The Myth of Gentrification
slate.com
slate.com
"It started in Soho, then moved to Chelsea and the East Village"
As someone very familiar with these areas I can tell you this is wrong and inaccurate. The art scene in 80's become very hot in the East Village and the galleries moved out of the storefront galleries to SOHO because there was larger space there. When they were priced out of SOHO, the galleries moved to Chelsea.
Why is this important? Namely because it shows that the author's glaring disregard for basic fact checking and attention detail. Two qualities you might think that are important in writing a piece that deal with demography and statistics. To me this makes the whole piece suspect.
The pieces then goes on to site data that is now 25 years old?
"Sharkey took a close look at black neighborhoods that saw significant changes to their ethnic composition between 1970 and 1990."
Gentrification and Hyper gentrification are something that has become something of a phenomenon in the last 10 years or so. The author then goes on to site a study that is now 11 years old:
"In 2004, Columbia University economists Lance Freeman and Frank Braconi conducted a similar study of gentrification in New York City in the 1990s"
Then the authors drops this nugget:
"If gentrification occurs so infrequently—and if it may help rather than hurt existing residents—why are so many people so upset about it? ?"
Huh? Nice bit of editorializing there.
Journalism like this is dangerous as it is little more than a policy piece disguised(not very well) as real actual journalism.
As tired as I am on the ubiquitous gentrification conversation. I have also watched it unfold first hand in three different places I have lived. I doubt that I have somehow imagined this phenomenon.
Fact is gentrification is being researched for more than fifty years and it's ok to cite 10 year old research. Because the whole theory builds upon these studies and it might still take some years before enough data is available to cross-examine newer studies.
So, citing something that says "no evidence of displacement" is questionable when there is plenty of evidence that people are currently being displaced.
There is plenty of more reason data that could be referenced.
What theory? There was no theory posited in this piece.
I have no idea what Google scholar nor do I see why the is relevant. If you type the two words in to Google search there will be no shortage of results.
"McKinnish and her colleagues found that gentrification created neighborhoods that were attractive to minority households, particularly households with children or elderly homeowners. They found no evidence of displacement or harm. While most of the income gains in these neighborhoods went to white college graduates under the age of 40 (the archetypical gentrifiers), black high school graduates also saw their incomes rise. They also were more likely to stay put. In short, black households with high school degrees seemed to benefit from gentrification."
And while people, including myself before reading the article, think of gentrification as a widespread phenomenon that is happening all over the US, it's actually only happening in three cities: New York, Chicago, and Washington.
Another way of looking at the point: "gentrification" is more than just the arrival of affluent people to a previously poor neighborhood. "Gentrification" also refers to the cultural changes that come to a neighborhood as a result of an influx of more affluent residents. The latter can happen (infrequently) without the former.
Of course, this doesn't mean that gentrification is necessarily bad. It may be that the improvements to safety, material wealth, etc. that often come with gentrification are worth the trade-off.
The article does seem to be trying to imply that, but I don't think the census data they cite support such a strong conclusion.
"just three cities—New York, Chicago, and Washington—accounted for one-third of all census tracts that saw poverty rates decline from above 30 percent in 1970 to below 15 percent in 2010"
The criteria and timing seem to suggest that we're looking at neighborhoods that were done gentrifying by 2010. Neighborhoods currently undergoing gentrification could be much more widespread.
And because of their size and demographics, those three cities would account for a large chunk of gentrification even if every single impoverished neighborhood in the US were to gentrify. https://xkcd.com/1138/
Finally I think the authors last point is important and overlooked in most online discussions of this 12 month old article: Gentrification has become a middle-class fear and does not help to address the problems of the poor. A discussion about rent subsidies would.
"If gentrification occurs so infrequently—and if it may help rather than hurt
existing residents—why are so many people so upset about it? ?"
Huh? Nice bit of editorializing there.
Yes, the studies quoted are "old", but they are also highly valuable, because they come on the coat-tails of a major decline in the quality of life of ethnic communities in inner cities (read: crack epidemic). This time period is when gentrification would have begun to increase in earnest in many metro areas, and so the study has value. The last 10 years gentrification may have become more visible, but that isn't to say it didn't exist before then, or that the last 10 years were a flash point.
Another interesting study was between 1970 and 1990. This was a critical time in many metro areas, as the wave of whites fleeing instability post-MLK riots in '68 emptied out the cities, crushing the local economy, but also making it more affordable for latinos to move in, which then saw an upswing in opportunities for low-income black neighborhoods. Again, just because the study was old doesn't make it invalid.
