city in RI which is experiencing a slow but steady gentrification. I couldn’t afford to buy a house in my hometown of Brooklyn, NY. I don’t hate “hipsters”, what I hate is when so called Liberals turn out to be condescending racists who then price you out of your own neighborhood. Awesome post, it would be worth discussing how this affects our children. Again , thank you for this post.

Posted 25 Apr 2009 at 9:17 am ¶
drydock wrote:

This post is a lot better then usual discussion around “gentrification”. In the bay area housing costs are serious problem for poor and working class people of all races. Describing this problem as “gentrification, though I am not sure is very useful. Almost all neighborhoods around the bay area (up until recently) have seen skyrocketing housing costs and it has absolutely nothing to do with white hipsters. The bay area is a lot less white then it was 20 or 30 years ago but housing costs have become some of the most expensive country. Many long time black neighborhoods are transforming as Latino and Asian immigrants (not white hipsters) move in, and also as some blacks have inched up the income ladder and moved to the suburbs.

Many of the so-called “anti-gentrification” activists are in my opinion are a problem when they oppose just about every project that might improve a neighborhood. A kind of thinking that unless it’s some sort of utopian development then we’ll oppose it. Some of the worst examples in my opinion were activists who opposed a Walgreens pharmacy in west Oakland and a grocery store in West Berkeley. Yes, a damn grocery store.

Addressing housing costs should IMO (and I think this is debatable) should be done through helping people purchase homes, rent control and perhaps through some type of non-profit housing schemes.

Posted 25 Apr 2009 at 9:44 am ¶
B wrote:

Re: hipsters, I dislike them in the sense that in my city, many of them are not employed or in school, but simply living off of their parents money. It isn’t so much their ability to pay higher rent as it is their mummy and daddy’s ability to pay the higher rent. To that end, seeing a neighborhood become expensive as a result of a leisure class that doesn’t contribute anything is upsetting. (When I think “hipster,” I don’t envision the stroller bearing folks who try to start a community garden or a food co-op. They are also of a higher economic class of the older inhabitants to a gentrifying neighborhood, but they contribute to it as well.)

It is also upsetting that much of the white hipster aesthetic seems based on feigning poverty while simultaneously mocking it, and “taking everything but the burden” in terms of their relationship to minority populations. I have friend that grew up in what is now a “hipster” neighborhood, and still lives there. His new neighbors are constantly rude and treat him like he doesn’t belong there.

Posted 25 Apr 2009 at 2:03 pm ¶
thew wrote:

what’s the definition of hipster in the context of this site?

sometimes i see “white hipster” and other times white is assumed in the word hipster. in my experience hipster is used as a catch-all “other,” when maybe there’s no other rational basis for having hatred for someone else. the qualities for a hipster seem so fluid they’ve become meaningless, but the way it’s used on this site, it seems so concrete, like there is a group of people, “hipsters” that are out there and can easily be identified.

i live in the Silverlake neighborhood of Los Angeles, in a 10 unit building where a vacant 1br apartment is renting for $1,400 and the woman who’s lived here the longest (30 some years) is paying $400-ish. i’ve snuck in comfortably in between the two. Sometimes my neighbors tell me stories about the neighborhood before it gentrified, and while the stories aren’t all pleasant, i eat them up cause i love everything about LA history.

like Holly i’d love to hear about alternatives to gentrification, or examples of cities or neighborhoods where the community/government was able to improve the quality of living without tearing down classic buildings, displacing people and raising the cost of living to absurd heights.

i’m also curious, as a white, 29 year old male, what should i be doing? i moved to this neighborhood five years ago, the gentrification was in progress but rents were still manageable. if i ever move, i wouldn’t be able to afford to stay in the neighborhood, so i’d naturally start looking for similar artist friendly, affordable neighborhoods with original buildings, but that makes me feel like i’m always going to be part of the problem?

Posted 25 Apr 2009 at 2:14 pm ¶
Evan wrote:

Good post about gentrification.

A few points:

1. This is a response to some comments. White Hipsters? I have seen plenty of Asian-American and Latino hipsters near where I live in the Washington DC area. There are cross sections of races and ethnic groups that enjoy alternative rock music and the visual arts.

2. Gentrification speaks as a socio-economic class issue. US Attorney General, Eric Holder, mentioned that we were “a nation of cowards” about race in this country. I would argue that we are cowards when it comes to CLASS. The disconnect between the wealthier families and poor ones is growing wider in this country–even inside racial groups.

3. The hipsters are NOT the biggest culprit in the gentrification wave. It’s the Yuppies who overpaid for the condos and stylish townhomes in the cities. The yuppies who work as lawyers, business consultants, physicians, IT engineers, architects and such have the income to buy out poor neighborhoods. The hipsters don’t have large bank accounts to begin with. Many struggle from crappy paying day jobs and trying to make extra money doing music or art gigs. They are not the villains in this mess. But I can think of one big one.

4. Anyone take a look at real estate developers as the root cause of gentrification in this country? Developers with hundreds of millions of dollars in funding from Wall Street who can buy influence on city councils, planning boards, and state governments. A developer stands to make huge profits from selling $500,000 condo units to a fine, up & coming yuppie couple. Making affordable housing for middle-class people…not so much because of the low profit margin. More Section 8 housing vouchers for poor families? That’s a non-starter for the fat cat developer.

Look, there is a war against poor and middle-class people in this country. Market capitalism is causing tremendous friction in communities in this great country. Until we have a stronger social safety net system in this country (including affordable housing reform), the division between the Have Everythings and Have-Nothings will grow wider; leading to political instability and the possible downfall of this nation.

Posted 25 Apr 2009 at 3:15 pm ¶
RCHOUDH wrote:

Thanks to this and other posts on Racialicous I now have an interest in learning more about gentrification. It made me realize that in the 90’s I did witness gentrification going on in my old neighborhood of Astoria Queens in NYC, but never understood how or why it happened until now. I just remember one day seeing my old apartment complex being changed from a low-cost rental compound to a co-op and seeing the resultant changes from that (gardens and walkways where there were none, repainting of buildings both inside and outside, renovations of crumbling flats, etc). And I also remember the price for all the flats (no matter how old and unrenovated) kept going higher and higher. This was all during the housing boom years of course. I have no idea what the prices are today (although knowing it’s NYC I doubt they’re that affordable yet). I don’t remember the surrounding neighborhoods changing much to reflect the boom in housing demand. The shops were all still mainly immigrant driven (although when I was growing up the shops were predominantly Greek owned and operated and today while they’re still immigrant driven, there’s more diversity). The people who moved in were also a mix of people (not predominantly of any particular race). They were however all mostly middle to upper middle class income families.

