Gentrification and badly dressed white people
December 1, 2014 6:56 PM Subscribe
Vidal Reyna is a waiter at El Arco Iris, one of Highland Park’s oldest Mexican restaurants, owned by his wife’s family. He grew up here. He says the moment he understood that his neighborhood was becoming a different place happened on a drive with his father. Reyna recalls, 'He turns around and tells me in Spanish, ‘Hay muchos gueros mal vestidos por aqui.’” Loosely translated, that means “around here, there are a lot of badly dressed white people.” In August Marketplace's Wealth & Poverty Desk opened an office in Highland Park, Los Angeles, to get a view of gentrification from their new neighbours.
I heard Marketplace teasing this segment last week and then totally forgot about it on my drive home today. Thanks for the post!
posted by tonycpsu at 7:17 PM on December 1, 2014
posted by tonycpsu at 7:17 PM on December 1, 2014
Yeah, it's something I see every day, and something I'm a part of. KidBlahLaLa now goes to school in this area. As a lifelong Angeleno who grew up on the westside, areas like Eagle Rock, Highland Park, Glassel Park, Atwater Village and the like were just names to me -- places I never went to, for any reason. Now I'm popping into an artisinal cheese shop on Colorado, and googling the best taco truck on York. I want to feel like I'm just contributing to the liveliness of a neighborhood, and that the livlihoods of all Angelenos go up as neighborhoods "improve." What a conflict.
posted by BlahLaLa at 8:02 PM on December 1, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by BlahLaLa at 8:02 PM on December 1, 2014 [1 favorite]
When I read Highland Park I incorrectly assumed it was the one in Dallas and was puzzled by the notion that Highland Park in Dallas could become gentrified.
> Median household income, 2008-2012 $213,194
posted by mulligan at 8:29 PM on December 1, 2014 [2 favorites]
> Median household income, 2008-2012 $213,194
posted by mulligan at 8:29 PM on December 1, 2014 [2 favorites]
Just got home from a wine-and-craft-beer run in this very neighborhood. This morning's latte was from Cafe de Leche (wife keeps saying we need to check out Kitchen Mouse though). Haven't been to Arco Iris, but did drive past it the other night to get to Maximiliano's.
Couple weeks ago I met an urban-planning-minded neighbor at a pop-up coffee shop over a hill from where Marketplace is reporting. Another patron overheard us talking about gentrification, what's wrong with it, and what do you do if you just like a neighborhood and want to move there? She chimed in with how she gets "accused" of gentrifying because of her looks & style of dress, but always retorts with "I'm from here. My roots are here."
I mentioned I'd recently asked another urban-planning minded friend what alternatives there are to "improving" an area without gentrifying. She had responded with what I thought was an interesting idea: investment in new development that includes as a stated (& possibly mandated) goal the hiring of local residents, so that economic gains stay somewhat in the community.
It looks complicated up-close. We are white professional people moving into a traditionally Latino working-class area. We don't want to be gentrifiers. We don't want to push anyone out. We just like it here.
So what is to be done?
posted by univac at 8:41 PM on December 1, 2014
Couple weeks ago I met an urban-planning-minded neighbor at a pop-up coffee shop over a hill from where Marketplace is reporting. Another patron overheard us talking about gentrification, what's wrong with it, and what do you do if you just like a neighborhood and want to move there? She chimed in with how she gets "accused" of gentrifying because of her looks & style of dress, but always retorts with "I'm from here. My roots are here."
I mentioned I'd recently asked another urban-planning minded friend what alternatives there are to "improving" an area without gentrifying. She had responded with what I thought was an interesting idea: investment in new development that includes as a stated (& possibly mandated) goal the hiring of local residents, so that economic gains stay somewhat in the community.
It looks complicated up-close. We are white professional people moving into a traditionally Latino working-class area. We don't want to be gentrifiers. We don't want to push anyone out. We just like it here.
So what is to be done?
posted by univac at 8:41 PM on December 1, 2014
Gentrification isn't something gentrifiers "do". It's a effect over time of market-based pricing for housing in an area where demand outstrips the supply. Some ways to prevent gentrification are to set housing prices by non-market means, increase the supply, or decrease demand through less income disparity. Easier said than done.
posted by the jam at 9:29 PM on December 1, 2014 [13 favorites]
posted by the jam at 9:29 PM on December 1, 2014 [13 favorites]
We don't want to push anyone out. We just like it here.
I was thinking about this the other day, and I landed on this idea: If one has the luxury of a choice of where to live and then chooses to move to a location where the people there don't have a choice. They are probably contributing to the overall negative effect on the current population.
That said, as far as selfish decisions go, it is hard to fault someone individually for wanting to live somewhere that makes them happy.
posted by Hicksu at 9:32 PM on December 1, 2014 [5 favorites]
I was thinking about this the other day, and I landed on this idea: If one has the luxury of a choice of where to live and then chooses to move to a location where the people there don't have a choice. They are probably contributing to the overall negative effect on the current population.
That said, as far as selfish decisions go, it is hard to fault someone individually for wanting to live somewhere that makes them happy.
posted by Hicksu at 9:32 PM on December 1, 2014 [5 favorites]
I generally find it difficult to complain about gentrification. It's the problem you generally prefer to have, because the alternative has a lot of suckage that tends to go along with it.
Shit changes. The thing that really bothers me about anti-gentrification sentiments is that there tends to be a lot of weird classism and sense of entitlement that floating around, dressed up with good intentions.