Anyone familiar with living in an area with rapidly increasing rent should understand the results here: people move between neighborhoods at generally equal rates all things being equal. In a gentrifying situation, people of less means will try to stay longer because they know they won't be able to get back in later and enjoy the same safety, amenities, etc. Rent control helps with this.
But when they choose or are forced to move, the people coming in to replace them are higher-income, as opposed to people in the same income bracket, which this article doesn't address.
The way the article analyzes the situation, two working-class neighborhoods exchanging 50% of their low-income population are experiencing more "gentrification" than a neighborhood where 10% of low-income people are replaced by high-income people every year. I don't think anybody thinks of that result as a reasonable measure of gentrification.
Source?
> In a gentrifying situation, people of less means will try to stay longer because they know they won't be able to get back in later and enjoy the same safety, amenities, etc
What poor black inner-city neighborhood are you living in that has better safety and amenities than the county surrounding it? People don't want to move because they just don't want to move, and they already had a house paid for, probably for more than a generation.
> But when they choose or are forced to move, the people coming in to replace them are higher-income, as opposed to people in the same income bracket, which this article doesn't address.
Again: Source? In a lot of neighborhoods in my city, people may have chosen or been forced moved out, but nobody ever moved in. Your generalization doesn't work for all cases.
> two working-class neighborhoods exchanging 50% of their low-income population
What neighborhood is this? Working class people don't just move around to the next neighborhood all the time. They buy a house and stay put; that's the whole idea behind the fantasy of the American dream and the working class.
a priori. lsy is constructing a model. The foundation of the model is equilibrium. They're going out of their way to highlight the things that are out of equilibrium to explain why people might move for other than random reasons.
Imagine a world with only two cities easterland and westerville. If crime, safety, amenities, economy is the same, people are going to bounce around for random reasons. maybe bobby got into westerville state. mabye sue wants to be closer to his family. by the law of large numbers, those random fluctuations are going to balance out. There is no threat of godzilla attacking esterland, thus causing mass exodus to westerland.
> Again: Source?
if you accept equilibrium, then clearly things can go out of balance in two ways. Demand going up, or demand going down. lsy isn't trying to explain all cases, lsy is explaining the demand going up case.
> Your generalization doesn't work for all cases.
Yes, but all cases is not the issue at hand. The issue at hand is what happens when demand goes up.
You have my sympathies that your neighborhoods are turning into ghost towns. It seems like you have a different problem that's clouding your thinking about the demand going up case, because they're related, but different.
I live in a pretty nice neighbourhood of Amsterdam. 15 years ago, when I moved here, my uncle (who is a cop) warned me not to live here because of all the crime (though the neighbourhood where he lives has a worse reputation). The population at the time was a decent mix. Lots of ethnic minorities, but also students and probably middle class families along the edges.
During the past 15 years, loads of new restaurants have opened here, there's a small movie theatre, the dodgy-looking call shops and phone shops have disappeared, the snack bar that changed ownership every year has now turned into a fancy wine bar. Some old buildings have been turn down and replaced, others have been renovated. Generally, this seems to me like a great example of gentrification.
And I'm sure housing prices are rising, and I don't doubt the new and renovated buildings are more expensive than the older ones. But the population doesn't seem to have changed all that much. Maybe there are more affluent white people now, but I still see kids from a variety of ethnic backgrounds play in the streets (though I don't see groups of adolescents and young adults hang around the square where that dodgy snack bar used to be), and there are still plenty of Turkish shops (though some have closed, sometimes to be replaced by a new Turkish shop, sometimes not).
I don't know how many people have been forced out due to the gentrification. They include my brother-in-law, who had lived there for ages until his house was to be renovated. But for the most part, the population doesn't seem to have changed much, and the neighbourhood seems to be more vibrant, more stuff to do, less need to go to the center of the city if you want to go out.
So if this is gentrification, my impression of it is pretty positive, though I don't have any stats to back it up. Of course with those people who hung around on that square, I have no idea who they are or where they are now. It feels safer, but that might be subconscious racism talking.
Who is going to staff those restaurants (and other low-wage services) when the housing prices are so high that it isn't realistically possible to find a rent (forget a mortgage) low enough to be affordable for someone making those low wages?
This is made worse in places like south-bay/SF area where the private busing and 2nd/"weekend" apartments further distort local taxing/etc and drive prices up even further.
