By Request: Gentrification
NS asks:
How do you feel about the negative aspects of urban gentrification? You write a good deal about urban planning, but I haven’t read your take on this phenomenon.
I try not to use the word “gentrification” because I think the term obscures more than it clarifies, and tends to cover a widely disparate array of situations. But I do have a lot of thoughts on the matter.
One set of complaints about gentrification are the complaints we should dismiss out of hand from what amount to first-wave gentrifiers. I’ve been known to indulge in such complaining myself, and it’s mostly an inevitable brand of nostalgia, but it shouldn’t be taken seriously. The way this works is that you might move to, say, the U Street area when you’re 23 just as businesses were first starting to open. And then you wake your eyes up a few years later and realize that the cat is out of the bag, so to speak. That more stuff has opened, including some distinctly non-cool new big residential developments, and that the bars are crowded and in general you no longer count as edgy or distinctive for living there. Folks are always going to make these kind of noises, but it shouldn’t be taken seriously.
But a much more reasonable complaint concerns the problem of affordable housing. If there’s a crappy neighborhood somewhere — bad schools, high crime, few retail options, poor transportation links to job markets — you would like policy to improve the neighborhood. But in an ideal world, improving the neighborhood should actually improve the lives of many of the people who currently live in the neighborhood. The fear is that improving the neighborhood actually just means making it the case that the people who live there will no longer be able to afford to live there. This is a very real concern, but I hasten to add that a lot of the most commonly proposed countermeasures aren’t very effective or are at times counterproductive.
The main thing you need to do is recognize that this kind of bad gentrification is a relative scarcity issue. It’s very expensive to live in low-crime walkable transit-accessible neighborhoods featuring good public schools because housing in such neighborhoods is in short supply. To reduce the cost of housing in such neighborhoods there are a few things you need to do. One is that where you have neighborhoods with some of those characteristics you need to allow for denser construction of housing units. Another is that you need to work on the social policy problems of crime and school performance in existing walkable urban neighborhoods. And a third is that you need to build more transit lines and transit nodes and ensure that such nodes as exist have “smart” (i.e., dense, walkable, mixed use) development around them. And a fourth is to not waste the opportunities that we have — there’s a giant open-air parking lot right by the Rhode Island Avenue Metro Station in DC, which is just a dumbly low-intensity use of land adjacent to scarce Metro stations.
Long story short, the greatest villains of these kinds of stories aren’t the gentrifiers so much as the folks living in the already very nice areas who’ve tried to “pull up the ladder” and boost their own property values by choking development in the parts of the metro area where they live.
A gentrification phenomenon that sort of mixes the two kinds of concerns is that there’s a tendency for a neighborhood that gets far enough along the gentrification cycle to stop having “cool,” interesting stores, bars, and restaurants. This needs to be understood as a consequence of high retail rents. Simply put, it’s much easier to run an interesting retail business in places where rents are low. This is one of the main reasons why most of the best Asian food in the DC area is in random strip malls in Northern Virginia — both the central city retail space and the prime NoVa mall space are too expensive. Very high rents lead to homogenization, chains, mediocrity, high prices, etc. To some extent this is unavoidable, but it certainly counts as a reason why cities should try to ensure that there’s ample space zoned for retail and not stifle people with unduly burdensome business licensing rules. Your city will be more fun if you make it relatively cheap and easy to open stores.
70 Responses to “By Request: Gentrification”
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December 30th, 2008 at 12:13 pm
The fear is that improving the neighborhood actually just means making it the case that the people who live there will no longer be able to afford to live there. This is a very real concern, but I hasten to add that a lot of the most commonly proposed countermeasures aren’t very effective or are at times counterproductive.
Homeownership.
Co-ops.
TICs.
Before the development wave hits.
December 30th, 2008 at 12:18 pm
> One is that where you have neighborhoods with
> some of those characteristics you need to allow
> for denser construction of housing units.
New York is the only place I am aware of in the United States that has managed to build high-rise housing in existing neighborhoods yet still retain some of the characteristics of the original neighborhood. The experience of Chicago is far more typical: slamming very high density housing (anything much taller than 5 stories) into a residential neighborhood destroys that neighborhood very quickly, and within a few years all that is left is sheer high rises with no setbacks or light wells, a desolate sidewalk area, parking garages, and a few windswept and abandoned parks.
I am all in favor of better urban neighborhoods with somewhat higher density where needed, but trying to replicate the New York high-rise model doesn’t work outside of New York City.
