Gentrification (1964- ) is where a poor neighbourhood in the city turns into a well-to-do one. Not because the people living there are doing better, but because well-to-do people are moving in.
It causes a good deal of bitterness: while the neighbourhoods do become safer and better, the rents and taxes also go up. That means the people who have lived there all their lives are forced out, one by one, one way or the other. So are small businesses.
Some point to studies showing that the poor stay on. Some do for a time, but not forever: Park Avenue and 52nd Street in Midtown Manhattan are no longer poor neighbourhoods. Neither are Greenwich Village, the West 90s or Park Slope, places in New York that were poor within living memory.
So gentrification often becomes the rich against the poor. And in America that can mean whites against blacks or whites against Hispanics. But not always: in Harlem the gentrification is largely black-on-black.
In the 1950s and 1960s whites in America left the cities in large numbers and moved to the suburbs. The black middle-class soon followed. Factories left too, going to places with cheaper labour, like East Asia. The cities became poor and violent and began to fall apart.
But starting in the 1970s the middle-class started moving back. At first it was just the brave few: artists, students, gays and bohemians.
Their money – or their parents’ money – followed them and the neighbourhoods started to get better. More to the point, they became hip and fashionable. That brought in others, those with less courage but more money. That in turn pushed out the poor – and the bohemians too – as the place gentrified: new apartments went up, upmarket shops began to appear. In time you had to be a doctor, a lawyer or a banker to afford to live there – and the place becomes quiet and boring.
In the meantime the bohemians have moved on to another neighbourhood and the process starts all over again.
Knowing this some city governments and land developers try to draw artists to their city hoping to jump-start gentrification and make a mountain of money. But sometimes city governments simply pour in their own money, offer tax breaks and cross their fingers.
Gentrification means more tax money for city governments – and huge profits for land developers. The price of apartments in Harlem, for example, nearly doubled in 2007. Yet 20 years ago owners were giving them up to the city as a lost cause.
There have been several studies on gentrification. Most of the ones I have read about argue that it is not so bad for the poor after all. One of those studies was done at Columbia University, which stands to gain hugely from the gentrification of Harlem. But, so far as I know, no one has studied what becomes of all those poor people who once lived where the Starbucks now stands.
See also:
- The gentrification of Harlem – a future post
- black ghetto
- New York
- white flight
- West 109th Street in 1987
Williamsburg, Brooklyn for example.
LikeLike
from the other day:
” Roger: this is how your argument seems to me: whites leave the inner city and let it fall to pieces and then they blame the consequences of that – crime, dropout rates and so on – as an excuse for letting it fall to pieces. ”
” Agabond: I said essentially the same in my post — white flight, at least its first post-WWI wave, predated the descent of the urban core into poverty and crime. In fact, white flight was a catalyst for this descent. ”
todays column: ” In the 1950s and 1960s whites in America left the cities in large numbers and moved to the suburbs. The black middle-class soon followed. Factories left too, going to places with cheaper labour, like the Far East. The cities became poor and violent and began to fall apart. ”
listen to what you are saying here. you are saying that without whites and middle class blacks being present to: supervise, model behaviour, guide, and cultivate the abandoned inner city population, the inner city environment becomes poor and violent.
what you are describing is class struggle.
only a racist would describe white flight in terms of failing to administer to a permanent custodial class. the white mans burden.
on the other hand if your perspective is that all whites without fail, without exception, regardless of intelligence, manner, upbringing, intent, education are all racist to the core, then the equation works for you.
LikeLike
Gentrification is an organic process. One cannot place a moral label on it. It would be akin to placing a moral judgment on the growth of a forest. The term “gentrification” describes a phenomenon that is the result of many independent, individual decisions, each made for widely divergent and individual reasons.
Though it is true that the poor tend to be displaced by gentrification, that’s simply a reality of a market economy. The answer is not to decry the process of gentrification or, heaven forbid, attempt to legislate it (as San Francisco and Berkeley have repeatedly tried to do, to disastrous long term result). Rather, if you believe it is the resonsibility of the body public to address the displacement aspect of gentrification (which, by the way, I do not), the answer is to devote public funds to creating and fostering stable housing for the poor.