The dynamics of gentrification I find fascinating, though. I'm curious when hipsters will discover Pacoima... or Palmdale.
posted by 2N2222 at 10:16 PM on December 1, 2014 [6 favorites]
Shit changes. The thing that really bothers me about anti-gentrification sentiments is that there tends to be a lot of weird classism and sense of entitlement that floating around, dressed up with good intentions.
The dynamics of gentrification I find fascinating, though. I'm curious when hipsters will discover Pacoima... or Palmdale.
posted by 2N2222 at 10:16 PM on December 1, 2014 [6 favorites]
If one has the luxury of a choice of where to live and then chooses to move to a location where the people there don't have a choice.
I'm not sure that's true. Growing up poor, my mother chose a specific neighborhood to live in, among many (low income) neighborhoods. I'm glad she did, it was the best choice available.
If I were to move back to that city, I'd probably choose that neighborhood (and would be saddened if it had gentrified).
posted by el io at 10:37 PM on December 1, 2014
I'm not sure that's true. Growing up poor, my mother chose a specific neighborhood to live in, among many (low income) neighborhoods. I'm glad she did, it was the best choice available.
If I were to move back to that city, I'd probably choose that neighborhood (and would be saddened if it had gentrified).
posted by el io at 10:37 PM on December 1, 2014
Gentrification is calling me, and it's coming from inside the house.
posted by oneironaut at 10:40 PM on December 1, 2014 [5 favorites]
posted by oneironaut at 10:40 PM on December 1, 2014 [5 favorites]
On the plus side, at least we have Detroit. No gentrification going on there. And in the local region, we have the Tenderloin which is delightfully resistant to efforts to "upgrade" the area.
Still, I wonder if there's anything more we can do to prevent the badly dressed white people from moving in. Hmm...Maybe we could try something with zoning laws...
posted by happyroach at 12:03 AM on December 2, 2014
Still, I wonder if there's anything more we can do to prevent the badly dressed white people from moving in. Hmm...Maybe we could try something with zoning laws...
posted by happyroach at 12:03 AM on December 2, 2014
when you get down to it, gentrification is inevitable and/or a moral issue in the same ways capitalism is inevitable and/or a moral issue.
posted by thug unicorn at 12:12 AM on December 2, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by thug unicorn at 12:12 AM on December 2, 2014 [1 favorite]
Malditos chavos, quítense de mi césped.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 12:45 AM on December 2, 2014 [2 favorites]
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 12:45 AM on December 2, 2014 [2 favorites]
This is casually related and involves Portland: Juggalo flyers a response to gentrification? The article doesn't give much information and the only thing I've read since then is that "the juggalos" think it's an FBI false flag. I don't understand what juggalos have to do with gentrification or what their motives could be for this.
Anyway, I've posted about gentrification in Portland on here in the past since I've definitely been in the shoes as one of the gentrifiers, but I never knew it because I had just moved here from the suburbs. When I first moved here 4.5 years ago I lived off of NE 10th & Alberta, which is heavily gentrified, even in the past 4.5 years. I lived in a house show venue with a group of other people and I thought the neighborhood was really neat because I had a grocery co-op, a bike co-op, loads of good restaurants and fantastic Mexican food, food carts, and great bars, and it was all within walking distance or easily bikeable, whereas I had spent the previous 10 years of my life having to drive literally everywhere.
My friends, who're Portland natives, had grown up in this neighborhood for 11 years, back when it was "the ghetto". They said that when they were kids there were only a few shops in the neighborhood and that it was considered a dangerous place to live. It's now turned into one of the hippest streets in Portland.
When I first moved there it seemed like it was in a strange transition. There was gentrification for sure, but it had reached a point where 20-somethings who wanted to do art were able to do so because the rent was affordable enough that if you were 19-years-old and done with your first year of college you could actually live in a house there, whether that meant your parents paying for you or you worked a job. There was a tipping point where trendier places began cropping up a lot faster, which meant more families moved in, which meant your rent increased, which meant you finally had to move out, which was a good thing because having 200 drunk kids who all want to see a great local band or an up-and-coming band with tons of blog hype (we nearly had Best Coast play our basement) perform at a place that wasn't 21+ was undesirable. (I don't want to get into a discussion about the ethics of house show venues, however.)
So I was in a weird spot. I certainly contributed to gentrification in some manner, but not as much as a lot of the trendy places that cropped up, and not as much as the people who moved in to these places. I think the people who moved into a lot of these places contributed more than me because me (and my friends) hung out with the community more regularly and weren't as judgmental about them as a lot of these people were.
Gentrification also has a lot to deal with politics from decades ago, racist laws and events that were race-related from decades past that people are very much still reminded of, and to get priced out of a neighborhood that you and your family and your social circle (whether it's fellow church members or just your neighbors or friends) have lived in for decades by a group of people who don't know or couldn't care less, and benefit from due to social capital and other sociological constructs, must be really infuriating.
posted by gucci mane at 1:50 AM on December 2, 2014 [1 favorite]
Anyway, I've posted about gentrification in Portland on here in the past since I've definitely been in the shoes as one of the gentrifiers, but I never knew it because I had just moved here from the suburbs. When I first moved here 4.5 years ago I lived off of NE 10th & Alberta, which is heavily gentrified, even in the past 4.5 years. I lived in a house show venue with a group of other people and I thought the neighborhood was really neat because I had a grocery co-op, a bike co-op, loads of good restaurants and fantastic Mexican food, food carts, and great bars, and it was all within walking distance or easily bikeable, whereas I had spent the previous 10 years of my life having to drive literally everywhere.