All in all I found the post to be informative but I was wondering if any updates can be made as to how the current housing crisis has affected (if it has) gentrification. I remember reading in the NY Times recently that gentrification was still occurring in some neighborhoods, except instead of it being white upper class Americans moving in, it was more like white/POC upper class immigrants from Europe and Asia.

Posted 25 Apr 2009 at 3:59 pm ¶
NancyP wrote:

Gentrification is a good thing when the city has a meager tax base, and it has to happen before the city hits rock bottom. Once that happens, the police and fire departments are unable to afford both salaries and gas and maintenance for the vehicles, and there’s no ability or will to stop destruction of the housing stock by arson or theft of plumbing or crack dens. There’s not much incentive to invest in a dying city. Detroit is an example. East St. Louis is a smaller scale example.

Cities just aren’t viable if the employers and shops move out, and there are only lower middle class and poor people residing there. Taxes on commercial real estate make the difference between viable and nonviable cities. Since US cities no longer have the backbone of manufacturing plants, there has to be some effort to attract for-profit “information – based service businesses” (central offices of banks, large law practices, district offices of telecom companies, and so on) and major entertainment districts or attractions (concert venues, convention centers and hotels serving them, possibly sports arenas). Some cities’ largest employers are non-profit organizations (hospitals) and the public sector, quite problematic from the standpoint of generating real-estate-based operating revenue.

This makes it important to have an income mix in the real estate stock, amenities that attract yuppies/buppies/guppies – greater value in the residential real estate tax base helps support public services, presence of said _uppies attracts additional businesses to serve them, city sales tax generates more income from a relatively upscale restaurant or shop than from a cheap restaurant (unless cheap restaurant has significantly larger volume) and the economic niche in a mixed incomes city supports both types of restaurants/ services/ retail. Presence of relatively well educated residents with specialized skills attracts those businesses that need to employ these people. If a city has a bad school system to start with, it has a bad reputation with potential employers looking for a location. These cities had better get a neighborhood _uppified, or face seeing businesses pick suburban locations. There are no more factory jobs for high school dropouts – the entry level jobs for these dropouts are “janitor” or “food service worker”, and those sorts of jobs require offices needing cleaning and workers or residents needing cafeteria food or restaurants.

Healthy cities need a wide range of housing for a wide range of incomes. Too poor, city starts dying off due to lack of investment. Too rich, and city faces acute problem of finding (transporting!) people to fill city-located low and moderate income jobs.
SF public schools have a hard time attracting teachers because few want to face a long commute – that’s the danger of unregulated gentrification. City planners have to find some sort of balance, and the gonadal fortitude to stick to it.

Posted 25 Apr 2009 at 6:28 pm ¶
DivergentDana wrote:

So what are some possible solutions, and does anyone have examples of successful, mixed-income neighborhoods that aren’t “in transition”? Even if the newcomers aren’t rude, classist and racist towards the residents, wouldn’t the economic effects still be there unless the newcomers used their disproportionate amount of leverage to actively prevent the original residents from being pushed out?

There’s also the widespread perception that renters should have the right to stay in housing that they don’t technically own, which may be an alien concept to the newcomers, who may see renting as a temporary state that they put up with as young singles before purchasing a home, especially if they’re originally from outside of the city.

Posted 26 Apr 2009 at 5:13 pm ¶
Tess wrote:

I have to say, I’m really bothered by this piece. It lives up to the white hipster cry of ignoring racial privilege because they’re poor, too, you know. Difference is, most of these hipsters have college educations and can pursue upward mobility. Most of ‘em aren’t stuck in the same neighborhood they grew up in, unable to get ahead. Poverty is fetishized. It’s chic, gives you social capital, street cred. It’s interesting, though, to see how they express their poverty. They’ve got lots of tattoos ($$$), customized messenger bags ($$$), Apple laptops ($$$), expensive coffee habits ($$$), and then a pair of rolled-up jeans from Goodwill ($) with a “radical” patch on the ass because they’re so poor. Since when was poverty cool? Not being able to pay your bills, being stuck in a crap job, not being able to afford decent food, having to live in a building that violates all kinds of safety codes – that’s not fun, that’s not a cool way to live.

As for gentrification, rich white people don’t just move into areas where poor POC live unless it’s some alluring coast line that they want to build condos on. For the most part, it takes the white hipsters and artists to make it seem more safe, despite the fact that they might not make more per year than the surrounding community does. They make it “hip” with co-op galleries, coffee shops, etc., and the rich white people follow, looking for a neighborhood with more “texture.” At least where I live, I don’t see rich POC moving into these areas. They typically head for areas where other wealthy people already live, but yes, it’s not JUST race that makes gentrification. We just can’t ignore the fact that race and class match up in so many ways in this country.

As for what matters is being involved in the community, I’ve seen so many instances of hipsters trying to involve themselves in their surrounding poor POC community. What usually happens is that make up stuff for themselves that they try to say is a “community event” but does not appeal at all to the other people who live there. They try to talk about having camaraderie with the poor POC folks, but they don’t actually listen to them. They don’t do things on their terms. Again, speaking from personal experience here.

Why do I not like hipsters? I hate their ironic -ism’s. Their chosen/temporary poverty which they they try to show off and escape from admitting their privilege. It’s like college students living in a poor neighborhood – sure, they’re poor because they’re students and can only work so much, but it’s only a temporary poverty. I don’t like the aloofness. I don’t like how they feel that they’ve “discovered” all of these “rad” abandoned buildings, taquerias, etc. It’s like the same shit with Christopher Columbus: somebody was already there.

Posted 26 Apr 2009 at 7:42 pm ¶
DivergentDana wrote:

But Tess, where, ideally, should these temporarily impoverished people live, if they can’t afford to live with yuppies, shouldn’t impose themselves on the intractably poor, and have to attend school in the city?

Posted 26 Apr 2009 at 8:07 pm ¶
Lisa wrote:

I don’t know much about this issue from the American context, but it gets replicated internationally, as increasing numbers of wealthy people from developed countries become “expat”-type immigrants in poorer developing countries, whether for work or cache or cheaper costs of living.

Within Shanghai, where I live, most Shanghai natives have been priced out of downtown. In 2006-2007 we got a big influx of New Yorkers (for some reason) who enthused over paying rental prices that were 70% of New York rates – no matter that they were 400% of Shanghai market rates. Well, quickly ALL rental prices in Shanghai quadrupled.

If you are a college educated, white collar Chinese person considered upper-middle class, average downtown Shanghai rents are 70-200% your salary, so expect to live in the suburbs and commute an hour minumum per day.

