DIALOGUE | Urban Gentrification
Photo of San Francisco circa 1958 via Shorpy.
Gentrification came up a few times in smart comments from last week's post Snark is the New Black in response to the McSweeny's article about "Hirl" (a bald critique of Sqirl Cafe). The comments really made me think about the concept. Here's one comment in particular:
The only thing I will say, in regards to Hirl, is that gentrification is a really damaging process. Essentially, people from a higher socioeconomic class start raising the overall cost of rent in a certain area, so the poorer natives are eventually pushed out of their own neighborhoods. It doesn't improve poverty--it shuffles out the impoverished, and turns their neighborhoods into playgrounds for people using hip urbanism to pretend they come from a rough part of town. So I can understand the critique on Hirl, even if it has a mean-edged sarcasm to it.
In theory, it doesn't take much thought to be against the negative side effects of gentrification. In practice though, I'm confused as to how the individual or sole-proprietor should take action. In other words, if I were to open up a shop and didn't want to overpay on rent, should I still decide to open elsewhere where the rent is 5x higher in a neighborhood where a majority of residents have a similar socioeconomic background to my projected customers? Or taking it further, if I can't afford to do that, should I decide not to open a shop at all? Are we to draw lines on maps and decide that certain people should only live and operate businesses in certain neighborhoods from here on out? These aren't rhetorical questions, I'm really asking and really interested to hear people's opinions on this.
Considering what I post on this blog, I'd be a hypocrite if I railed against gentrification and continued to feature small new shops popping up in, say, Echo Park. I'm against the rising rents and increased property taxes and most of all people being displaced, but how do we change that while also believing urban landscapes are ever-changing and cities aren't static entities? So, again, I feel a little stuck on this one and would love to hear more thoughts.
Comments
Really all this is a push for more diverse neighborhoods. I get the argument against gentrification based on further marginalizing those in poverty, but no one wants to talk about the damaging effects of concentrated poverty. Truth is, neighborhood shifts happen and I'm not sure that I agree that this is inherently a bad thing.
Closely tied to all of this and also not talked about is the issue of race. Many of the above policies do not and will not get traction not because of poverty (i.e. poor people and rich people living together) but because this country is still, frankly, deeply racist. Tons of resources out there on housing discrimination for example, and we need only look at the creation of suburbs and white flight to see how many of the poor, largely minority, urban neighborhoods were created in the first place.
Over here there is a real state bubble going on, new studios on my neighborhood are selling for five times the price I payed four years ago. Rents are going through the roof too. I live in a residential neighborhood near downtown in a major city.
People are getting squeezed into living further away, but still in my building there are low income families mixed with some newcomers - like me.
NY has a few initiatives about affordable housing - too little and too late, as I understand. Besides the fact that people all over the world want to live there, me included. San Francisco "suffers" from the proximity to the Silicon Valley - too many people with too much money - so, if you are an immigrant, your are going to live further down the peninsula and not in a victorian home.
Over here there is no such thing as affordable housing initiatives (section 8 or forcing new developments to build cheaper units) - there are invasions of disused buildings downtown and near where I live pressuring the mayors office to convert them to housing. Lots of the worst kind of politics involved.
There are lots of favelas, but they are very very far away. Two hours by bus from downtown away. The government builds and sells affordable houses and apartments, but also very little and very very far away.
My take on what I know from the US - I have visited many times in the last decade (mostly NY and SF) is that - as bad as it is to be poor in the US, it is much worse to be poor in Brazil. I would gladly leave the lower middle class over here to be poor over there.
Why is it that these poorer neighborhoods that the upwardly mobile "discover" are almost always made up of ethnic and racial minorities?
From Spike Lee:
“I grew up here in Fort Greene. I grew up here in New York. It's changed. And why does it take an influx of white New Yorkers in the south Bronx, in Harlem, in Bed Stuy, in Crown Heights for the facilities to get better?
'The garbage wasn't picked up every motherf--- day when I was living in 165 Washington Park. When you see White mothers pushing their babies in strollers, three o'clock in the morning on 125th Street, that must tell you something.