My friends, who're Portland natives, had grown up in this neighborhood for 11 years, back when it was "the ghetto". They said that when they were kids there were only a few shops in the neighborhood and that it was considered a dangerous place to live. It's now turned into one of the hippest streets in Portland.
When I first moved there it seemed like it was in a strange transition. There was gentrification for sure, but it had reached a point where 20-somethings who wanted to do art were able to do so because the rent was affordable enough that if you were 19-years-old and done with your first year of college you could actually live in a house there, whether that meant your parents paying for you or you worked a job. There was a tipping point where trendier places began cropping up a lot faster, which meant more families moved in, which meant your rent increased, which meant you finally had to move out, which was a good thing because having 200 drunk kids who all want to see a great local band or an up-and-coming band with tons of blog hype (we nearly had Best Coast play our basement) perform at a place that wasn't 21+ was undesirable. (I don't want to get into a discussion about the ethics of house show venues, however.)
So I was in a weird spot. I certainly contributed to gentrification in some manner, but not as much as a lot of the trendy places that cropped up, and not as much as the people who moved in to these places. I think the people who moved into a lot of these places contributed more than me because me (and my friends) hung out with the community more regularly and weren't as judgmental about them as a lot of these people were.
Gentrification also has a lot to deal with politics from decades ago, racist laws and events that were race-related from decades past that people are very much still reminded of, and to get priced out of a neighborhood that you and your family and your social circle (whether it's fellow church members or just your neighbors or friends) have lived in for decades by a group of people who don't know or couldn't care less, and benefit from due to social capital and other sociological constructs, must be really infuriating.
posted by gucci mane at 1:50 AM on December 2, 2014 [1 favorite]
Gentrification sucks but it happens constantly. I think making a political or social decision about where one lives though has just as much impact as "consumer activism" (not very much at all!). People are going to live where they can afford and like. Many white people and people with more money have more of a choice. If a place is considered being gentrified, it's already too late. Your individual moral choice is not going to beat market forces.
If one is concerned about poor people being pushed out of a neighborhood and want your soul absolved or something, get involved with and support some community groups that work with and promote the interests of poor and working class people in that neighborhood.
There's also a difference between living in a poor/people of color neighborhood and being a decent neighbor or one of the awful white swivelheads in Seattle's Central District who constantly call the police on Black youth and crowds outside Black-owned businesses.
On preview: gucci mane, young white kids who read blogs make way for white families and professionals with money. Nothing personal, I am white and a recent kid who reads blogs myself.
posted by Slimemonster at 1:50 AM on December 2, 2014 [3 favorites]
If one is concerned about poor people being pushed out of a neighborhood and want your soul absolved or something, get involved with and support some community groups that work with and promote the interests of poor and working class people in that neighborhood.
There's also a difference between living in a poor/people of color neighborhood and being a decent neighbor or one of the awful white swivelheads in Seattle's Central District who constantly call the police on Black youth and crowds outside Black-owned businesses.
On preview: gucci mane, young white kids who read blogs make way for white families and professionals with money. Nothing personal, I am white and a recent kid who reads blogs myself.
posted by Slimemonster at 1:50 AM on December 2, 2014 [3 favorites]
Punk House > Bike Co-op > Cute Brunch Cafe > Pub > Expensive Thai Food > Doggy Daycare > Wine Bistro with Obnoxious Name
posted by Slimemonster at 1:58 AM on December 2, 2014 [10 favorites]
posted by Slimemonster at 1:58 AM on December 2, 2014 [10 favorites]
I don't read many blogs, I just knew through word-of-mouth that Best Coast was getting popular (she had just played Reed College at this point, so she was still coming up). Maybe I'm just being naive and classist(?) though, but there feels like a difference between some young kids trying to make ends meet in a realistically affordable house and people that are considered "yuppies". And I emphasize "feels" because I don't think there factually is and everyone of us has our privileges.
posted by gucci mane at 2:18 AM on December 2, 2014
posted by gucci mane at 2:18 AM on December 2, 2014
Sorry, not trying to pick on you. I agree there is a total difference, we just make a neighborhood feel "feel safe" for yuppies and others to move in eventually.
posted by Slimemonster at 2:28 AM on December 2, 2014
posted by Slimemonster at 2:28 AM on December 2, 2014
Punk House > Bike Co-op > Cute Brunch Cafe > Pub > Expensive Thai Food
somewhere in there, i think right around cute brunch cafe you're missing the "dive bar that isn't really a long time dive bar, it's just entirely an affectation and opened like 2 months ago"
There's also a difference between living in a poor/people of color neighborhood and being a decent neighbor or one of the awful white swivelheads in Seattle's Central District who constantly call the police on Black youth and crowds outside Black-owned businesses.
Ugh fuck. i swear seattle has some of the worst purse clutching bullshit people. like young family types who move to the CD because "you get so much house for your money!" or rent is cheap or whatever, but are actually like deathly afraid of black people and do shit like this. I've lived down there, and i went to high school down there. And the number of people i talked to who thought it was a SUPER bad neighborhood or were just like, yea, those exact swivelheads you describe always made me groan. People would be like afraid to walk to my house. No one ever believed me that living up on aurora, in white-crime-ville behind motels full of sex workers and tweakers had been 1000x worse on every metric and both felt and was way more dangerous.