It’s not just Americans/Westerners – and a significant proportion of the “trustifarian” unemployed wealthy foreigners driving up prices are Chinese-American/Canadian – the worst offenders are Hongkongers and Taiwanese and Singaporean. A lot of the developers who raze entire blocks, decimating communities several generations old and historic architecture, or keep the buildings for “rennovation” into high-end housing but forcibly evict the original residents, are Hongkonger. The reason of course is that “expensive for China” is “cheap for HK/TW/Sing” – so even massive overpricing seems a good deal to them; and they feel entitled to the place because they are ethnic Chinese.

Classic examples in Shanghai are Hongkong development Xintiandi – which transformed like 20+ blocks of thriving neighborhood in central Luwan into this plastic Hongkong Disneylandified imitation of “Old Shanghai” for tourists and wealthy foreigners, mostly Hongkongers.

A smaller version is Ferguson Lane, a compound of historic buildings on Taikang Lu that was taken over by a group of white Westerners who installed pricy cafes, wine shops, boutiques. There’s on ongoing battle to force out the remaining Chinese residents, because they do typical Chinese things like hanging out laundry and hanging out in the lane – but without buying a US$8 cup of coffee. And since that compound opened, there’s been a marked increase in wealthy white foreigners in that neighborhood.

In Shanghai, there’s an additional element of culture and race and language. In mostly white or Hongkong environments, the vibe is different and Mainlanders feel unwelcome and uncomfortable. Some venues now employ Filipino staff who only speak English, not Mandarin – which conveys a pretty clear message of “no (dogs or) Chinese”.

Some people actually *celebrate* the “recolonialization” of Shanghai. I’m very conscious of trying to intregrate and assimilate, and refuse to pay the “white price” and avoid venues and scenes that are “by foreigners, for foreigners” in China. It’s a different situation than urban American gentrification – but the parallels are striking, the more I think about it and read these comments.

Posted 26 Apr 2009 at 11:31 pm ¶
Britta wrote:

Very interesting article and comments. I’ve been thinking a lot about gentrification in the past couple of years, both in my home city (Portland, OR, which has experienced rampant gentrification) and in general. Reading over these comments has brought up several issues that I’ve been thinking about.
First, I feel that the term “hipster” gets bandied about to describe a diverse and sometimes mutually exclusive set of people. From the comments, hipsters are white people who: wear abercrombie; shop at goodwill; are temporarily poor; are actually poor; have trust funds; artists; professionals, etc. It does seem like the definition of hipster includes any white person in their 20s-early 30s. I guess I would shy away from calling any and all young white person a “hipster” simply because they happen to be white and young. Also, my perspective from the NW coast is that “hipsters” grew out of grunge in the 90s, and included children of working-middle class whites who were into alternative music/art and generally worked some crap day job to support their evening habits (if lucky at a record store). These people a) were actually poor b) kind of chose to be, but the alternative was not a fancy education but either a slightly better paying job or maybe a CC education. Over time, the “allure” of the lifestyle was picked up and made mainstream, so suddenly you had rich kids pay top dollar for clothes that looked like they came from a rummage sale (e.g. pre-”worn,” “grandma style” etc, and previously underground artists went mainstream, etc. Real hipsters wouldn’t consider the people wandering around Williamsburg any more hipsters than they would a guy on Wallstreet. But anyways, I digress.

More substantively, I think part of the issue is separating people with actual economic capital from those with cultural or symbolic capital. Certainly people can have both (e.g. wealthy professionals), or one and not the other (e.g. drug dealer vs. starving artist/college student). I think part of the problem with gentrification is that the same economic pressures that force actual “poor” people (with no economic or cultural capital) and “temporarily poor” people (e.g. those with cultural but no economic capital) to live in the same area can inevitably result in landlords/developers/businesses favoring the people with cultural capital over those without, which leads to the development of certain amenities catering to the new inhabitants, then increased property values, and then the arrival of professionals, who can afford to pay more, and then displacement. Sometimes the white “hipsters” get displaced along with the original residents, and sometimes they “mature” into a higher income bracket. Certainly I know plenty of white artists in Portland who got displaced from the “artsy” neighborhood in the late 90s because all the yuppies moved there in search of “art,” as the rising rents didn’t care whether or not they were artists or transients.

Ideally, a solution would allow for a diversity of people, socio-economically, racially and culturally, however that would require serious commitment on the part of cities not to give out to the highest bidder, as well as a sustained effort by all those both in the community and those moving in to maintain the neighborhood’s original integrity.
This also I think ties back to M. Dot’s original point, but I heard somewhere that one factor contributing to urban ghettos was the the flight of the black middle and upper class out of those neighborhoods in the 60s, 70s, and 80s, intensifying poverty and taking away the tax and customer base for many local services and schools. I wonder how much of a solution involves middle/upperclass African-Americans moving back and revitalizing the neighborhoods their parents left behind? While you moving to the South Side of Chicago might slightly increase the rent, you buying a boarded-up house (some 4 bedroom ones are selling for $40,000), fixing it up, contributing your taxes, sitting on the school board, supporting local businesses, joining the neighborhood committee, etc. would have positives that would (IMO) outweigh the negatives of you buying a house and marginally increasing rents. Also, if you could use your relative clout to fight for affordable housing, you could help your neighbors live in a better place with less crime and more services (I live in Hyde Park, Chicago, and in the past three weeks on our southern border, 7 young people have been shot, 3 young men killed, and 3 young men arrested, a devastation of 10 lives all within one 3 block radius). Obviously, this could apply to someone of any race and lots of other neighborhoods as well, though I would argue that the issues and politics of wealthy people of one race moving into an area populated by people of another race is much more complicated and problematic, as it’s much harder to be seen as “giving back” to your community instead of colonizing in that case.

Posted 27 Apr 2009 at 12:35 am ¶
M.dot wrote:

Thank you to everyone that said that they enjoyed the piece. It has been on my heart, and while what I wrote deeply personal, it seems that I have connected with you and that’s the point.

@atlasien
The problem with this demographic shift is that while the income level is staying the same, our neighborhood has less statewide political power, and I think that’s because of the racial shift.
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This is Uber fascinating. I want to learn more.

I’ve visited San Francisco a few times, and I was a bit creeped out to notice that there were very few children anywhere, and all the really old people seemed to be homeless.
======
SF has more families with Dogs than Children.
This point you have made is amazing. Think about it, our societies most vulnerable are our sick, our elderly and our children.
San Francisco has few children and expresses benign neglect towards its elderly/homeless. How is THAT for progress? At least Dallas didn’t hide its confederate flags from me:)

@in a land w/o sea
Thank you for your honesty. I feel you on San Leandro. Congratulations on your home.