'You can't discover this! We been here. You just can't come and bogart. You can't just come in the neighborhood and start bogarting and say, like you're motherf--- Columbus and kill off the Native Americans. Or what they do in Brazil, what they did to the indigenous people. You have to come with respect. There's a code. There's people."
s.e. Smith said:
"They consistently co-opt and appropriate elements of other cultures, piecemeal, and often without any cultural sensitivity or respect. They regularly draw upon the work and legacy of people of colour, usually without crediting them, and most of their contact with people of colour comes in the form of the service personnel serving them their food, cleaning their wine bars, and picking their organic produce."
I would argue that there is a personal choice to made regarding gentrification. These communities existed before the white folks "discovered" them -and they existed for a reason. Showing up and not thinking that you have an effect on an existing community and neighborhood is being willfully ignorant and not actively examining the role that you play in changing a neighborhood is the very definition of exercising privilege.
A discussion about understanding the privilege that comes with a class of people being able to simply relocate and find that services and facilities simply follow them where ever they go.... how can we re-purpose privilege to serve everyone? There is so much that we can learn from living in diverse and thriving communities, but we have to commit to being a humble member of communities where we live and work.
If you want to open a shop in an affordable zip code, your shop should serve the community of that zip code, you need to attend community meetings, sponsor local events... in short, don't just use the real estate to save a few bucks, but become part of the fabric that makes the neighborhood special and a place where you'd like to have a business.
Full disclosure, I'm a white designer living on a Dominican block of Williamsburg, Brooklyn.
The thing you can't legislate is moneyed people's weird perceptions of cultural cache that makes gentrification essentially a roving hunt toward the ever-receding horizon of "authenticity".
Wow, that Spike Lee quote is really thoughtless, as is the implication that neighborhoods should remain racially or ethnically segregated.
I'm white. I'd like to buy a house for the first time. The neighborhoods I'm looking at are places where I can afford to buy a house. They are not currently majority "white" neighborhoods. If I am able to buy a house in a neighborhood that is not currently populated by a bunch of white people, I am not a careless, racist, colonialist. I'm just a person buying a house. Contributing to a local economy. Paying taxes. Preserving a hundred year old building. Why shouldn't I be able to live where I can afford to live?
I would also add, that it is important to remind ourselves that more often than not, residents of low income communities of color are being impacted by the affects of gentrification. This should not be taken as an attack on young, predominantly white, gentrifiers. I just think it is important to be aware that there is a racial dynamic at play. When you look at the issue from a population perspective, you see that this pattern perpetuates the continued movement and maintenance of people of color into segregated, high poverty neighborhoods that lack basic assets - grocery stores, transit options, good schools, health care.
We all have a part to play, and I think that the government has a huge role to play. For example, setting city planning guidelines that mandate affordable housing is one way to keep people in their homes for generations to come even when the surrounding neighborhood improves.
However individuals and small businesses can also do their part. First, use your vote wisely. Vote for political representatives that want cities to being places welcoming to all. In NYC, there is a drastic different between Bloomberg and DeBlasio's policies. Second, try to remember that you are coming into an existing community and show some respect for the history. I understand that people want to open up a business, but is that business something for the existing community or is it for your "projected customers" from that neighborhood with high rent? If you are trying to bring something new, can current residents afford your prices so that they have the opportunity to become patrons? Shouldn't the prices reflect the less expensive rent you are paying? Third, think about how you can support your local economy. Can you procure from other existing businesses or hire local youth?
By no means do I have all the answers, but I think about these issues a lot both professionally and personally (full disclosure: I live in a rapidly gentrifying Brooklyn neighborhood). Thank you again for the space to contribute my thoughts.
Part of what we're talking about with race and gentrification is the enormous amount of social capital that is part of white privilege. I know this comment isn't even attempting to suggest solutions, but I just found that point interesting and wanted to share!