December 30th, 2008 at 12:19 pm
Thanks, and double thanks because I was also going to ask you how you feel about Northern Virginia having all the best places to eat cheap ethnic food.
December 30th, 2008 at 12:25 pm
To Not Really: Why, in your view, is New York able to do this when other places aren’t? Also — what’s your strategy for creating better urban neighborhoods?
December 30th, 2008 at 12:30 pm
@Not Really,
I think that raises a good question, then: why do high rises work in New York and not elsewhere? Is there some particular factor that has made New York high rise developments successful and can that factor be identified and exported?
December 30th, 2008 at 12:31 pm
Landlords will always be trying to raise the rent– and the easiest way to do it is by attracting ‘A’ (i.e., national-branded) retail, rather than local retail. The trick is to have an urban district that’s large enough to be heterogeneous with some high-rent areas and some low-rent areas. One idea for doing this is with global constraints on planning for larger areas– i.e., overall goals rather than block-by-block plans. But we shall see.
December 30th, 2008 at 12:32 pm
the greatest villains of these kinds of stories aren’t the gentrifiers so much as the folks living in the already very nice areas who’ve tried to “pull up the ladder” and boost their own property values by choking development in the parts of the metro area where they live.
But how well does this actually work, in terms of boosting property values? Say you’re one of 20 homeowners in a block in one of these ultra-desirable neighborhoods. Suppose, if zoning was changed, someone would be willing to buy up your whole block, and put a 500-unit condo building there. It’s hard for me to believe that your home would sell for more, in the ‘before’ case, than it would as 1/20 of the land purchase for the condo building.
If it wouldn’t be, then the condo building won’t happen anyway.
December 30th, 2008 at 12:34 pm
Long story short, the greatest villains of these kinds of stories aren’t the gentrifiers so much as the folks living in the already very nice areas who’ve tried to “pull up the ladder” and boost their own property values by choking development in the parts of the metro area where they live.
A bit like hermit crabs, they save the neighborhood but destroy the community.
December 30th, 2008 at 12:38 pm
Gentrification is inevitable where there exist incentives for landlords to “upgrade” and little barriers to doing so. Rent control and stabilization do their part to preserve those neighborhoods as is. One certainly could argue that these measures actually render housing more scarce and makes rents higher, but if you’re interested in affordable housing for some, that’s a trade-off.
Lower crime and better education in neighborhoods certainly makes it more attractive, and that brings in the gentrifying hordes. I mean, would the East Village be what it is today without some head-cracking by the cops in the 80’s? I doubt it. But Matt grew up there, so he’d know better.
Face it, for poor people to live in a neighborhood, it needs to be cheap for them to live there. And that cannot happen if landlords are able to move on “development” opportunities.
December 30th, 2008 at 12:40 pm
slamming very high density housing (anything much taller than 5 stories) into a residential neighborhood destroys that neighborhood very quickly, and within a few years all that is left is sheer high rises with no setbacks or light wells, a desolate sidewalk area, parking garages, and a few windswept and abandoned parks.
The development that has taken place along the Orange Line corridor in Arlington is a counterexample. You have twelve-story (or so, I haven’t counted) office and residential development along the main arteries, with a buffer strip of new townhouses separating it from the preexisting single-family neighborhoods. (In which housing prices have risen to ungodly heights because of the premium people will pay to be within walking distance of the subway.) All the new high-rises are required to have retail on the ground floor.
Compare and contrast the situation in the District, where the zoning laws empower the NIMBY neighbors beyond all reason. Tenleytown is the prime example. Marc Fisher on the Post has done a good job of covering the situation there over the years.
December 30th, 2008 at 12:42 pm
As far as why New York has been able to do it and other haven’t:
I guess high-rises have been built mostly in already existing neighborhoods that already had some sort of amenities. And New York, at least Manhattan, has always been densely packed. I think much of what Matt has been talking about already exists there.
And developments haven’t always been directed at the upper middle-class. Stuyvesant Town, e.g., most certainly was not. Only now that Tishman has tried to market it as such is it in danger of failing(or at least Tishman is danger of defaulting on its bonds).
December 30th, 2008 at 12:42 pm
Not Really -
Did you see Blair Kamin’s (the Chicago Tribune’s Architecture writer – one of the few reasons to read the Trib, really) write up on the South Lake Shore Drive development in the past decade vs. the old North Lake Shore Drive – he discusses much of what you are talking about there with the sudden boom in high rises along SLSD vs the original NLSD high rises. It’s part of his annual worst new buildings list.