@RJG
Was this post informative? Is there anything you wish I would have discussed?
I’m wondering if there are any communities where progress/improvements/gentrification was made that didn’t displace or marginalize the original community. Are there particular areas-of-note that were heavy on new buildings going up, new stores opening, etc which now include a new mid/higher-income community while still keeping the original low/mid-income community strong?
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Excellent question.
1. A housing plan that takes the need of the Affluent, the low income and everyone in between into consideration. A policy takes into consideration that there will always be a need for permanent shelter for a multiple range of incomes. Rental caps? Rental increase caps? Creating sustainable, free, well run transitional housing for our cities most vulnerable? Long term planning between demographers/city planners and the people who make up cities?
2. Earmarking property with the understanding that it will NOT be exploited for all profits and that its sole purpose is to provide sustainable housing for the cities residents.

3.Zimbabwe is trying to deal with its land issues and it is going turbulently.
4. Venezuela?

5. Land Trusts are an option. My understanding that the land is set aside for a specific purpose, family members, city workers, professors, full time residents, and so long as the resident falls within the guidelines legally they cannot be displaced. for 99 years.
4. Then of course there is the abolition of ALL private property with the property being controlled by the state, the state is directed, managed & controlled by the people.
Private property in many ways the heart of capitalism, so changing the way that it is managed means envisioning a new economic system that puts people over profits. Many folks are unwilling to hear that tho. I hope we don’t have to run out of oil/water to get it:/

@thew
======
Thank you for asking. Thank you for being willing to be apart of the solution.
What can you do?
1. Get involved with the young people in your neighborhood in a sustainable way.
2. Personally, I have asked activist and organizers, rather I have learned the HARD WAY, to ask activist and organizers, “Hi, I want to be involved, how can I make a contribution, I want to help.”
3. Get to know your neighbors.
4. Read Jane Jacobs. She is Brilliant on Cities:)
5. Re-Being a part of the problem and for the record if you are, at least you are looking for a solution. Everyone has a contribution to make. You are not apart of the problem because you are asking the questions you are asking. We all need a place to live. So long as you want to be a contributing member of a community that doesn’t treat a neighborhood like a truck stop bathroom. What I am getting at, is that I have learned in my personally life is that my intentions are what matters. And that when I make mistakes, so long as I learn from them, im good.

Find some housing advocates in your county, ask them what they need and make your self available:)

@Kat
(Sorry to get all rambly…this issue has been weighing on me all week. I’ve had jury duty,
====
Its all g. When the spirit moves, you gotta let that thang go:)

@Nancy P
Gentrification is a good thing when the city has a meager tax base
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Good for whom? And what aspect of gentrification are you referring to?

There’s not much incentive to invest in a dying city. Detroit is an example.
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The fate of Detroit, in many ways, is the fate of this country, if we do NOT reinvision the way we LIVE, WORK, EARN, PLAN.

Detriot MAY be the future. Smaller living.
Fewer people. Post industrial. Community Gardens. NO GROCERY STORE.

Let me ask you this? Why would be you put so much faith in corporations, non profit or otherwise, when they have consistently shown, in recent history, that the fate of the people is irrelevant?

Have you read Florida’s “The Creative Class?”
I think, based on your comments, that you would enjoy what he has to say about who we need to attract to cities to make them vibrant and sustainable. Florida has little to say about power and race, but his ideas on technology and democracy are smokin’!

Healthy cities need a wide range of housing for a wide range of incomes. Too poor, city starts dying off due to lack of investment. Too rich, and city faces acute problem of finding (transporting!) people to fill city-located low and moderate income jobs.
======
This feast and famine cycle is part and parcel to capitalism.

@RCHOUDH
All in all I found the post to be informative but I was wondering if any updates can be made as to how the current housing crisis has affected (if it has) gentrification.
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You giving me homework? Geesh laweeese:)
I will see what I can do.

@Asada
====
Thank you for your courage. You
never know what you are going to get when writing on the internet for that matter.

I grew up reading about black families ( where women made the most money) lived in poor neighbor hoods, “perpetrating the underclass” because they had partners who did not make as much as they did, so they could not afford to live in a better area. Married Adults that do not contribute financially eventually become de-facto dependents on the woman, in addition to any other children they may have.
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Yes this is true, in some cases, but it is more nuanced than that. Black women have always worked. This is a THORNY issue b/w Black and White feminists. The problem is that we have disproportionately worked in jobs that have barely allowed us to make ends meet. Black men have always worked too, when work was available (industrial jobs, manufact jobs, jobs during WWII), infact they make more on the dollar then we do (union jobs), when they are employed.

If you want to learn more, I suggest
“Black Macho and the Myth of the Superwoman” by Michelle Wallace – Talks about the tension between Black men, Black women and how our lives are rooted in our history. Strong gender analysis.

Paula Giddings “When and Where I Enter”I- talks about the history of Black women, earning power, race and class.

suppose,back then the couple were willing to pay the same rent as anyone else and didn’t put to much pressure to change things?
====
Rent changes when the landlord (feels s/he) can charge more.

Until now, when may single blacks ( male or female) who have gotten an education and better jobs, demand to live in better areas, usually around other blacks. So they will pay more and expect the environment to change?
=====
Uhhh. This is a hard one. Black folks have done a little bit of everything.

Based on my experience, folks have done a variety of things. We have tried:
a. Voluntary integration- google Shaker Heights, Ohio.
b. We have moved back to Harlem
c. We have created opulent and or affordable gated communities- Atlanta
d. We have moved to Houston because it is warm and relatively affordable.
e. We have stayed in the hood and moved in with cousin’s because our low income housing apartment was converted to a co-op and we couldn’t buy- Clinton Hill, BK.
it goes on and on and on…
^^^Who know I knew all that, lols.

So sometimes we may pay more, expect it
to change, and pray that the change is something that we would like to look at everyday and that it is sustainable. Sometimes we pay more, and know we will have to move in a couple of years.

My next piece, meh thinks, is going to be on the gentrification of NYC’s Chinatown. FUN:)

Posted 27 Apr 2009 at 1:42 am ¶
Kkanard wrote:

Thanks for this insightful article. and thanks to all the other commenters–taken all together, it’s an interesting and thoughtful take on how race and class intersect–and don’t– in terms of gentrification.

I notice that nobody has commented about rural gentrification. I’m from northern New England and there is no way I can buy a house in the very small, very white town I grew up in. My mom couldn’t now either. In fact, it’s extremely difficult just finding someplace to rent there.