By the way, there is nothing wrong with developers profiting from gentrification. We live in a market economy. I’ve not yet seen a successful example of any less bad way of organizing human enterprise. Developers are business people who take on enormous risk. Risk, as we know, is related to reward. Sometimes, a developer who takes on such risk will earn a profit. Sometimes, the developer will lose everything he has. That’s the way it should work.
Rog: I’m not quite sure what your point is. It’s well documented that post-WWII white flight was motivated in part by a desire by whites to not live in proximity to blacks. There were economic motivators as well, though, as I noted in another thread, those economics were in part artificially created by governmental policies intended to foster an automobile-based economy. One result of that policy was the reality that suburban residents receive, via roads and other services whose costs exceed the suburban tax base, tax-funded welfare.
Urban gentrification is a more recent phenomenon. It is the other side of the natural swing of the pendulum in economies of this nature. At some point, the cumulative “cost” of living further and further from the city center — “cost” measure by time lost to commuting, gas prices, parking, loss of opportunity, etc. — exceeds the “cost” of living in the city center — the “cost” there being the perceived exposure to higher risk of crime, the lower quality schools, the various noises and odors that come with urban living, etc. When that happens, people from the suburbs will begin re-populating urban core neighborhoods.
LikeLike
” Though it is true that the poor tend to be displaced by gentrification, that’s simply a reality of a market economy. The answer is not to decry the process of gentrification or, heaven forbid, attempt to legislate it (as San Francisco and Berkeley have repeatedly tried to do, to disastrous long term result). ”
i tend to agree.
LikeLike
when the argument is made that white flight (in itself a loaded term) is the catalyst for the decent of the inner city or other neighborhoods into ghetto status, i would respond by saying that the motivating factor here is class not race that motivates those of relative substance to leave the violence and decay of the inner city.
” Whites think ghettos are dangerous because the people there are poor and black. What they forget is that the police are not all that interested in protecting the lives and property of poor black people. Not as interested as they are in protecting rich white people or even not-all-that-rich white people. They will even protect white foreigners over black Americans. I have seen it with my own eyes. ”
its fine to see it with ones own eyes. tell me that what you see with your own eyes is racism by an inherently, incurable, irredeemable, racist white population and not class struggle in action.
the operation here is not aversion to blacks but rather segregation by class.
LikeLike
” It’s well documented that post-WWII white flight was motivated in part by a desire by whites to not live in proximity to blacks. ”
if the statement is qualified by “in part” then my response is that lots of actions are taken by in part motives, many of which are simply not racist in nature.
this view is not what we find however on this blog.
LikeLike
Roger: I also feel that Agabond harbors a distorted view of white people as abject racists. I have commented on that point here in the past.
However, I’m not quite sure where you’re going with your posts here. Are you suggesting that high levels of crime and poverty are inextricably linked to populations of black Americans? That the presence of whites is what defines whether or not a neighborhood or community will be functional?
The ghettos in our cities were created by a confluence of factors, including white flight, the widespread use of racial restrictive covenants and, later, after they were made illegal, de facto racial steering and exclusion and, in my mind most significant, the practice of urban renewal, through which nascent, tightly-knit black working class neighborhoods were razed and in their place human warehouses were erected and then forcibly populated by drug users, prostitutes, criminals and others who had been excluded from those black neighborhoods. This process is well documented in this book:
http://www.alibris.com/search/books/isbn/1885942516
As mentioned in other posts, it is well documented that a significant factor in white flight was that whites did not want to live around blacks. Levitt himself discussed this quite often in defending his use of racially restrictive covenants in the deeds for his development. Other factors included:
(a) the availability of inexpensive housing located near plentiful blue collar work,
(b) the sense of space, of having a “little bit of country” in one’s home, and
(c) perhaps most significant, the manner in which the suburban lifestyle meshed with our nation’s growing love affair with the automobile.
However, none of these latter factors explain why most American suburbs have remained almost purely white. Certainly there were many blacks also interested in these same things. The most logical explanation for this fact is racial exclusion.
LikeLike
” Are you suggesting that high levels of crime and poverty are inextricably linked to populations of black Americans? That the presence of whites is what defines whether or not a neighborhood or community will be functional? ”
im suggesting that the motive for persons leaving high crime areas be that the inner city or otherwise is a function of class not race.
the patience gromes work looks enticing.
i dont see where we have referenced levitt.