I think New York built a lot more of it’s residential high rises back in the day, while we’re getting a huge new building boom with skyscraper-level high rises going up in the South Loop, mid-rises and high rises going up in the west loop, and low-to-mid-rises going up in neighborhoods all over the map. And, in almost all cases, they are built without regard to the neighborhood, sticking out like sore thumbs, built with a lack of ground floor amenities, built around parking garage entrances, built in a manner that doesn’t orient them with the streets, but to a particular view. They aren’t built to blend in, but to stick out. Even single family homes and 3 flats are built in a manner that sticks out and destroys the continuity of a street.
The highrises and midrises going up are designed like those that go up in office and condominium parks in suburban areas, not as urban dwellings, but as high-rise suburbs.
December 30th, 2008 at 12:44 pm
Say you’re one of 20 homeowners in a block in one of these ultra-desirable neighborhoods. Suppose, if zoning was changed, someone would be willing to buy up your whole block
As I was alluding to above, the problem is if you’re a property owner in one of these neighborhoods, it’s unlikely you live there. These neighborhoods are low-income because they’re made up of renters. They gentrify quickly because slumlords drive the old tenants out once the neighborhood starts to improve.
The (moral) issue with gentrification is using the process to build wealth within the original community. Who cares if every resident sells and the edgy nabe turns into an Ikea and Starbucks paradise, so long as the people who were living there before are able to use the capital to escape poverty and build desirable neighborhoods of their own.
But this is rarely the case.
December 30th, 2008 at 12:45 pm
Re: NYC
Manhattan is one thing, but I think you can make a very strong case that the high-rise condo developments are destroying the character of neighborhoods like Williamsburg in Brooklyn.
December 30th, 2008 at 12:45 pm
And once again, people immediately conflate any pro-density discussion to everyone living in high rises in Manhattan. Getting 5 story housing would be considered pretty high density nearly everywhere in the country. There can be something in between single family yarded houses with driveways and Manhattan.
December 30th, 2008 at 1:00 pm
Very high rents lead to homogenization, chains, mediocrity, high prices, etc.
Yeah, Harvard Square pretty much sucks now.
December 30th, 2008 at 1:10 pm
yglesias’ post reminds me of Jane Jacobs.
December 30th, 2008 at 1:19 pm
What a strange post. No real mention of the effect of gentrification on minority ownership? There’s more to it than just “affordability”. I think it goes along with the point that Matt so blithely says we can ignore. You can’t just say that people complaining about a change in character in a neighborhood shouldn’t be taken seriously. The character of a neighborhood is what makes that neighborhood, and “gentrifying” changes that.
When neighborhoods go from mostly minority to mostly white, minorities slowly move out, often because it doesn’t have the character that it used to have. Similarly, when a neighborhood loses it’s “edge”, people move out because it’s not the same place. I would think that the destruction of a community would be something important to discuss.
December 30th, 2008 at 1:20 pm
Getting 5 story housing would be considered pretty high density nearly everywhere in the country. There can be something in between single family yarded houses with driveways and Manhattan.
Maybe, maybe not. If you need parking for everyone, then entire blocks full of five story buildings may not be possible, just because you need somewhere to put the cars, and a five story apartment building can generate a lot of cars.
If you don’t need parking for everyone, then you need to be able to walk to transit and to routine retail. The lower the density, the longer the average walk, and the longer the walk, the less desirable the whole scheme.
I’m not saying it can’t be done, because I have no idea, but I am saying that medium density development may be more problematic than it seems like it ought to be. Unless you get the gas up to $10/gal.
December 30th, 2008 at 1:26 pm
> I think that raises a good question, then: why do
> high rises work in New York and not elsewhere?
I don’t consider super-high-density residential to be a good thing in general. If people want to live that way in downtown Manhattan, or the Chicago Loop, that’s fine, and if the borders of those areas slowly expand so be it. But generally I think 5 stories – with setback, light wells, and courtyards – is a reasonable limit for residential areas. I agree with lfv that for many areas this would be a much higher density than currently exists.
Jerry – thanks for the pointer.
December 30th, 2008 at 1:29 pm
> If you don’t need parking for everyone, then you need to
> be able to walk to transit and to routine retail. The
> lower the density, the longer the average walk, and the
> longer the walk, the less desirable the whole scheme.
>
> I’m not saying it can’t be done, because I have no idea,
> but I am saying that medium density development may be
> more problematic than it seems like it ought to be. Unless
> you get the gas up to $10/gal.