This is anecdotal, I haven’t compared census data between now and 20 years ago, but my observation is that family farms (the dairy industry used to be huge there) have been sold off and young, middle-to upper-middle-class hetero couples have moved in.

These 30-something couples have all bought houses and started gardens and are talking about families. They work in the local food co-op, as teachers, for the local newspaper. They’re college-educated and invested in sustainable agriculture and (generally) socially liberal stuff of that nature.

It took me a while to understand that though on paper I look like them, I can not afford to buy a house in my hometown and that has everything to do with my socioeconomic class, both growing up and now.

It’s hard to say how these folks were able to buy in this town where property values have skyrocketed lately, often in direct proportion to how much out–of-staters are willing to pay for property on which to build or renovate a second (or third) home. At the social gatherings where I’ve met them, we don’t talk about money; it’s not appropriate for me to say, “Hey, Bob, where DID you get the money for that down payment?” Class is not something most people are willing to talk about, especially with someone of a different class background.

Anyway, a long story about a very small area, very racially isolated, but I think it’s worth including in this discussion in terms of what gentrification/ affordable housing/changing demographics looks like in different places.

Posted 27 Apr 2009 at 5:47 am ¶
Tess wrote:

DivergentDana: Unfortunately, I’ve got no instant solutions for this one. I don’t see gentrification changing unless there are major structural changes in the way that we deal with housing, poverty, and ultimately, our economic system. I feel like this is where capitalism will always lead us. I don’t know enough about local government to know how much a particular city can at least make changes for itself, but maybe something can happen there if enough folks rally together and agree to pay higher taxes to expand affordable, livable housing (again, don’t know enough about city budgets to know what’s actually possible), and let those structures stay in place rather than be bulldozed by condos.

Posted 27 Apr 2009 at 8:31 am ¶
atlasien wrote:

@M.dot: sure! Here’s a good article that gives an example of lack of statewide power and discusses “transportation apartheid”. It doesn’t apply quite so much to the black middle-class suburbs, where most people drive to work, but it still illustrates an important fact: despite local progressive Democratic leadership, the purse strings to state funds are tightly controlled by terrible white Republican Boss Hog wannabees. They feed on Atlanta like a parasite, bleeding it for jobs and sports events, and then go back and complain to their constituents how it’s a sinful city full of gays and blacks!

Control of state funds is an important issue, but I think the other issue is more internalized. People in white neighborhoods in Atlanta have a greater sense of entitlement. They expect prompt police protection and top-notch public schools and complain very loudly when the ideal falls short. In the black middle-class neighborhoods, I don’t see that same sense of entitlement… and that’s a bad thing. The squeaky wheel gets the grease. I’m not saying people here are apathetic, but they are definitely more pessimistic and not as good at banding together and raising an outcry. Perhaps many of them are hesitant because they weren’t born and raised in Atlanta and are still forming ties. The other non-black, non-white communities in the area have even more problems, because they’re new immigrants from different countries and have almost no political capital.

Lastly, religion plays a role. In the more affluent liberal white neighborhoods there are good public schools (City of Decatur) and then the richest parents send their kids to expensive secular private schools. In black middle-class neighborhoods parents tend to 1) drive their kids long distances to public charter schools and even pull any kind of trick, like fake addresses, to send their kids to a public school in a better district 2) enroll their kids in a private Christian school affiliated with their church. The existence of many relatively inexpensive religious schools removes some impetus for reforming the terrible local public schools.

Posted 27 Apr 2009 at 9:20 am ¶
Nina wrote:

I live in the house I lived in during high school. My parents moved to a much nicer area. I am one of the few people in my age bracket there. Most of the houses are either lived in by the original owners who are now old or being rented because the original owner’s kids left for greener pastures.
There are a few of us who stay there and anchor the area, we are owners and employed so keep things from sliding completely downhill.
I have been working on redoing my midcentury ranch house, updating it. I do landscaping etc.. I figure if a few more people with income and children move in, we can turn things around.

Posted 27 Apr 2009 at 2:40 pm ¶
Nina wrote:

atlasien- yeah, thats me. it makes more sense financially for me to live where i do and pay for private school than move. but i work to push for change in the schools because as long as the schools are so bad, areas like mine will never attract young professionals.

Posted 27 Apr 2009 at 2:42 pm ¶
Whit wrote:

People who are potentially gentrifying a neighborhood – like college students and artsy types – should take the humility approach if they want to mitigate even a little bit of the harm they’ve done.

They should go to the community already in place, and ask what they can do to help improve and maintain the community. Hipsters in particular are unlikely to appreciate that their Quirky Coffee Houses and Cooperative Art Galleries aren’t wanted. And it’s highly doubtful that any white person or family would really move out if that’s what was asked of them. However, if they’re serious about wanting to improve the neighborhood they’ve moved into, they should let members of the community who have been there longer to take on the leadership and organizational roles.

Posted 27 Apr 2009 at 2:44 pm ¶
M.dot wrote:

@Kkandard,
It was very hard to talk about my mother and my income last year.
A few friends asked me how much I earned and I never told them, as I felt that it was none of their business, they didn’t tell me HOW MUCH THEY EARNED.

However, when it came to writing this article, I knew that I had to be honest in order to make my point about Black Gentrification.

Thank you for mentioning the rural element. I wonder if Neal Smith captured that in his analysis.

@Atlasien
despite local progressive Democratic leadership, the purse strings to state funds are tightly controlled by terrible white Republican Boss Hog wannabees. They feed on Atlanta like a parasite, bleeding it for jobs and sports events, and then go back and complain to their constituents how it’s a sinful city full of gays and blacks!
=====
Are you effin serious.
Detroit is treated the same way.
I am so glad I didn’t get into Emory. I visit last November. Based on my few experiences on the campus, it was clear to me the post slavery power relationships were in full effect.

The class relations are important to me b.c as a graduate student I would be TEACHING some of them.

Are you an urban studies person?

I’m not saying people here are apathetic, but they are definitely more pessimistic and not as good at banding together and raising an outcry.
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This makes sense. Historically Georgia has been incredibly racist to Black folks.
The fear instilled by lynching folks is passed down from generations.

The existence of many relatively inexpensive religious schools removes some impetus for reforming the terrible local public schools.
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Amen.

@Lisa
It’s not just Americans/Westerners – and a significant proportion of the “trustifarian” unemployed wealthy foreigners driving up prices are Chinese-American/Canadian – the worst offenders are Hongkongers and Taiwanese and Singaporean. A lot of the developers who raze entire blocks, decimating communities several generations old and historic architecture, or keep the buildings for “rennovation” into high-end housing but forcibly evict the original residents, are Hongkonger. The reason of course is that “expensive for China” is “cheap for HK/TW/Sing” – so even massive overpricing seems a good deal to them; and they feel entitled to the place because they are ethnic Chinese.
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This is fascinating.
Gentrification requires the availability for BLOCKS of land in order to make significant inroads. Folks are not going to pay premium prices to live in an building in “THE HOOD” . Entire neighborhoods need to be raised in order to create New Neighborhoods.