LikeLike
i am further suggesting that if the collapse of the inner city is described as occurring after whites begin to migrate out of the inner city, and no other explanation is provided, the implication that a person would logically come to is that the black population depends excessively upon whites to sustain it. this view that a custodial, dependent class exists and is dependent upon whites which have abandoned them and thereby whites have created the collapse by their absence is a viewpoint i do not share. there will always be class and economic explanations for the collapse of an environment separate from charges of racism.
at the same time i do not by any stretch of the imagination conclude that racism does not exist. that racism alone, predominantly and primarily would drive large numbers of persons of all strata of racial conscience from the inner city is a viewpoint which seems implausible.
LikeLike
It is a class issue AND a race issue.
LikeLike
Levitt is the developer of Levittown, referenced in an earlier post. Levittown was the first real suburb. Most of its buyers were funded by GI assistance given to returning WWII vets. A hallmark of Levittown was its use of racially restrictive covenants in its deeds. Levitt himself defended this publicly, both in the press and in the courts, saying, and I paraphrase: “I personally would like to see a day when whites and blacks can live together in peace, but the reality of my market is that white people don’t want to live around black people. I use these covenants because it’s what my market wants. I’m a businessman trying to make money. These covenants improve my bottom line.”
LikeLike
My question is this: If economics and “escape violence” were the sole motivators of population movement from the cities to the suburbs during the period 1950-1970, why were the suburbs developed and populated during that period so uniformly lily white? Black people certainly had those same motivators in their lives, even moreso in the case of the “escape from violence” motivator.
LikeLike
there is undoubtedly racism and the levitt covenants which you describe are indeed racist. levittown was a subject that i was not previously familiar with and i intend to do some research.
lets be careful however and avoid the assumption that all the suburbs are lily white and that segregation is entirely an enforced dynamic.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_flight
” Calling such movement “flight” obscures the pattern that populations repeatedly change throughout metropolitan areas that attract continuing waves of migrants or immigrants, and change as a result of job movement. In his “After the Fact” (1995), the anthropologist Clifford Geertz documented similar changes in a city in Morocco. Poor rural migrants moved into the center city, and the older, more established and wealthier populations moved to the outskirts. “
LikeLike
Most suburban whites live in neighbourhoods that are less than 1% black. That in a country where the middle-class is 9% black. Race can account for that – white flight, racial steering and so on – but class cannot.
Occam’s Razor says that the simplest explanation that can account for the facts is most likely the right one.
LikeLike
Market forces do not wash away sins. Market forces, for example, gave us the Atlantic slave trade. Any action by humans has a moral element to it.
LikeLike
When I say white Americans are racist I do not mean they want to join the Klan. I mean it shapes how they see the world, which in turn informs their decisions about things – like where to live. It is not the only thing that shapes their outlook and decision-making, but it is certainly part of it.
One of the ways racism shapes white thinking is how they try to avoid race as a reason for what goes on in American society. Like what roger is doing in this thread (assuming he is not merely playing devil’s advocate).
More on this sort of racism here:
LikeLike
Roger: I did not do a post on Levittown, yet, but I did refer to it in a post on sundown towns:
As noted there, Levitt said: “If we sell one house to a Negro family, then 90 to 95 percent of our white customers will not buy.”
LikeLike
I am not assuming that blacks need whites to run their affairs. The reason cities fell apart is not because of a lack of white people, but a lack of money and because of racism on the part of city government. For more on that, see my post on black ghettos:
LikeLike
I don’t see why some people are trying to change the topic to something else, it is a race issue more so than a class issue. The class issue of it which is the definition of gentrification is a front in a way. I have seen this process and its not surprising that the people being kicked out are blacks and hispanics and the people coming in are whites. when whites fled to create surburbs they took a lot of the jobs with them. Its not surprising that the moment a person of color moves into an all white neighborhood, the property value goes down.
LikeLike
I was just watching a story on Aljazeera today about this……..and it was very depressing. Basically Detroit is being bought out (Flipping houses) and New Orleans will probably no longer have black residents all together. Thanks to the “new” residents coming in after the reconstruction, which are coming in herds and the expense living costs are rising, making it harder for the older residents to stay. If they leave(Black people) the history/culture dies with them AND they know this too, but there is nothing they can do.