Well, the entire north side and near-south sides of Chicago was built that way in the 1880-1920 period. Buildings were generally limited to 3 stories (sometimes 4) by the very high cost of elevators, and had light wells in the middle due to the high cost of gas (and later electric) lighting. 3 million people lived in those neighborhoods then and 2 million today; most of those areas are considered desirable places to live. So I guess it is “possible”
December 30th, 2008 at 1:31 pm
The experience of Chicago is far more typical: slamming very high density housing (anything much taller than 5 stories) into a residential neighborhood destroys that neighborhood very quickly, and within a few years all that is left is sheer high rises with no setbacks or light wells, a desolate sidewalk area, parking garages, and a few windswept and abandoned parks.
I don’t quite get this. There are plenty of Chicago neighborhoods with a mix of high rises and non-high rises (including townhomes, low and midrises, and even single family detached housing). Streeterville, Andersenville, Rogers Park, Licoln Park, Old Town and Hyde Park all come to mind. These neighborhoods are vibrant, and all of them retain a very Chicago-y neighborhood feel.
Now, it is certainly true that the South “Loop” (anything south of Roosevelt really shouldn’t be considered the Loop, but I digress) has quickly evolved into a soulless mass of high rises, but that’s really more of a function of how it came into being — basically developers decided to create a luxury condo corridor in a place that really had not supported a reasonably dense residential population up until that point.
In fact, my impression is almost the mirror image of your point. If there is an existing and self-sustaining residential neighborhood, dropping a couple of high rises into it won’t cause any damage. But if there ISN’T a functioning neighborhood, then dropping in the high rises will quickly drive whatever residents are there away.
December 30th, 2008 at 1:34 pm
Gentrification does not destroy neighborhoods. That entire line of thought is based on the false premise that neighborhoods are static to begin with. They are not. They are constantly changing.
There’s a great deal of research that shows that gentrification does not actually displace many residents, because many of the areas that gentrify had such high turnover to begin with.
December 30th, 2008 at 1:37 pm
> Gentrification does not destroy neighborhoods. That
> entire line of thought is based on the false premise that
> neighborhoods are static to begin with. They are not. They
> are constantly changing.
I do think it a bit amusing that Matt thinks he will figure out how to stop a process that has been occuring for at least 10,000 years
December 30th, 2008 at 1:40 pm
No real mention of the effect of gentrification on minority ownership? There’s more to it than just “affordability”. I think it goes along with the point that Matt so blithely says we can ignore. You can’t just say that people complaining about a change in character in a neighborhood shouldn’t be taken seriously. The character of a neighborhood is what makes that neighborhood, and “gentrifying” changes that.
Okay, let me weigh in on this. I’m a 20-something hipster who moves around a lot, so I see (and cause) a lot of gentrification around me.
I’m up in Brooklyn right now, and I see the gentrification seep in from the East River, and neighborhoods which I know (secondhand, from coversations with locals and comprehensive exposure to NY hip-hop) used to be rough have turned into soft, white, middle-class playgrounds.
As one of my friends (NYC born but out of town for ten years) said when he came to visit, “You can’t just walk around with your head up like this. This is Brooklyn! What the hell’s going on?”
Now, one neighborhood which has NOT been gentrified is South Williamsburg. Despite the fact that N. Williamsburg and DUMBO are undergoing massive changes, this ‘hood is 100% Hasidic. One hundred percent. Hebrew on the walls and windows, not English.
Now, I’m just speculating here, but I think beyond the strength of the communities, the main reason this neighborhood hasn’t succumbed to gentrification has been property ownership.
The Latin and black neighborhoods weren’t any less cohesive. But if you live in Bed-Stuy, you probably don’t own the spot you’re living at. And when I come to town, and I can pay your landlord $400 more a month (cause it’s still cheap to me), and sip my latte while I tan on the roof deck, it’s gonna get flipped to me. Real talk.
Is it right? Absolutely not. But market forces are what they are, and barring total revolution, their effect on housing isn’t going away any time soon.
This is why, based on what I’ve seen, the key is home ownership, home ownership, and home ownership. You can stay or sell, but at least you have the option that allows you to move up either way.
Economics is the base. Culture is the superstructure. It’s nice to have cohesive neighborhoods, but they’re a direct result of the economic conditions. You can’t preserve them without altering their source.
December 30th, 2008 at 1:45 pm
Would you feel the same way about a community where whites slowly move out because blacks are moving in, resulting in the neighborhood losing ‘the character it used to have.’?