There’s on ongoing battle to force out the remaining Chinese residents, because they do typical Chinese things like hanging out laundry and hanging out in the lane – but without buying a US$8 cup of coffee.
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Wow.

Posted 27 Apr 2009 at 3:14 pm ¶
blip wrote:

In my mainly white, and very gentrified neighborhood, you can expect to -

1. get run-over by several 2 and 3-seater baby carriages

2. step in dog shit someone didn’t bother to pick up

3. get a complaint that the “bass” in your music is too loud even though you were swaying to Edie Brickell

4. have the foyer door slammed in on you with your arms packed with groceries!!!!, because they didn’t know who you were (even though you’ve been living in your digs for 17 years!!!) and they wanted to keep out the ‘dangerous influences’ lurking about in the hood!!!!

5. ask how dangerous the hood is on sites like http://www.brooklynian.com/forums/

6. Bash ‘useless’ black businesses and ask why there isn’t another french bistro on such-and-such street

7. and lastly complaining about developers like Ratner kicking them out of their homes when they had no objections to forcing out black and brown folk who’ve lived in the same neighborhood for years

Posted 27 Apr 2009 at 3:21 pm ¶
blip wrote:

I just found this treasure on the Brooklynian site and I had to cross post her. ENJOY:

Yesterday (Thurs April 16) around 4pm there was an incident that required the response of local police at the Underhill playground.

A woman brought in a large hummer style pink Barbie car , but became hostile and belligerent when other children showed interest in it. My own 2yr old daughter climbed in at which point the woman approached and started arguing with me. Very rude, for lack of a better word, very ghetto attitude. I took my daughter away and tried to explain we thought it might be one of the public toys, etc, and when the woman continued to be nasty I said something to the effect that she was being rude and selfish, etc. I guess I could have been more turn-the-other cheek, but I doubt it would have mattered.

This provoked a man who was with her to come after me and start threatening me, and by association, the little girl in my arms. The scene was aggressive enough that some people began collecting their children and leaving the playground. The guy was described by others as looking very ‘thug-like’ and one person told me they believed he had a knife case at his belt, I didn’t notice. Anyway, when it became clear things were escalating I stepped away from him and called 911, which seemed to at least stop the immediate situation from boiling over.

The woman stayed belligerent and verbally abusive the entire time, hurling insults and taunts at me and my family, though the guy tried to disappear as soon as the police arrived. Make of that what you will.

I spoke with other parents and they said she’d been harassing people there all day, and they had seen her at the playground before, acting similarly. John, or any other playground rep, was absent. There were dozens of witnesses, if I have any details wrong feel free to correct me here.

After speaking to the police I took my family home, but I’m not sure how comfortable we’ll be going back to that playground. I want to emphasize this wasn’t a misunderstanding between rational adults, the people involved were belligerent and physically hostile.

Bottom line, if you see a woman there (medium build, maybe in her mid 30s, blondish straightened hair, african american) with a gigantic pink Barbie Hummer, keep your kids off of it and give her a WIDE berth, she’s not worth the trouble.

Posted 27 Apr 2009 at 3:30 pm ¶
NancyP wrote:

Change is a given in most American cities. Few areas in high-density growing cities maintain the same demographics over generations. I live in a slowly declining city with a very small area that does not include inner-ring suburbs (as most others of its size do) – the city used to have at least twice the number of residents (circa 1940s) than it does now. To me, gentrification is not all bad, because I’d rather see lofts occupied by yuppies than burned down by insurance arsonists. (A sizable manufacturing and retail district that closed when the shoe market went overseas has now been converted in part to live-in lofts, cheaper office space, yuppie restaurants). The yuppies spend money within the city limits and pay earnings, real estate, and sales taxes. The yuppies represent a *net increase* of city residents, and few people have been displaced, mostly because this was a commercial district. What it means to me is that city schools, fire and police departments, etc have additional sources of income.

There are some neighborhoods where redevelopment of individual houses or 2-, 4-, 6-, flats ousts existing tenants, but my impression is that there is sufficient excess housing to enable small numbers of people to move into similarly priced housing located within a reasonable distance. Not ideal, but if I were city manager, I would welcome the chance to attract additional mid and upper tax bracket residents to the city, and it’s pretty difficult to prevent house-by-house gentrification. Large developers can be pressured to provide some lower-income housing as a condition of getting permits for large projects – if the city management has the gonads to do so.

Our city has continued to acquire some immigrant neighborhoods over the years, a good thing insofar as city vitality, small businesses, etc. Vietnamese and Thai, Eritrean, Bosnian, and Mexican neighborhoods have settled within the last 35 years or so, often with the help of Catholic Charities. (The Russian Orthodox Jewish neighborhood is just over the city line).

M.dot and others are talking about cities in which gentrification means that the ousted long-term resident has serious trouble finding affordable housing anywhere. I don’t have a clue about how to handle that. I am stuck out here in the benighted Midwest. I am concerned with keeping any fiscally viable mix in an underpopulated city, not in dealing with problems of an overcrowded city. We have other problems – hypersegregation is major here – but just keeping some people and some business within the city limits is a concern.

Thanks for the discussion and recommendation of the book, M.dot.

Posted 27 Apr 2009 at 9:33 pm ¶
attack_laurel wrote:

Fascinating post – I’ve seen gentrification happen several times, thanks to growing up in a less-than-great neighbourhood in London that became highly gentrified (as in multi-million pound houses restored, and million-pound condos where old WWII bomb sites used to be when I was a kid), and living in low-income neighbourhoods while I was getting back on my feet after my divorce.

The thing that strikes me about these stories (and maybe I’m going too far here; correct me if I’m being an asshole) is that rich/white people are looking at these neighbourhoods, deeming them desirable, and shifting the people within them out to other places that are less “desirable” to the rich people – much like the US Government moved Native American tribes off land that was found to have something the government found desirable, such as gold or oil, though not as blatantly.

Am I reaching too far? Gentrification to me has always seemed to be the appropriation of space from the less (or un-) privileged, to the advantage of those holding the reins of power (be it racial or financial).

The trouble is, once the takeover is complete, the homogenization of the neighbourhood begins, and the things that drew people to the neighbourhood (the local culture, the “exotic” or “authentic” feel) disappear, and the privileged people start eyeing the next “interesting” neighbourhood, starting the process of displacement all over again.