-When I can, I will try to post a link about this on here. (Don’t know why the news didn’t put the clip on the website)
Man, black people better wake up. It’s happening all over the states and we keep getting pushed back further AND further away from our homes. It’s happening in New York, New Jersey and now Detroit, Chicago, New Orleans, but I predicted this would happen. As soon as the area(Thanks to shotty politicians/police) is out of funding/resources….it is now the “Ghetto”. And instead of trying to help stimulate the economics, they would rather it become a wasteland, so bad that most of the black residents are either dead in ground, locked up or bounced completely. And when that happens, everyone is racing around for grabs trying to turn a profit. Sick
Now I don’t have a problem with whites moving into a predominant minority area, it’s just the fact that once they move in, they try to kick everyone else out and somehow the area is no longer “mixed” by tactics. Money being one of them.
This trend is happening too FAST, strangely.
LikeLike
OMG, I meant to say the news station is Al Jazeera, I always keep misspelling the words! LOL
LikeLike
I want to ask Very True
And this is because … ?
So, should a clever person try to engage in blockbusting to make a quick buck? It is this very belief that they are counting on.
LikeLike
I have lived in neighborhoods that were blockbusted. I also lived in neighborhoods that were being gentrified.
I saw how they got people to leave in both owner-occupied and rental housing during blockbusting. I saw how they got rental residents to leave during gentrification. But I do not know how they got the owner-occupied housing to change hands exactly.
Actually, I did see it happen in Capitol Hill, DC. Some of the neighborhoods that were 70-80% black 40 years ago are now 70% white. I think the value of the houses went up so high that some residents were tempted to cash in. Is there any other way to get owners to sell?
The ideal way to cash in would be to buy a semi-dilapidated apartment building or old industrial building with tenants in an area that is slated to be gentrified in a few years. After a few years, when neighboring streets are being gentrified, do an innocuous property improvement (ie, one that will be needed for gentrification, but doesn’t cost very much) and suddenly raise the rents to levels that none of the tenants can afford. You get them to leave within a couple months. then do some real renovation and sell units as a condominium.
LikeLike
How would you envision an ideal scenario? White flight is harmful as is gentrification. Companies won’t invest in an area unless they stand to make money. I understand why deceitful manipulation of the community is despicable, but hate the idea that group A can’t survive without group B. Not everyone is willing to stay in one place and although I don’t have kids, I wouldn’t stay in a declining community as a personal sacrifice to try to draw it back up. I ask for your opinions respectfully, it’s a complex problem.
LikeLike
The gentrification of Harlem – a future post
You really suck. You know that?
LikeLike
“How Punitive and Racist Policing Enforces Gentrification in San Francisco”
http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/30392-how-punitive-and-racist-policing-enforces-gentrification-in-san-francisco
“Landlords, developers and speculators work in tandem with police to effectively kick out marginalized communities, both through direct strategies and by making them feel unwelcome. By harshly cracking down on petty offenses, enforcing evictions and disproportionately incarcerating and killing people of color, the criminal legal system fuels gentrification.”
LikeLike
To Speak Out:
“Landlords, developers and speculators work in tandem with police to effectively kick out marginalized communities, both through direct strategies and by making them feel unwelcome. By harshly cracking down on petty offenses, enforcing evictions and disproportionately incarcerating and killing people of color, the criminal legal system fuels gentrification.”
San Francisco is a very expensive city… from my direct experience with SF landlords.. if ones rent is substantially below market then you are likely a target for eviction regardless of race (areas that have a high percentage of whites are preferred because the areas are considered more desirable to live). Note also that the percentage of Latinos and Asians in San Francisco has increased in the last 25 years whereas the percentage of non-Hispanic whites have decreased. SF real estate is all about the Benjamins.
LikeLike
“…some city governments and land developers try to draw artists to their city hoping to jump-start gentrification and make a mountain of money.”
I saw that process first hand in Cleveland, OH and in Seattle, WA. Young artists would move to a poor or neglected area for cheap rents, spruce it up, open studios, galleries nightclubs and boutique shops. Yuppies, techies and finally bankers would follow——-drawn by the excitement of the art and music scene.
The original poor and working class residents and the artists/musicians would be priced out of the neighborhood. The artists and musicians would move on to another part of town and the process repeated. The original poor and working class residents were often forced out of the city altogether. I remember one resident of Cleveland’s Little Italy describing artists as the “kiss of death” for a working class neighborhood because they were always followed by bankers and price gouging landlords.
LikeLike
It’s happening in Detroit. Slowly but surely.
LikeLike