December 30th, 2008 at 1:45 pm
When neighborhoods go from mostly minority to mostly white, minorities slowly move out, often because it doesn’t have the character that it used to have. Similarly, when a neighborhood loses it’s “edge”, people move out because it’s not the same place. I would think that the destruction of a community would be something important to discuss.
It’s not important to discuss because there is no “destruction” of the community in your example. The community is merely different. The compositions of all but the most isolated communities are continuously changing over time.
December 30th, 2008 at 1:46 pm
The (moral) issue with gentrification is using the process to build wealth within the original community. Who cares if every resident sells and the edgy nabe turns into an Ikea and Starbucks paradise, so long as the people who were living there before are able to use the capital to escape poverty and build desirable neighborhoods of their own.
Uh, if it would be a good thing for the minority former residents to build desirable neighborhoods of their own, why would it not be an even better thing for the gentrifying people to simply build their new desirable neighborhood elsewhere in the first place? What’s standing in the way of that? The gentrifiers have even more resources available to them, why aren’t they the ones required to make something from nothing?
December 30th, 2008 at 1:54 pm
Uh, if it would be a good thing for the minority former residents to build desirable neighborhoods of their own, why would it not be an even better thing for the gentrifying people to simply build their new desirable neighborhood elsewhere in the first place? What’s standing in the way of that?
Infrastructure, proximity to city center, lack of open space – off the top of my head.
I mean, it’d be nice if we could create neighborhoods from scratch, but it’s not realistic – and again, market forces won’t disappear with a wish and a thought.
The best gentrification, IMO, is that which takes place not in already-populated residential neighborhoods, but failing industrial districts. There’s still a population displacement, b/c low-income housing and light industry are like PB&J, but give the right neighborhood, it’s possible.
The main problem is zoning. It takes an act of city council to get a industrial area rezoned to mixed-use residential/commercial. And this needs to happen before demand, so the artist communities can build, drawing in the hipsters, drawing in the middle class, etc.
And then, there’s a ton of renovation and infrastructure building to be done. (And even then, it may not be usable – take a look at the Brooklyn Navy Yards, which is a barely populared district on the water between two desirable neighborhoods, but largely toxic due to years of industrial practices.)
It’s just cheaper for the development forces to seize old neighborhoods than build new ones. Without an enlightened city council dedicated to neighborhood preservation and urban renewal, intelligent gentrification can’t take place. But developers tell politicians what to do, not the other way around, so that will never happen.
December 30th, 2008 at 1:59 pm
Well, the entire north side and near-south sides of Chicago was built that way in the 1880-1920 period. Buildings were generally limited to 3 stories (sometimes 4) by the very high cost of elevators, and had light wells in the middle due to the high cost of gas (and later electric) lighting. 3 million people lived in those neighborhoods then and 2 million today; most of those areas are considered desirable places to live. So I guess it is “possible”
Well, three stories isn’t the same as five stories, and one of my points was that there may be some densities that are less workable than both higher and lower densities, but that’s a quibble.
It sounds like you’re talking about an area where all the urban infrastructure (transit, local retail, job cconcentrations at the transit stops) already exists, so the whole thing is viable. But good luck building that from scratch in an area where there aren’t a big pile of jobs sitting at the other end of the transit line.
How common is car ownership in these areas as they function today?
December 30th, 2008 at 2:00 pm
And again, BP, the positive side of gentrification is that it raises the quality of life in poor neighborhoods, largely through increase in property values. It’s also a natural part of the life of the city. The question is, who gets a slice of the new pie? Can we use it as a tool to lift people out of poverty, or just push them to a farther corner.
December 30th, 2008 at 2:05 pm
Matt touches on this, but it can be said more forcefully: “gentrification” is an inevitable result of neighborhood improvement.
Take Matt’s “crappy neighborhood” with “bad schools, high crime, few retail options, [and] poor transportation links to job markets.” Demand for housing there will be low; people who live there will generally be those who can’t afford to live elsewhere. Thus housing prices will be low.
Now assume a wonderfully progressive new mayor takes over in the city, and decides to improve things in that neighborhood. He fixes the schools, lowers the crime rate, and builds a cute new light-rail line that zips residents to the city’s main job centers in 10 minutes flat.
What will happen? People who previously avoided that neighborhood because it was “crappy” will think, “Hey, that formerly crappy neighborhood is now pretty nice.” Many will want to move there, driving up demand for housing, and attracting higher-end retail. Housing prices and retail rents will go up. Long-time poorer residents will no longer be able to afford to live there, and will be forced to relocate to another “crappy” neighborhood.