I think many people dislike hipsters because they are the vanguard of the the privileged – putting down stakes, putting up a flag, and saying “we want this place for ourselves”. I watched this happen in the “slum” of Eastport, Annapolis – a traditionally poor minority neighbourhood that used to be industrial, with tiny houses, a meeting hall, and local shops that catered to the needs of the low income people living there.

Suddenly, all the waterfront property in Annapolis proper was gone, and the rich people started eyeing the semi-island of Eastport, and people started building massive houses, blocking the water views of the people right behind them, because rich people don’t care in the same way about community sharing (at least, to judge from what happened). Bodegas disappeared, fancy coffee-shops moved in (I freely admit, I did eat at them), the dollar cinema went, and an “art house” cinema came, and gated communities sprang up, seemingly overnight (though this process had started in the late ’80s, it didn’t pick up steam until the early ’90s, when I was living there).

Now, you can’t buy a house there for love or money, even though just 15 years ago, I paid $400/month for rent (yes, it was 400 square feet of living space, but it was a house, and I could see the water).

Posted 28 Apr 2009 at 8:33 am ¶
Indigo wrote:

Gentrification is certainly about class. I have seen myself as a force of gentrification being a middle class black woman, especially as a black woman with some hip white friends. I’ve always had a hunch that it was both my income and the visual power of whiteness that helped me to be a gentrifying force in neighborhoods like the Lower East Side and Washington Heights in Harlem.

Race and class, however, coincide all too often in this society because of the structural nature of the two entwined beasts — racism and capitalism. I think the interlocked nature of race and class in society, attitudes and perceptions about goodness, the association of whiteness with “safety” are too interwoven to say that gentrification has nothing to do with white hipsters.

At the same time, the racialized-classed attitudes of individuals moving in to neighborhoods are significant. Many of the white hipsters come with a colonial kind of attitude, take-over-the-neighborhood, entitled kind of way of being. That helps to drive the power of takeover and push-out that gentrification often entails.

Posted 28 Apr 2009 at 4:01 pm ¶
Arrington wrote:

This was a very informative post! The historical context was the most significant to me and this extends far along the east cost as well considering the spread and influx of blacks from the south to cities such as Washington DC, New York and so forth. As for the argument of “hating” the hipsters” I agree with you it is not about race but more so along the lines of economic advantage, however as one blogger already touch on, economic status has been manipulated to show race, through statistics and even through media illustration (most blacks and other minorities are typically poor, most whites are typically rich).

In my opinion the way to address this contreversial situation is to acknowledge this history that encouraged the overrepresented status of most groups today, which also tends to be racially motivated, and approach this through systemic rehabilitation and inclusive diversitfication and accomodation. For example, as stated dont build a luxuray condo in a middle class community…meet the community half way so that they may work together through an established and encourage community field, and promote economic development…in otherwords…build nice affordable yet transistioning complexes in which community members can respect and afford, and that will lead to increased community efforts and worth….but of course…many of these people do not make enough to be considered.

Posted 29 Apr 2009 at 11:53 am ¶
EGhead wrote:

I’m coming at this from the perspective of one of those gentrifying hipsters… well, not quite a hipster (I’m not cool/lame enough for that label)… but certainly an artsy middle-class white kid. I go to Fordham U, which is right on the border of the South Bronx, and I’m moving into an apartment off-campus this summer. I like the neighborhood (despite it being somewhat dangerous), but I know that the neighborhood could certainly do without me and the rest of the college kids that live there. The thing is, though, a lot of us don’t have much of a choice. A good number of the students who move into the neighborhood are the ones who feel unwelcome on this Catholic campus– LGBT students, for example, who are tired of dealing with the bros next door. Others are just looking for an environment where they can drink and smoke without being reprimanded, certainly. But all of them are looking to save money. The vast majority of us are, I’m sure, better-off financially than the local population, but 16,000 a year for housing is still tough for most middle-class families to swing.

I’m moving into the neighborhood partly for financial reasons, but mostly because 1) I don’t feel comfortable in this (paradoxically?) conservative and hard-partying residential space and 2) going home during the summer and breaks is very difficult for me. I come from an abusive household, and I have a very painful and contentious relationship with my parents. Occassionally, it’s still abusive. My parents (okay, my dad) has recognized that the situation is awful and is not working (even though he refuses to take responsibility) and so he’s willing to have me live off-campus, away from home nearly all of the year. I’m dependent on him, which is deeply problematic for me… but now we’re getting into extraneous information.

I guess my point is: I recognize the dangers of gentrification, and I want to be part of the solution, not the problem, but I don’t seem to have much of a choice. From the little I’ve seen, it seems at least a portion of my fellow ‘hipsters’ don’t either. What, then, can we do to help? Is getting involved in the neighborhood in a positive way the right solution? Should we just stay out of everyone’s way?

Posted 29 Apr 2009 at 10:00 pm ¶
ANON wrote:

Yes, indeed, as a college-educated POC I realize that I am pretty much destined to be at the front wave of gentrifying force wherever I live because I can’t really afford to live anywhere else! Personally, I have experienced ‘downward class mobility’ as neoliberalism as accelerated racial exclusion at a variety of levels so that I live at just about 150% of the poverty line. So, I can’t ever afford the lower middle class home my parents could barely afford– the same home that no one would live next door to for most of the time we lived there while I was growing up and that my mother has had to remortgage into debt so much that she can not afford to sell it.

Just as with suburban flight caused by racial politics, I think that gentrification is more than just about incomes in the neighborhood- it is also about color. And marxism, including Neil Smith, often does an amazingly poor job of accounting of the ways it capitalism takes up or intersects with racial exclusion. Race is not simply just another way of dividing the workers– it has its own roots from pre-capitalist formation prior to colonization (and this can be a chicken-egg sort of question). However important that I agree income levels are, the racial entitlement that goes along with demanding more city/community services and infrastructure goes a long way to driving folks out through higher taxes/prices for existing property as well radically changing the character of the neighborhoods to inflate prices. That same kind of racial entitlement/exclusion also excludes POC’s from other ‘higher’ income or white neighborhoods through home loan practices, real estate sales practices, and some owner who refuse to sell their middle class home to POC families. Aren’t we going through a recession/depression based on ’subprime’ lending– i.e. lending to the wrong people?? That is disproportionately impacting all POC’s?? So, my $45,000/yr. income definitely doesn’t go as far with school loan debts, no financial equity for down payments, and generally lacking any financial security that will help me stay at that level (like rich grandparents or trust funds to help with medical or other large expenses) that many of my white counterparts might have. So yeah, certainly levels of income matter, but so does whoever is outside or next door on the block.