But no, brown people are scary. And way too many of the white people who move to that area seem to basically want to hole up in their houses like they're fortresses and just be perpetually terrified of their neighbors. Hell, i barely met any of my white neighbors when i was down there because they would basically just run away from me, a white-enough-looking dude.
I think there's a difference between plain old gentrification, and the gross as fuck weird purse clutching terrified of brown people kind. And the thing is, when it's just mostly white people with more money chasing the "cool" kicking out poorer white people it just feels like market forces. When it's white people with more money kicking out the brown people they seem to be terrified of it feels a hell of a lot more disgusting and problematic.
posted by emptythought at 2:36 AM on December 2, 2014 [10 favorites]
somewhere in there, i think right around cute brunch cafe you're missing the "dive bar that isn't really a long time dive bar, it's just entirely an affectation and opened like 2 months ago"
There's also a difference between living in a poor/people of color neighborhood and being a decent neighbor or one of the awful white swivelheads in Seattle's Central District who constantly call the police on Black youth and crowds outside Black-owned businesses.
Ugh fuck. i swear seattle has some of the worst purse clutching bullshit people. like young family types who move to the CD because "you get so much house for your money!" or rent is cheap or whatever, but are actually like deathly afraid of black people and do shit like this. I've lived down there, and i went to high school down there. And the number of people i talked to who thought it was a SUPER bad neighborhood or were just like, yea, those exact swivelheads you describe always made me groan. People would be like afraid to walk to my house. No one ever believed me that living up on aurora, in white-crime-ville behind motels full of sex workers and tweakers had been 1000x worse on every metric and both felt and was way more dangerous.
But no, brown people are scary. And way too many of the white people who move to that area seem to basically want to hole up in their houses like they're fortresses and just be perpetually terrified of their neighbors. Hell, i barely met any of my white neighbors when i was down there because they would basically just run away from me, a white-enough-looking dude.
I think there's a difference between plain old gentrification, and the gross as fuck weird purse clutching terrified of brown people kind. And the thing is, when it's just mostly white people with more money chasing the "cool" kicking out poorer white people it just feels like market forces. When it's white people with more money kicking out the brown people they seem to be terrified of it feels a hell of a lot more disgusting and problematic.
posted by emptythought at 2:36 AM on December 2, 2014 [10 favorites]
I blame Marc Maron
posted by C.A.S. at 3:14 AM on December 2, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by C.A.S. at 3:14 AM on December 2, 2014 [1 favorite]
Sometimes I'm glad it'll be a cold day in hell before my area is gentrified.
It's just far enough out of the centre of town to resist encroaching student populations, but close enough to keep the wannabe toffs out in the country.
On the other hand, I would love it if gentrification meant that people picked up after their goddamned dogs.
posted by Katemonkey at 3:30 AM on December 2, 2014 [1 favorite]
It's just far enough out of the centre of town to resist encroaching student populations, but close enough to keep the wannabe toffs out in the country.
On the other hand, I would love it if gentrification meant that people picked up after their goddamned dogs.
posted by Katemonkey at 3:30 AM on December 2, 2014 [1 favorite]
Gentrification in my urban-infill neighborhood has been driven by a couple of truly racist, bad-guy developers, who have chosen their creepy allies in the neighborhood association, and coopted or bought off key people in the Planning Dept. It's included direct and indirect assaults on the low-income residents whose history is here. The place is now a crazy quilt of butt-ugly, cheaply done, oversized cookie cutter "beach houses" (we are nowhere near a beach), and rife with lawsuits over shoddy construction.
posted by mmiddle at 4:34 AM on December 2, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by mmiddle at 4:34 AM on December 2, 2014 [1 favorite]
I heard most of the radio piece yesterday while inching along behind some people who were afraid of driving in the snow. It's interesting and well done though hardly groundbreaking; they sounded a little surprised at being called gentrifiers themselves which was funny.
I do think that it is worth separating the clearly bad predatory gentrification (eg "Gentrification in my urban-infill neighborhood has been driven by a couple of truly racist, bad-guy developers, who have chosen their creepy allies in the neighborhood association, and coopted or bought off key people in the Planning Dept.") from a more organic churn and change. There are a lot of problems that come from economic segregation, and creating mixed neighborhoods is going to create some of the aspects of what we are calling gentrification, without necessarily creating all of the ills of the predatory variety.
In residential neighborhoods the easy visual clue that the process has started is to look for small, budget Dwell-esque DIY projects, like using horizontal boards and some corrugated metal in a fence, plus front yard gardens. It takes another decade or so before people move in with the money to actually build a modernist house, but anyone with a can of paint and a few tools can read Apartment Therapy and create a few visual signals of nesting hipsterdom.
My friends, who're Portland natives, had grown up in this neighborhood for 11 years, back when it was "the ghetto"
The first big influx of hipsters was about 20-some years ago, ironically taking advantage of a Clinton-era designation of some kind of special development zone because it was a disadvantaged neighborhood (aka "ghetto," but not exactly the most dangerous place in the country). And as you can tell from the urban fabric, including the quality of some of the houses (which is of course part of what led to that wave of gentrification), that area hasn't always been poor, either.
Areas that are all small and poorly-built post-war tract houses are going to be more resistant to gentrification on the simple basis of aesthetics, compared to a neighborhood with gorgeous old buildings that was the victim of white flight fifty years ago.
posted by Dip Flash at 5:12 AM on December 2, 2014 [3 favorites]
I do think that it is worth separating the clearly bad predatory gentrification (eg "Gentrification in my urban-infill neighborhood has been driven by a couple of truly racist, bad-guy developers, who have chosen their creepy allies in the neighborhood association, and coopted or bought off key people in the Planning Dept.") from a more organic churn and change. There are a lot of problems that come from economic segregation, and creating mixed neighborhoods is going to create some of the aspects of what we are calling gentrification, without necessarily creating all of the ills of the predatory variety.