Matt calls this “bad gentrification,” but I think it’s neither good nor bad; it’s just inevitable gentrification. My point is that virtually no amount of planning or social engineering can stop that process. If the neighborhood gets nicer, prices will go up. The only way to keep a neighborhood from “gentrifying” is to keep demand for housing low by keeping the neighborhood crappy. Poor people generally do not live in nice neighborhoods.
For those who might disagree, come up with a counterexample, i.e., an example in any city of a neighborhood’s conditions (school quality, crime, transport) significantly improving, but without a corresponding increase in housing costs. I can’t think of one.
December 30th, 2008 at 2:08 pm
scythia:
I mean, it’d be nice if we could create neighborhoods from scratch, but it’s not realistic – and again, market forces won’t disappear with a wish and a thought.
Right, right, I’m aware of that. I was responding to “build desirable neighborhoods of their own” when you admit up front that that’s almost never going to happen.
December 30th, 2008 at 2:15 pm
Right, right, I’m aware of that. I was responding to “build desirable neighborhoods of their own” when you admit up front that that’s almost never going to happen.
No, no, no, no, no.
In a very large nutshell, the process of gentrification is such that rich people move in, poor people move out. And, as I and other commenters have noted above, it’s largely inevitable at this point in urban American history.
So what I am saying is what if we rigged the process so as to divert some of new capital created to the people moving out, so when they relocated, they would do so not as poor people looking for place to rent, but as middle-class homeowners looking for a place to buy?
That is my proposal. And I think it can be accomplished — if the city (and frankly, developers) put the effort and political willpower into doing so.
December 30th, 2008 at 2:17 pm
Now assume a wonderfully progressive new mayor takes over in the city, and decides to improve things in that neighborhood.
Ah. You’re actually missing the problem that people have with gentrification… it’s not that a wonderfully progressive new mayor will take over and start improving the neighborhood, making it cleaner and safer causing yuppies to move in, changing the neighborhood. It’s that no politician will care about improving the neighborhood until well-off gentrifiers with political clout start to move in.
I can’t work up any moral outrage over what is the resettlement of urban areas by middle class and upper middle class families and professionals. However, the fact remains that our dysfunctional system doesn’t care enough to ensure the safety and health of neighborhood residents until the residents’ social class rises to the level that politicians will pay attention to.
December 30th, 2008 at 2:18 pm
… It’s very expensive to live in low-crime walkable transit-accessible neighborhoods featuring good public schools because housing in such neighborhoods is in short supply.
Actually there is a feedback loop. High prices drive out the poor reducing the crime rate and improving the schools. Bad neighborhoods are bad because they contain too many bad people.
December 30th, 2008 at 2:27 pm
scythia:
So what I am saying is what if we rigged the process so as to divert some of new capital created to the people moving out, so when they relocated, they would do so not as poor people looking for place to rent, but as middle-class homeowners looking for a place to buy?
Well, you’re sounding more realistic all the time, which believe me I like to hear in this type of discussion.
I don’t know that buying a home is really the best way for a poor person to make use of a financial windfall, but it would certainly be less unjust then giving them nothing.
December 30th, 2008 at 2:27 pm
BP asked: “How common is car ownership in these areas as they function today?” [i.e. in those Chicago neighborhoods].
I’ve lived in some of them. Lots of cars around, parking can be a problem but is generally not out-of-control bad (varies somewhat by hood). When I had a car I always did non-permit street parking; some neighborhoods require you to have permit/sticker (or guest sticker if you are visiting); there is some garage space rental and of course detached homeowners have their own garages. In general it is not unworkable, but street parking at night can be difficult in residential areas. I got a lot of parking tickets for a while, which was in fact a pretty significant expense.
I live in a north-side hood now and don’t own a car; have no trouble with public transportation/cabs, but if my work/living situation changed I might get a car. I commuted to a downtown job for years without a car.
All that just as anecdote but I don’t think it’s atypical.
December 30th, 2008 at 3:14 pm
I also like scythia’s idea in 34, or some version of it.
The best illustration I’ve seen of the psychology involved in being a gentrifier versus being gentrified is in Nathan McCall’s novel Them.
December 30th, 2008 at 3:29 pm
Tyro:
However, the fact remains that our dysfunctional system doesn’t care enough to ensure the safety and health of neighborhood residents until the residents’ social class rises to the level that politicians will pay attention to.