> I don't know how many people have been forced out due to the gentrification.
That depends on a lot, but when money is involved, there are lots of creative ways people can be forced out. Zoning laws and other "fees" are common. If renting is involved, buying out the landlord and raising the rates on the tenants (sometimes to unreasonable levels designed to not be paid) is a popular move.
> Generally, this seems to me like a great example of gentrification.
From your description, that sounds like an example of how a town or city should be maintained. There is a difference between rising housing prices from normal inflation and gentrification.
I live near DC. Gentrification in the city is almost always wealthy whites displacing poor blacks. There is very much an us-vs-them feeling among those that are being displaced.
One ridiculous effect of the gentrification... Historically black churches in the downtown areas now have congregations that have been displaced and commute from the suburbs to attend services. This causes all sorts of problems with parking that didn't exist when the congregation lived in the neighborhood.
This in turn causes conflict with new residents, who want to add bike lanes. The congregation doesn't like that because it would reduce on-street parking.
One can easily imagine the bike lanes being used as stealth exclusionary devices, which depresses me as I would rather see them as empowering people through better urban transportation.
That would be "redlining", another very despicable tactic used to keep cities segregated.
If you haven't read it, Ta-Nehisi Coates impressive essay on the subject is worth a read.
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/06/the-case...
The city was a pretty extreme example of white flight for much of the 20th century, and the gentrification process over the past couple of decades has been just as extreme. As a result, you have expensive condos going up in historically black neighborhoods like the Old Fourth Ward (where MLK Jr. grew up).
In any case, in Amsterdam there's a pretty hard limit to how much rent can be increased, particularly for existing tenants. If landlords are free to set rent to whatever they like, it's easy to see how that could lead to all sorts of terrible situations.
In any case, I think a mixed neighbourhood like the one I live in is pretty much the ideal. The mix of high and low incomes means there's money to pay for jobs in shops and restaurants, and people to fill those jobs. According to the article, it also means that it's easier for those at the bottom to find better jobs.
Of course attempts to intentionally drive people away are terrible and should be stopped, but my impression was that gentrification was more subtle than that.
In some neighborhoods, it truly is a campaign to drive out the existing residents ("orchestrated a campaign of 'polite harassment' / "bought out tenants apartments from their landlords")
http://www.mlive.com/news/grand-rapids/index.ssf/2011/04/nei...
No, it's not. I'm not a landlord, but the logic is pretty simple: if the market rate is $1k/mo and I charge twice that, nobody will sign a lease and I make $0. If I charge $1,250 I might very well get someone. Why should I be forced to rent for $1k or $1,050 or something just because last year the person happened to be paying me $1,000/mo?
There should be plenty of notice if a landlord intends to raise the rent on an existing tenant (I don't think even 6 months is onerous on the landlord), but if I want to double rent that should be my prerogative.
To be clear, doubling someone's rent to $2k because they're a minority so they leave then renting to someone else for $1,100 who isn't a minority is a specific thing[0], and it is and should be illegal (in the US). I'm not talking about that.
(I'm ignoring racial and otherwise illegal practices in this post, which are also a serious problem. Redlining and related issues are huge problems that need to be addressed if we want to have healthy cities.)
The problems (gentrification) start when the market rate is actually something like $2k/mo or even higher due to popularity and limited space.
It would probably be fine if that rate was due to simple inflation, as the ability to afford rents at these higher rates would have similarly increased. This could even be an acceptable local effect if local wages kept up with local cost of living.
However, in popular big cities, wages have not kept up, so if rents are allowed to rise to the market rate everywhere in the city, the entire poorer end of the population - who are necessary for any city to function properly - tend to end up displaced.
In theory this could probably be addressed by proper zoning. Allowing some high-end expensive housing is fine; it just needs to be balanced with an appropriate[1] amount zoning for lower-income housing. I fear this could be another area that is easily abused for both social class or racial purposes, but that's probably a problem regardless.
Other areas have addressed these problems with very strong rent control laws.
As cities grow and the population become more dense, these issues will become more common. The answer obviously isn't a pure free market, though I doubt we have invented the best way to regulate these problems. Maybe someone here can direct some innovation to the topic of local government and finding a better way to guarantee the wide variety of people that are needed to run a city are actually able to live in that same city.
[1] I have no idea what amount is "appropriate".
