SubscribeIsn't the opposite of gentrification a kind of voluntary race or class segregation?I don't think so, because I think most gentrifiers (and I have been in that category) don't have much meaningful interaction with longstanding residents of the neighborhood. They don't seek out meaningful interaction, in part because it's sometimes uncomfortable to interact with people who don't necessarily think you're the awesomest thing that has ever happened to the neighborhood and in part because it can be difficult to interact with people with whom you have very little in common. They also often think of longstanding residents and their culture as a problem, rather than a valid part of the neighborhood. I think that gentrification often accompanies voluntary race and/or class segregation, just at closer proximity.
When are we going to get over the concept that people of X race moving into a neighborhood is a problem? Who gives a damn if white people or black people move into a neighborhood? Neighborhood demographics change, that's a fact of life in the city.The people who live there give a damn, because when richer people move in, they often get priced out of the neighborhood. Even if there are plans in place to allow them, personally, to stay, the community gets disrupted, because their kids can't get their own places in the neighborhood when they move out, or relatives and friends who move to town can't move there. Longstanding residents have often worked very hard to create formal and informal institutions, and those institutions and networks suffer when the communities are displaced.
And honestly, man, if some lady on her stoop says to me "You in the wrong neighborhood" when I'm out the neighborhoods working (which has happened), I stop and talk to her. I'll say, "Nah, I'm good, been working up this way for a while now. How about yourself, you been on this block long?" Then I'll stand there and let her tell me stories.
Anyway, in a class involving preserving landmarks and preserving neighborhoods, the professor said that a city that doesn't change is a dead city. This professor loved New York, and when he talked about the vibrancy and change of a live city, it was really moving.Kenneth Jackson, right? I think he was talking about a kind of mindless obsession with historical preservation, though, not about questions of affordable housing. I suspect he would have more sympathy than most people here have with people who are displaced when their neighborhoods become too expensive for them.
I didn't name drop him because I was talking more about the effect he had on me and wasn't trying to allege that he's pro-gentrification, whatever that might mean. This thread reminded me of that comment, especially with regard to New York. Harlem was once white, and present-day Little Italy is pretty much a couple of blocks surrounded by Chinatown, and the whole city is full of examples of the changing and probably cyclical nature of neighborhoods.Ok, but what's missing from that narrative is any attention to inequality and power. We're not talking about natural, cyclical changes like the phases of the moon or something. We're talking about people who have more power displacing people who have less power. I'm not out to demonize anyone: like I said, I have been a gentrifier more than once. But I don't think you can discuss this whole topic honestly without admitting that white, middle-class newcomers to urban areas have more power than longstanding black, working-class residents and that that's a big part of the resentment that the latter sometimes feel for the former.
Here's what I'd like someone to explain to me: if "white flight" is racist ... and "gentrification" is racist ... and self-segregation is racist ... then where are white people supposed to live that's won't be labeled "societal racism"?I think that what we're talking about here is structural racism and classism, and you can't really choose your way out of it. All you can do is stop being defensive, try to be aware of the consequences of the decisions you make, listen to other people's perspectives when they are willing to share them with you, and try to make the most responsible decisions that you can. And work for a more equitable society, because these dilemmas won't go away until inequality goes away.
It is worth noting three key features of our definition. First, gentrification requires the displacement of lower income residents from their neighborhoods. We are most concerned about involuntary displacement, that is, the displacement of those “original” residents who would prefer to stay in their neighborhood, but because of non-just-cause evictions, rapidly rising rents or increases in their property tax bills, cannot afford to do so. In addition to families that are directly displaced from changes in their neighborhood, researchers identify a form of exclusionary displacement, where changes in the neighborhood prevent future lower income households from moving in.6Even looking at that first requirement, there are many ways that a city can prevent "gentrification." They can keep rents from rapidly rising via rent control ordinances, prevent arbitrary evictions with "just cause" eviction ordinances, and require a certain percentage of new housing to be rented or sold at affordable rates via inclusionary housing ordinances.
Second, gentrification has a physical as well as socioeconomic component that results in the upgrading of housing stock in the neighborhood.
Third, gentrification results in the changed character of the neighborhood...attracting a sufficiently large number such that the unique social fabric of the neighborhood is changed....
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posted by Horace Rumpole at 7:57 PM on December 5, 2008