In residential neighborhoods the easy visual clue that the process has started is to look for small, budget Dwell-esque DIY projects, like using horizontal boards and some corrugated metal in a fence, plus front yard gardens. It takes another decade or so before people move in with the money to actually build a modernist house, but anyone with a can of paint and a few tools can read Apartment Therapy and create a few visual signals of nesting hipsterdom.
My friends, who're Portland natives, had grown up in this neighborhood for 11 years, back when it was "the ghetto"
The first big influx of hipsters was about 20-some years ago, ironically taking advantage of a Clinton-era designation of some kind of special development zone because it was a disadvantaged neighborhood (aka "ghetto," but not exactly the most dangerous place in the country). And as you can tell from the urban fabric, including the quality of some of the houses (which is of course part of what led to that wave of gentrification), that area hasn't always been poor, either.
Areas that are all small and poorly-built post-war tract houses are going to be more resistant to gentrification on the simple basis of aesthetics, compared to a neighborhood with gorgeous old buildings that was the victim of white flight fifty years ago.
posted by Dip Flash at 5:12 AM on December 2, 2014 [3 favorites]
We don't want to be gentrifiers. We don't want to push anyone out.
But it didn't really stop you, right?
posted by Steely-eyed Missile Man at 6:55 AM on December 2, 2014 [1 favorite]
But it didn't really stop you, right?
posted by Steely-eyed Missile Man at 6:55 AM on December 2, 2014 [1 favorite]
Please, someone come put nice things in my neighborhood.
posted by cccorlew at 7:00 AM on December 2, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by cccorlew at 7:00 AM on December 2, 2014 [1 favorite]
I'm interested in urban planning and the reaction against gentrification kind of baffles me. Are people not aware of white flight? Urban decline is a product of intentional abandonment and disinvestment. The ghetto is not something that just happens. If a few white people want to reside and invest in such neighborhoods, that sounds to me like progress. There are also large public policy changes that need to be made but each individual who fixes up a house downtown rather than moving out to the next ring of suburbia is improving things at the margin.
posted by Octaviuz at 7:06 AM on December 2, 2014 [2 favorites]
posted by Octaviuz at 7:06 AM on December 2, 2014 [2 favorites]
The ghetto is not something that just happens. If a few white people want to reside and invest in such neighborhoods, that sounds to me like progress.
It's progress for certain people and in select ways. Ohio had a lot of white flight; here's an article about Cincinnati's Over-the-Rhine which covers some of the problems of gentrification, the struggles, the dueling narratives involved, many of which have been mentioned in this thread. It is not exactly "a few white people" investing in Over-the-Rhine, for instance.
posted by automatic cabinet at 7:32 AM on December 2, 2014
It's progress for certain people and in select ways. Ohio had a lot of white flight; here's an article about Cincinnati's Over-the-Rhine which covers some of the problems of gentrification, the struggles, the dueling narratives involved, many of which have been mentioned in this thread. It is not exactly "a few white people" investing in Over-the-Rhine, for instance.
posted by automatic cabinet at 7:32 AM on December 2, 2014
Self-reflection. If you really didn't want to be gentrifiers, you would choose to live in a neighborhood that isn't being gentrified
It's not really that simple, though. As a single, early/mid career professional, I can't even begin to compete with the dual-income later-career folks who represent my competition for housing, and can afford to pay a lot more. My basic housing options are "pay my entire paycheck in rent to live in an area that was gentrified 40 years ago," and "Pay a reasonable percentage of my paycheck to live in a place that's being gentrified right now."
When you say "choose to live in a neighborhood that isn't being gentrified," you're telling an awful lot of people "Pay more than you can really afford, or leave the city entirely."
posted by Tomorrowful at 8:09 AM on December 2, 2014 [6 favorites]
It's not really that simple, though. As a single, early/mid career professional, I can't even begin to compete with the dual-income later-career folks who represent my competition for housing, and can afford to pay a lot more. My basic housing options are "pay my entire paycheck in rent to live in an area that was gentrified 40 years ago," and "Pay a reasonable percentage of my paycheck to live in a place that's being gentrified right now."
When you say "choose to live in a neighborhood that isn't being gentrified," you're telling an awful lot of people "Pay more than you can really afford, or leave the city entirely."
posted by Tomorrowful at 8:09 AM on December 2, 2014 [6 favorites]
People upthread have already pointed out that it's a collective action problem that no amount of individuals choosing to Do The Right Thing can solve. There are no non-government options to address a problem that results from everyone acting in their own rational self-interest, yet still creating negative externalities against others in the community who get pushed out.
Communities need to implement policies like rent control and inclusive zoning to push against the market forces that enable gentrification, or they will be gentrified. That's not to say simply implementing these policies will prevent any single homeowner from being forced out, but in the aggregate, the only way you slow down the market is to put brakes on it with public policy.
posted by tonycpsu at 8:13 AM on December 2, 2014 [2 favorites]
Communities need to implement policies like rent control and inclusive zoning to push against the market forces that enable gentrification, or they will be gentrified. That's not to say simply implementing these policies will prevent any single homeowner from being forced out, but in the aggregate, the only way you slow down the market is to put brakes on it with public policy.
posted by tonycpsu at 8:13 AM on December 2, 2014 [2 favorites]
How do people who make less money than you afford to live in your city?