Well, okay, I hear what you’re saying.
But if a city government with the appropriate resources did in fact put a bunch of improvements into a neighborhood in advance of any gentrification, wouldn’t you expect that gentrification might be the result anyway?
December 30th, 2008 at 3:53 pm
I’m all for affordable housing in desirable areas as a “reward” for teachers, policemen, firemen, the families of outstanding students, etc… But there’s nothing new or unusual about poor people having to find housing where they can. As a society, we have an obligation to help them put a roof over their heads. We don’t have an obligation to keep them in the newly-ritzy parts of town on principle.
The strong do what they will; the weak suffer what they must.
December 30th, 2008 at 4:02 pm
What if we rigged the process so as to divert some of new capital created to the people moving out, so when they relocated, they would do so not as poor people looking for place to rent, but as middle-class homeowners looking for a place to buy?
Interesting. I bought my townhouse for $400k from a woman who paid $108k for it seven years previously. So it looks like your idea is a reality.
December 30th, 2008 at 4:32 pm
Interesting. I bought my townhouse for $400k from a woman who paid $108k for it seven years previously. So it looks like your idea is a reality.
Right, that works when the people being shoved out are already homeowners, and it’s difficult to see much injustice. It doesn’t help the renters.
The strong do what they will; the weak suffer what they must.
Yeah, and task #1 for the strong is making sure the weak stay weak, because you know what’ll happen to you if they get stronger than you. How inspirational.
December 30th, 2008 at 4:57 pm
Yeah, and task #1 for the strong is making sure the weak stay weak, because you know what’ll happen to you if they get stronger than you. How inspirational.
Your touching innocence has melted the flinty places of my heart. I will no longer walk in fear that the crackheads squatting in the foreclosed rowhouse down the street are going to rise up and steal my job. Bless you.
Anyway, take it up with the Athenians…
December 30th, 2008 at 6:12 pm
Thucidides was an asshole and so are you. It takes a lot of strength to survive as a poor person in this country.
December 30th, 2008 at 6:50 pm
Kid Destroyer had it right way up above. To add to what he said:
Gentrification is colonialism by the yuppie class in an urban context, the same way summer houses and all the attendant conditions of dependency are in the rural contexts of Cape Cod and Maine.
It’s not just about minorities, either; working-class whites get shoved out by asshole hipster yuppies all the time (see Davis Square, Somerville).
December 30th, 2008 at 7:54 pm
Can’t tell for sure, but that photo looks like Delancey street in Philadelphia near Rittenhouse square. If so I’d guess that region of the city was gentrified a good 200 years ago.
December 30th, 2008 at 8:11 pm
nice call strategichamlet. The Delancey blocks, between 23 and 17th st. are simply gorgeous.
December 31st, 2008 at 2:48 am
Or Daniel Shays and Kid Destroyer, we can just have all the upper middle class (both white and brown) move out of the cities like they did in the 70’s and 80’s and leave your precious picturesque urban s***holes the way they were.
Like others said, a person who doesn’t like poor brown people coming into his neighborhood is a schmuck. And so is the guy who doesn’t want richer paler people coming to his neighborhood.
December 31st, 2008 at 2:53 am
You know who’s blessed with no ‘urban colonialists’? With no worries of gentrification? Detroit. Lucky bastards, aren’t they?
December 31st, 2008 at 7:35 am
It’s a misconception that high density = high rises. There are several arrondissments in central Paris with a really high density (comparable to New York), but no or very few high rises. They are also among the most beautiful and desirable places on earth.
December 31st, 2008 at 9:17 am
Yes, but I thought all the high-rise “slums” were shoved to the outskirts, or “suburbs,” of Paris. Or, I believe I was told that on my last visit there — that it was dangerous to walk around the suburbs; all the “rich” people lived downtown. Is that somehow better?
I didn’t recognize Delancey street in the picture [ confession: I always take my daughter trick-or-treating on Delancey to peer into to the beautiful houses ] but wondered if Philadelphia would enter the discussion. Philadelphia has almost no high rises, and I’m pondering the focus on “high rises” or quasi-high rises as a means to avoid the ill effects of gentrification — and the apparent use of Manhattan as a model of positive gentrification. I don’t really see the NY model working in many places other than NY; and for heaven’s sake, no one is really suggesting that a poor or lower income person can possibly afford to live in Manhattan, no matter the number of high rises, right?