1. because you living in that neighborhood might not be what's best for the community
2. because you'll be okay not "doing your most favorite thing" (Louis CK)
3, because being a decent person means making tough sacrifices for other people-- including people you don't know (e.g. not requesting/accepting special treatment)
It's important to recognize that development of neighborhoods, just like any other development investment, creates jobs and increases the overall wealth and standard of living in our society, or in this case, the slice of society we call a neighborhood. Just as stagnation leads to a troubled national economy, it does as well on the local level. Economic growth (the product of investment and development) is the only real means by which prosperity can be shared by an increasing number of people.
Just as companies fail when their products are eclipsed by innovative competitors, neighborhood shops must adapt to compete to remain viable. Innovation might not require big investments. It just needs to be appealing to customers. who might otherwise take their business elsewhere.
Regarding displacing the most vulnerable residents, it's unfortunate, but again, it's economics. People find they can no longer afford to rent an apartment are forced to move when rents are raised. Others who own their apartment are rewarded. In prosperous societies the capacity for social welfare expands as businesses and individuals generate more government income by affording to pay and paying more tax.
Gentrification/Economics: not good, not bad, just reality.
What's challenging is that by your mere presence as a member of a privileged class, you are taking the place of someone from the community. Consider a partnership with another business, or taking the time to find out what is lacking for the community and helping to provide that. Avoid saviorism, but extend the hand and sometimes, as much as you can manage, use the space you're taking to step aside and let someone else get in there.
It's a difficult question and one that we need to keep thinking about. It's hard to face the fact that just by ones mere existence in a place they can be oppressing and marginalizing another group, but that's what privilege is all about. Nobody should feel unwelcome as long as they are constantly keeping their reality in check by seeing clearly the ways in which they are advantaged and resisting that advantage.
Economics is not some super-organic "thing" thus it cannot rise above the actions of the humans that perform it". And human actions can definitely be "bad" or "good".
If you believe that human economic actions cannot be "bad" then I recommend you read something about Pinochet's Chile (mass torture and murder directly connected to "bad" libertarian economic policies)
Perhaps one of the most telling socioeconomic findings of the past few decades has been the finding that the single biggest factor affecting both your psychological and physical health is where you are (your socioeconomic status) in relation to other members of your community. If you're on the bottom rung then your health is on average worse then members above you. This holds true for every community--so billionaires are on average more healthy then millionaires in the same community. This is not due to access to health care, better food, etc. because even people who can afford to buy entire countries will be worse off then neighbors who have more money. The health discrepancy is exaggerated (worse) for communities with large discrepancies in wealth. Gentrification results in large discrepancies in wealth in neighborhoods and will, on average, result in worse health for the poorer members that remain (including babies and the elderly in case your imagining this is only true for middle aged adults). So knowing this, can gentrification be good or even neutral?
On the other hand, I recognize that gentrification and the rising cost of living has caused the Black population to decline from 20% to under 4% in some 20-30 years. Initiatives to grow SF's economy do not try to provide opportunities to people and groups who have been thriving in these neighborhood for decades. The land and space is taken and given to the highest bidder. Those new residents and business owners moving in (mostly young and White), should not be ignorant to what they are participating in. Moving into the Mission district and selling an $8 piece of toast sends a clear message to the veterans of the community that they are no longer welcome or able to participate in their own local economy.
Thank you to other commenters for sharing your thoughts about action items on how to address this.
Our neighborhood planning team (in Austin) meets often with incoming businesses and developers. The latter often want to include residents as customers. They are also almost universally surprised by census data showing neighborhood residents' income levels, which are much lower than median. It would be nice if businesses researched the population first and thought of ways their business could serve the neighborhood. If people aren't going to be able to afford to shop, maybe you could offer store space for meetings or events or volunteer as a business rep to help get foot traffic to other businesses. Best of all, just ask what the neighborhood could use.
Artist Theaster Gates is working in the thick of this issue and has interesting things to say. Here's one article: http://www.artinamericamagazine.com/news-features/magazine/theaster-gates/
Thanks, Tomboystyle. Rock on!