They live in neighborhoods that haven't gentrified yet, or are in the process of being gentrified. It's not like the whole place is massively expensive, just that there are a small number of neighborhoods that are now quite expensive and are populated largely by white professionals, and then there are those that used to be lower-income and are now being gentrified.
My point isn't about exact rent costs in specific places - what I'm getting at is that if you insist that people should only live in "not gentrifying" areas, then in many cities you're basically saying that all middle-class people should live in the same places they've always lived, in which case supply and demand kicks in and prices go up even more. Gentrification isn't some active decision, it's an inevitable result of rising housing costs and increased population, especially in a world where NIMBYism is common to already-gentified neighborhoods too, which often resist dense additional development that might allow more people to live in the same neighborhoods.
posted by Tomorrowful at 8:36 AM on December 2, 2014 [1 favorite]
They live in neighborhoods that haven't gentrified yet, or are in the process of being gentrified. It's not like the whole place is massively expensive, just that there are a small number of neighborhoods that are now quite expensive and are populated largely by white professionals, and then there are those that used to be lower-income and are now being gentrified.
My point isn't about exact rent costs in specific places - what I'm getting at is that if you insist that people should only live in "not gentrifying" areas, then in many cities you're basically saying that all middle-class people should live in the same places they've always lived, in which case supply and demand kicks in and prices go up even more. Gentrification isn't some active decision, it's an inevitable result of rising housing costs and increased population, especially in a world where NIMBYism is common to already-gentified neighborhoods too, which often resist dense additional development that might allow more people to live in the same neighborhoods.
posted by Tomorrowful at 8:36 AM on December 2, 2014 [1 favorite]
How do people who make less money than you afford to live in your city?They live in the best neighborhoods, according to their priorities, where they can afford to live, which is the same thing that gentrifiers are doing. That's what I did when I moved to New York in 1996: I moved to 181st Street and Cabrini in Washington Heights because it seemed like a safe neighborhood with a reasonable commute and because with a roommate I could afford a decent apartment there. I don't think my mental calculus was any different from that of any other New Yorker. In retrospect, I was a very early gentrifier, but I had no idea at the time. It never occurred to me that my moving there meant that within five years the Hilltop Diner would be turned into a Starbucks and there would be sushi joints and gourmet food markets and whatnot.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 9:03 AM on December 2, 2014 [3 favorites]
I think the idea is that young professionals should live out in the suburbs or commuter ring towns, leaving the cities to be funky places that the yuppies visit occasionally, deposit money into, and then leave.
Of course 40 years ago, we called that "urban blight", but times and the things we value change.
posted by happyroach at 9:21 AM on December 2, 2014 [3 favorites]
Of course 40 years ago, we called that "urban blight", but times and the things we value change.
posted by happyroach at 9:21 AM on December 2, 2014 [3 favorites]
I can think of few things more insulting than deigning to not to grace a poor neighborhood with my presence because I'm going to raise the property values too much by being there.
posted by michaelh at 9:21 AM on December 2, 2014 [5 favorites]
posted by michaelh at 9:21 AM on December 2, 2014 [5 favorites]
I can think of few things more insulting than deigning to not to grace a poor neighborhood with my presence because I'm going to raise the property values too much by being there.
It doesn't bother you that cities and their housing markets are so incredibly ingrained with racism that this is pretty much true?
posted by bradbane at 10:24 AM on December 2, 2014
It doesn't bother you that cities and their housing markets are so incredibly ingrained with racism that this is pretty much true?
posted by bradbane at 10:24 AM on December 2, 2014
I can think of few things more insulting than deigning to not to grace a poor neighborhood with my presence because I'm going to raise the property values too much by being there.
It doesn't bother you that cities and their housing markets are so incredibly ingrained with racism that this is pretty much true?
That's true and it is precisely why we need racial and economic integration (which are disturbingly collinear in American cities). Wealthier (and whiter) people moving into less advantaged neighborhoods isn't most of the solution, but I dont get how it isn't at least a little piece of it.
posted by Octaviuz at 11:38 AM on December 2, 2014
It doesn't bother you that cities and their housing markets are so incredibly ingrained with racism that this is pretty much true?
That's true and it is precisely why we need racial and economic integration (which are disturbingly collinear in American cities). Wealthier (and whiter) people moving into less advantaged neighborhoods isn't most of the solution, but I dont get how it isn't at least a little piece of it.
posted by Octaviuz at 11:38 AM on December 2, 2014
I don't know why everyone minces around gentrification. It seems to me it is just class warfare. The "less fortunate" don't have capital, (financial, skills, education whatever,) and so have no claim to the place they live. Ultimately the gentrifiers are those who have more. For what ever reasons, (low cost, funkitude, antique aesthetics, commute time) people with means want the space where poorer people live and voila, gentrification.
The reason it is an uncomfortable process is that only dimwits cannot perceive the disparate levels of agency at work, and only dimwits and the truly rich cannot perceive that the same could happen to them. How many people in gentrified neighborhoods who bought in early have said "I couldn't afford to move here today"?
The revolting part of gentrification is the conflation of it and something globally positive. I wish we would just call it resettlement.
posted by Pembquist at 11:54 AM on December 2, 2014 [3 favorites]
The reason it is an uncomfortable process is that only dimwits cannot perceive the disparate levels of agency at work, and only dimwits and the truly rich cannot perceive that the same could happen to them. How many people in gentrified neighborhoods who bought in early have said "I couldn't afford to move here today"?