December 31st, 2008 at 9:51 am
The most densely-populated Census block group in the U.S.A. is in Washington Heights, New York City, and doesn’t contain any buildings taller than about seven stories or so:
http://blogbilongadam.blogspot.com/2008/07/nine-orders-of-magnitude.html
December 31st, 2008 at 10:12 am
Thucidides was an asshole and so are you. It takes a lot of strength to survive as a poor person in this country.
Yes, and it’s very easy to post hand-wringing comments on the internet.
I’d like a pony too, but “take some of the money from ‘The Developers’ and give it to ‘The Poor People’” is amorphous pie-in-the-sky crap. We’re better off both strengthening the social safety-net in general, and targeting rewards at behavior we want to reinforce than throwing our efforts at making sure a single mother of four can continue to rent in the high-rent (and costliest) part of town.
And, yes, I suppose I am a bit of an asshole; it’s a comfort in times like these.
December 31st, 2008 at 2:05 pm
Truly ruthless politicians and power brokers keep their eyes on the real prize: There is no money-for-nothing like the money to be made where real estate prices are rising quickly. Even where there is significant home ownership pre-gentrification, most of those owners sell out too early to enjoy a life changing windfall. The big profits go to cleverer operators.
There is probably no practical way to regulate or zone to make the process of neighborhood change fairer. Taxation is another matter. No one on a fixed income who owns a home should be forced to sell because a rising assesment leads to unaffordable property taxes. The biggest outrage is how such money-for-nothing “capital gains” get taxed at lower rates than hard earned income.
January 1st, 2009 at 12:25 pm
If we decreased the levels of income inequality, the problem of our current form of gentrification would decrease in scale significantly. I’m not just idly dreaming here; I’d be fascinated to see a comparison of gentrification patterns across nations with varying Gini coefficients, or even across cities, for that matter. (Do people even calculate Gini coefficients for cities? They should.) We can also work on the problem by expanding infrastructure. More public transit = more places that are near public transit = more potentially desirable development space. Neighborhoods will always change; the ways they change are heavily shaped by public policy and the socioeconomic conditions it forms.
January 2nd, 2009 at 2:50 pm
Rather than worrying about the definition of “gentrification,” it might be more productive to look at negative consequences of neighborhood change — low income renters pushed out by high housing prices & condo conversions, low income homeowners who cannot afford massive increases in property taxes — and fix those problems. A strategy to help low income renters & owners stay in place, and building in new opportunities for new affordable housing and businesses creates a diverse place and benefits for everyone. Policies include Inclusionary Zoning, tenants first right of refusal, small business set asides in new development, housing trust funds, etc. We also simply need more housing supply close in desirable transit-accessible locations.
Note that over 200 housing units and a bunch of stores are about to be built on the Rhode Island Ave. Metro Station in Washington, D.C. I think 20% of the apartments will be affordable via a low income housing tax credit deal – but the city & Metro should have had a policy requiring some affordable housing — but did not.
January 3rd, 2009 at 7:03 pm
I think a lot of the reservations about gentrification that have been expressed in this comments thread (and elsewhere, also) are successfully addressed in the works of Jane Jacobs — particularly, of course, in her “Death and Life of Great American Cities.” Although Jacobs (who, herself, was a pioneer late- 1940s gentrifier of the West [Greenwich] Village) doesn’t use the word “gentrification” (which hadn’t been coined yet) and although she also writes about the negatives of what is now generally referred to as gentrification, Jacobs’ basic point is that the problems of gentrification are best addressed with the gentrifcation (and densification) of MORE and MORE city neighborhoods (in order to spread the BENEFITS of gentrification / densification around and in order to also relieve the pressure on already gentrified / densified neighborhoods). (This aspect of her work — see espectially her chapter on the self-destruction of diversity [don't have my copy handy at the moment for exact page numbers] — appears to be usually overlooked, however, by the anti-gentrifiers who cite her work.)
By the way, I think “Death and Life . . .” is particuarly good at discussing when gentrification / densification works and when it doesn’t.
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P.S. — While I seem to recall lots of positive buzz about Matt Yglesias on the iternet, I’m a first time visitor to this website. Usually I post comments (when I get the time) at “Market Urbanism,” and I found this thread via a link from there to “Hyde Park Urbanism” which had a link to this thread.
January 10th, 2009 at 9:26 pm
What is most interesting about the controversy of gentrification is that it pits two “progressive” constituencies against each other: class warriors and the poor on one side and well-educated, privileged white liberals (the gentrifiers) on the other.
If you want affordable housing, move to a red state.
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