Wages are certainly going to be an issue. As a consumer who lives in a below-average COL area, I won't pay more for (to use a somewhat contrived example) a software product simply because its developers happen to live in SF or NYC, just the same as I'm not going to make the argument that someone in Belarus should be forced to charge me less for development services (though they usually will of their own accord). I think that plus the fact that real estate is very limited in NYC and especially SF means there is definitely an uneven pressure on rents v. wages, even for high skilled, in-demand professionals like software developers. Based on COL alone I'd need an 84.56% raise (according to BankRate) to maintain my standard of living in San Francisco, which isn't even taking into account the higher Federal tax bracket or the 4x higher state income taxes. The math just isn't there, and I imagine it's much the same if slightly less extreme for other metros like NYC, DC, and Chicago.
Isn't this just part of the fact that it's more expensive to live in a city? If you're a waiter or a bartender, you are better off living in a rural of small metro area than NYC or DC. How many people are waiters or bartenders in big cities that aren't doing it for a little extra money or while they're in school?
To your zoning point that's probably the only solution, but that's conceding the point that this is a problem which I'm not prepared to do. What happens to someone who has a $2500/mo mortgage on a property and is told they now cannot charge more than $1800/mo rent because they were rezoned? You're right, I don't think there is a regulatory framework in place to handle this fairly.
Without rent protection, landlords would in many cases more than double rents overnight. That would almost immediately drive out the less well-to-do people, even in the presence of subsidies on rents.
Average Silicon Valley millionaires are being displaced by gentrifying billionaires
http://www.deathandtaxesmag.com/216500/average-silicon-valle...
Problems with the city: White flight happened late (1980s) HIGH transient population. 50% of the school district's child will end the school year at a different school then they started the school year with. Over 90% of the district receives free lunches. So much that 100% of students get a free lunch with a 85% poverty level.
Claims of Gentrification: The population was being moved out of the neighborhood. Did I already state that we have a 50% transient population? How establishing a population that isn't below the poverty line in a city full of beautiful Victorian three story row homes (I love mine) and dozens of mansions moving an established population? Matter of fact the local Occupy Movement camped at our city hall and was protesting. A city with HIGH poverty was a 1% issue????
The conversations were hysterical with Occupy in our city about what they thought was the Gentrification in our city. After having al
I moved here 8 years ago and I love this city and feel like everything is so close to me.
We noticed that people with HIV died less frequently over the time period than people with HIV and stage IV cancer. Therefore, there is no HIV problem.
I guess they are getting the eyeballs the wished for to read through this flame-bait.
Rather than asking, "at what rate do poor people leave a neighborhood?", the question should be, "at what rate to poor people come to a neighborhood?".
The former question above simply does not support the conclusion that gentrification does not force poor people out. Sure, the rate at which poor people leave can fall, but if NO poor people are moving into a neighborhood, they are essentially being forced out.
One interesting thing to note is how racially divided the city is. There are five or six majority white neighborhoods in the city, surrounded by majority black and latino neighborhoods. Those majority white neighborhoods expand a little bit every year - sometimes just becoming more dense, but sometimes the boundaries expand. When that happens it creates a sort of new market - new stores with higher prices, homes converted to apartments with higher than average rent.
At the same time, it also pushes out traditional "black culture" businesses - babershops and hair/nail salons, liquor stores, takeout food, dingy bars. These businesses are the social gathering places for black people in the city, and when they disappear, so does the presence of black people in daily life. There are other issues that come up too, like strained tensions over an increase in (arguably hostile) police activity around majority-white populations. Even as new businesses come into the neighborhood, you don't see an increase in jobs for people who already lived there.
It's easy to see how the people moving in are not there to help the impoverished existing residents. And it is true that rents do gradually increase. But at the same time, crime does reduce, and more money is invested in the local community.
I haven't seen anyone pushed out of their home due to rising rents around Baltimore, mainly because we have so many god damn empty homes. But could it happen in a crowded neighborhood? If they are renting, abso-fucking-lutely; rents have been raising in neighborhoods around here for years, with one landlord turning the building over to another and raising the price.
The question isn't whether this happens, but what happens to the people once they have to move out. Where do they go? Do they have to start at a new school, find a new job? Are they now far away from their families, some of whom they might be supporting, like the elderly or people who need stay at home child care? And can they even afford to move, if their home was multi-generational and they don't have the funds to buy a new one? These are the questions the article doesn't address.
In London take a walk in the inns of fields (compare it to old street) and you will see the massive gap between lawyers and techies.