The revolting part of gentrification is the conflation of it and something globally positive. I wish we would just call it resettlement.
posted by Pembquist at 11:54 AM on December 2, 2014 [3 favorites]
It doesn't bother you that cities and their housing markets are so incredibly ingrained with racism that this is pretty much true?
Sure, but it's talked about no differently than sitting around in Europe/the States deciding "what to do about Africa."
posted by michaelh at 12:37 PM on December 2, 2014
Sure, but it's talked about no differently than sitting around in Europe/the States deciding "what to do about Africa."
posted by michaelh at 12:37 PM on December 2, 2014
just admit that you're part of the gentrification process.
Remember kids, it's OK to gentrify, as long as you feel guilty about it!
It seems to me it is just class warfare.
The solution to remove the class warfare of course, is to ensure that well-off people stay in their neighborhoods, and the poor people stay in theirs. Maybe we could use freeway placement and walls to separate out the neighborhoods?
posted by happyroach at 12:55 PM on December 2, 2014 [2 favorites]
Remember kids, it's OK to gentrify, as long as you feel guilty about it!
It seems to me it is just class warfare.
The solution to remove the class warfare of course, is to ensure that well-off people stay in their neighborhoods, and the poor people stay in theirs. Maybe we could use freeway placement and walls to separate out the neighborhoods?
posted by happyroach at 12:55 PM on December 2, 2014 [2 favorites]
The solution to remove the class warfare of course, is to ensure that well-off people stay in their neighborhoods, and the poor people stay in theirs. Maybe we could use freeway placement and walls to separate out the neighborhoods?
Your suggestion is not a removal of class warfare but is an instantiation of it. I don't believe you can "remove the class warfare." However if you want to address or ameliorate the inequity that attends gentrification you could advocate for something that would positively effect the social position of the poor who have to move involuntarily.
posted by Pembquist at 1:10 PM on December 2, 2014 [1 favorite]
Your suggestion is not a removal of class warfare but is an instantiation of it. I don't believe you can "remove the class warfare." However if you want to address or ameliorate the inequity that attends gentrification you could advocate for something that would positively effect the social position of the poor who have to move involuntarily.
posted by Pembquist at 1:10 PM on December 2, 2014 [1 favorite]
So are 2nd-3rd generation Latinos also gentrifers in Highland Park?
posted by wcfields at 1:12 PM on December 2, 2014
posted by wcfields at 1:12 PM on December 2, 2014
Your suggestion is not a removal of class warfare but is an instantiation of it.
*woosh*
posted by entropicamericana at 1:12 PM on December 2, 2014 [3 favorites]
*woosh*
posted by entropicamericana at 1:12 PM on December 2, 2014 [3 favorites]
The way gentrification discussions invariably have an obsession with consumption, literally-- huge amount of name-checking of trendy restaurants, brunch spots, cafes, and other food-related rituals and establishments-- always makes me think of the Marxist interpretation of vampires. The weak are meat the strong do eat, etc.
posted by moonlight on vermont at 1:40 PM on December 2, 2014
posted by moonlight on vermont at 1:40 PM on December 2, 2014
So are 2nd-3rd generation Latinos also gentrifers in Highland Park?
I would think that that depends on what definition of gentrifier you are using and what those 2nd-3rd generation Latinos are doing. I would say that if there is a problem with gentrification it has less to do with some stereotyped breed of gentrifiers and more to do with an abscence of public policy and an unequal distribution of political power not to mention wealth.
posted by Pembquist at 1:54 PM on December 2, 2014
I would think that that depends on what definition of gentrifier you are using and what those 2nd-3rd generation Latinos are doing. I would say that if there is a problem with gentrification it has less to do with some stereotyped breed of gentrifiers and more to do with an abscence of public policy and an unequal distribution of political power not to mention wealth.
posted by Pembquist at 1:54 PM on December 2, 2014
It is totally ignoring what gentrification actually is to focus on the red herring of group vs. group. Whether the people are moving in are white, whether they like to drink wine, whether they listen to NPR, whether they feel bad, whether they drive a Prius -- all of these things have absolutely zero effect on whether gentrification happens or not.
If you agree that people should be allowed to sell their house / rent their apartments for market rates and you live in an area where demand outstrips the supply, you are agreeing to gentrification. If you don't like gentrification, you might be discovering you don't like capitalism as much as you thought you did.
You can't set up a system with rules that is 100% designed to work this way and then blame the issue on individuals. If you want to stop gentrification, you have to be willing to change the system.
If you're not ready to set housing prices with non-market means, increase the housing supply through non-market means, or find a way to flatten income inequality, then the only way to stop gentrification is to sit outside the city limits and make sure no one new moves in.
posted by the jam at 2:52 PM on December 2, 2014 [9 favorites]
If you agree that people should be allowed to sell their house / rent their apartments for market rates and you live in an area where demand outstrips the supply, you are agreeing to gentrification. If you don't like gentrification, you might be discovering you don't like capitalism as much as you thought you did.
You can't set up a system with rules that is 100% designed to work this way and then blame the issue on individuals. If you want to stop gentrification, you have to be willing to change the system.
If you're not ready to set housing prices with non-market means, increase the housing supply through non-market means, or find a way to flatten income inequality, then the only way to stop gentrification is to sit outside the city limits and make sure no one new moves in.
posted by the jam at 2:52 PM on December 2, 2014 [9 favorites]
in the aggregate, the only way you slow down the market is to put brakes on it with public policy.