Also, I do believe that there is a difference between making more, and refusing to support local family businesses owned by folks from the community like corner stores and bodegas because I like the ‘upscale’ place around the corner with organic goodies. It is a pressing question to ask, how can we have racially and economically mixed neighborhoods that should be part of a just society where there is some sort of equitable redistribution that happens through taxation, etc. at the community level???

Posted 30 Apr 2009 at 1:36 pm ¶
Mike wrote:

Pity I missed this one when it was posted.

I’m a gentrifier, I guess. When it was time for me to buy a house in Los Angeles, I couldn’t afford one in the neighborhood where I grew up, so I got listings for every neighborhood I could afford and chose a house in a neighborhood that struck the right balance between price, distance to work and distance to the beach. So my decision was a pragmatic one and wasn’t about race.

But my ability to afford the neighborhood I live in now has much to do with race. It is cheap because it is perceived to be working class and non-white and have poorly performing public schools. That perception saves me about a quarter of the price of a house. That perception makes me a home-owner.

I am here because I was priced out of my own home neighborhood, but, outwardly that doesn’t seem as remarkable because the gentrifiers there are the same color as those of use who were pushed out. That doesn’t decrease the sting. They don’t care about my history.

Those that replaced us back in my old neighborhood had no interest in learning about those who came before. My history and my subculture have vanished like smoke.

When I moved into my new neighborhood, I was one of very few white people living here. More have come behind me. It is now common enough to see a white person that people have stopped asking me if I’m lost or if I’m a cop. (LOL) I try to be a good citizen and to interact and learn the history, and volunteer and help out but, I’m not really in ‘it’. As much as I try to integrate, I can’t seem to be part of the neighborhood. No one has any use for me or interest in me. And why should they? It is mostly their neighborhood and it isn’t about *me*.

But the new white residents with no local friends welcome me with open arms. I am new. They are new. They do have a use for me. We end up making our own clique.

And the cycle continues.

Posted 30 Apr 2009 at 8:46 pm ¶
apaperbackwriter wrote:

I love reading the LA posts — we’re all gentrifiers here, right? Is anyone in Baldwin Park reading this? (please! holla at me if you are)

I’m echoing all the other commenters who are protesting the use of the word “hipster” and all the baggage that comes with it, mostly because you could group me into that if you want to.

I’m a writer (but a journalist — a PRINT journalist, at that) and I’m white (well, I’m latina, too, but you’d never guess with my blue eyes) and I’ve moved into a neighborhood where it’s a problem that I can’t understand a word of Mandarin. To top it all off, I really don’t feel like I’m a problem. Ick.

I can’t tell whether I really am the problem or just haven’t learned to face the facts. I’m not broke but I don’t feel like I can afford much more than $555/month for rent and I don’t want to move further for the 35 min. commute for my first job in LA or the 25 min. commute for my second job in the other direction.

I’ve been really self-conscious, though, lately. Two people (who don’t live in LA) said I was gentrifying, but I can’t really afford to live on the Westside, which are the only “white” neighborhoods are

Dude, LA is not white — anywhere I could afford right now that’s “white,” I would be commuting for 1+ hours or not eating. Have any of you anti-gentrifiers been to LA?

Aaaaah, and to top it all off, I listen to indie-ish music. Does it make it better that I pick up dog poop when I walk my rooommate’s dog and that I give my newspapers to the lady next door so she can get money from the recycling center? Does it make it ok because I wave to the neighbors and make cooing noises at their babies and try and learn their names? Does it make it ok that I never expect to create a work of art? Or that I pay my own way with mama or daddy?

This conversation is so frustrating. I know I have an education and privilege, since I look white, but I opted to go into a less-profitable field with less-profitable prospects where I need to be closer to a city center (which is hardly white). Should I have gone for an MBA and moved to the Westside because I’m white? Should I just move to neighborhoods where there are nice coffee shops and boutiques for skinny white women (I’m not skinny, btw, nor do I give a fuck)?

I don’t see myself as some kind of martyr for the cause. I don’t see myself as someone going through a naive phase where I just want to live with colored people because I find it edifying or some kind of anthropological project. I find it sort of offensive that people would think that’s the only reason I would live here.

I like my neighborhood, I like the low rent, I like the proximity to the industry I work in, I like the noise (it’s mostly quiet except for helicopters), I like that it’s close to downtown (I’ve been told white people don’t like LA’s downtown, which is unlike most downtowns), I like that I live near my friends, I like the view, I like that I feel safe at night, I like that my neighbors are courteous and helpful (I kept getting my newspaper stolen and now one of my neighbors brings it to me everyday), I like the pizza shop just down the hill which keep coffee table books that commemorate the turbulent history of our neighborhood, I like that I’m close to the metro (which is rare in LA), I like the restaurants that are here, I like the library and I like the riverbed that’s been converted to a bike path. Ugh, white people and their bike paths!

In a weird way, whenever I read posts like this about the “U.S.”, I always feel like it’s discussing New York or mostly-white cities more than anything. In LA, at least, there are so few places that are still mostly-white (though obviously those places in LA are uber-uber-uber-powerful). And talking about gentrification as if it’s a process of whites encroaching on colored territory seems absurd because the whole city has been in constant flux (although, duh: whites have SERIOUSLY fucked things up the whole way and maybe, just maybe that means I’m doing the same thing, though I don’t find my $555/month going far).

So it’s always weird to rag on whites that haven’t stayed in our white zones. There are so few “white zones” left in LA (unless you count “Tehrangeles” or orthodox Jewish neighborhoods, also on the wealthier Westside, I might point out, where traffic is horrendous), at least, it’s absurd to expect whites to stay in their own privileged territory and pay extra, because, while right now, they’re paying rent on credit cards, one day, they’ll be able to cash in their skin color for a better paying job as a publicist or consultant.

Whatever, dude. Anti-gentrification folks should worry about lobbying for affordable housing, rent control, better transportation (so the maid from Baldwin Park doesn’t have to spend 3 hours getting to Brentwood) and more jobs, because we have so little of that in LA and it’s not the white folks moving in who are doing that — it’s the self-satisfied Democrats who run the city (with the developers’ donations) on quasi-liberal principles and are never, ever challenged.

That’s right! Support your local paper!

-print journalist gone the way of the dodo

Posted 15 May 2009 at 4:55 am ¶
apaperbackwriter wrote:

Oh, yes, and I realize that I’m responding to commenters more than the post. Also, my copyeditor has been outsourced, so please excuse the excised words, typos and “creative” punctuation. Much love Racialicious.

Posted 15 May 2009 at 4:59 am ¶