This needs to be repeated a million times over. There are a bunch of disadvantages to having economically segregated communities, and a lot of advantages to having things be economically more mixed. But currently you mostly get that during the mid-point of gentrification, and the policy incentives push towards segregation.
posted by Dip Flash at 4:22 PM on December 2, 2014 [2 favorites]
This needs to be repeated a million times over. There are a bunch of disadvantages to having economically segregated communities, and a lot of advantages to having things be economically more mixed. But currently you mostly get that during the mid-point of gentrification, and the policy incentives push towards segregation.
posted by Dip Flash at 4:22 PM on December 2, 2014 [2 favorites]
23skidoo: 1) be honest that there really are other places to live, because not every area is in the midst of the process of being gentrified,
Yo i realize we could split hairs all day here, but this actually _is_ kind of the case in seattle right now since there's such a housing crunch. Even if you're willing to go relatively far outside of town, to the areas where only one commuter bus cuts through the main part and it adds ~30 minutes to your commute with traffic... the rents are now the same. My friend pays exactly the same price as i do, in the middle of town, for a similarly sized one bedroom that's way out there and by all measurements should be significantly cheaper.
There's nice and less nice parts of town, and it's interesting to me to watch the crappy-but-white areas not get infilled by young white people who are either broke or starting their careers as fast as formerly or currently brown(er) neighborhoods, but the rents just don't vary that much and anything that isn't way above market rate fills up almost instantly. It's mostly just interesting armchair philosophizing about how "progressive" white people would rather be around(comparatively) poor brown people than poor white people because it gives them some kind of street cred or...something.
But yea, It becomes some sofies choice shit, because you can't afford to live where you grew up, but you either choose to live somewhere relatively centrally located but gentrification-y or out in the burbs for the same cash. If you're commuting via transit, what's really the obvious choice here unless you're trying to prove a point?
I could also get in to how it cracks me up that all the "fuck gentrification!" white punk kids move to... the brown neighborhoods, as if there's no cognitive dissonance in that one at all. In oakland vs sf it was because it was cheap, and you could get a big house and be loud. in seattle now it generally just feels like a fashion statement because even if you're packing a ton of people in to a house it's only $50 cheaper a month/person or something vs just heading in to some other residential area.
I don't really heap much blame on the people that go "Why should i have to put up a curtain so someone can use half the living room as a bedroom AND live out in the burbs?" and move in to a closer in but gentrifying area. The whole-paycheck math mentioned above comes in to play here too. If you're spending to your absolute limit just to get a basic place, why go out in the burbs out of some moral obligation or whatever for the same money?
posted by emptythought at 5:59 PM on December 2, 2014
Yo i realize we could split hairs all day here, but this actually _is_ kind of the case in seattle right now since there's such a housing crunch. Even if you're willing to go relatively far outside of town, to the areas where only one commuter bus cuts through the main part and it adds ~30 minutes to your commute with traffic... the rents are now the same. My friend pays exactly the same price as i do, in the middle of town, for a similarly sized one bedroom that's way out there and by all measurements should be significantly cheaper.
There's nice and less nice parts of town, and it's interesting to me to watch the crappy-but-white areas not get infilled by young white people who are either broke or starting their careers as fast as formerly or currently brown(er) neighborhoods, but the rents just don't vary that much and anything that isn't way above market rate fills up almost instantly. It's mostly just interesting armchair philosophizing about how "progressive" white people would rather be around(comparatively) poor brown people than poor white people because it gives them some kind of street cred or...something.
But yea, It becomes some sofies choice shit, because you can't afford to live where you grew up, but you either choose to live somewhere relatively centrally located but gentrification-y or out in the burbs for the same cash. If you're commuting via transit, what's really the obvious choice here unless you're trying to prove a point?
I could also get in to how it cracks me up that all the "fuck gentrification!" white punk kids move to... the brown neighborhoods, as if there's no cognitive dissonance in that one at all. In oakland vs sf it was because it was cheap, and you could get a big house and be loud. in seattle now it generally just feels like a fashion statement because even if you're packing a ton of people in to a house it's only $50 cheaper a month/person or something vs just heading in to some other residential area.
I don't really heap much blame on the people that go "Why should i have to put up a curtain so someone can use half the living room as a bedroom AND live out in the burbs?" and move in to a closer in but gentrifying area. The whole-paycheck math mentioned above comes in to play here too. If you're spending to your absolute limit just to get a basic place, why go out in the burbs out of some moral obligation or whatever for the same money?
posted by emptythought at 5:59 PM on December 2, 2014
The 17-year-old daughter of a friend of mine recently told me that she wished she had never grown up in the bay area. She is going to move to Portland in the spring to live with her boyfriend, she explained, and she can only afford to leave the area because she has a friend giving her a ride. And after she leaves the Bay Area, she's pretty sure that she will never be able to live here again. This is the daughter of a highly paid knowledge worker. But she is not a high-tech superstar. She is a normal 17-year-old who doesn't know what she wants to do with her life yet and may not attend college. I expressed my sympathy. I know what it is like to leave a place you love and feel like you may never be able to return. I was able to return to the Bay Area but lots of people can't. And that is never going to change unless we change the system as a whole.
posted by Bella Donna at 6:09 PM on December 2, 2014
posted by Bella Donna at 6:09 PM on December 2, 2014
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