My name is Courtney Martin and I'm a gentrifier.
Like so many young, urban writerly types, I live in a neighborhood that is predominantly and historically composed of folks very unlike myself. I'm white, they're West Indian. I'm a writer, they mostly hold traditional jobs (my neighbor Mary is a nurse, my other neighbor is a security guard etc.). In my building, I'm young, they're mostly 40+. I'm agnostic, they're more likely to be religious.
I've long been fascinated by issues of gentrification--intellectually--but also trying to understand my own roles and responsibilities when it comes to gentrification--practically speaking. People throw the word around, pay it lipservice from time to time, but rarely do we really untangle all the issues. I think it's especially egregious among progressives, like myself, who want think that we're not the "bad gentrifiers" because we care about the original culture of the neighborhood and try not to be too snotty about wanting a coffee shop with wireless or whatever. But you know what? Chances are, that if you pay rent or a mortgage in a neighborhood that has historically been inhabited by folks who look and live a lot differently than you do, especially if that rent or mortgage seems like a steal to you and raises the bar for everyone else, you're a gentrifier. Face facts and then figure out how to deal with it. (I'm still in this process, of course.)
I recently read this amazing article about one aspect of this issue--the social interactions. From the Brooklyn Rail:
I'm an urban planner. As part of my job with MIT's Community Innovators Lab, I spent four months interviewing residents of Brooklyn's Bedford-Stuyvesant and Clinton Hill neighborhoods with the goal of understanding what gentrification means for the longstanding community, at a time when that community is being threatened by swanky glass-faced co-op buildings and hordes of new residents fleeing high Manhattan rents.I re-listened to hours of audio recordings and found what I knew was already there: tape after tape of Bed-Stuy stalwarts lamenting that the new people moving into their neighborhood, specifically the new Caucasian people, were un-friendly. My interviews revealed that the arriving gentry didn't say hello on the sidewalk, didn't hold doors open, and didn't try to meet their neighbors.
She goes on to detail some of the interviews, and then analyzes gentrification in a historic context:
Gentrification is a re-shuffling. It's part of a relentless American history of moving populations en masse from one location to another when their presence becomes inconvenient. This country moved Native Americans out, and brought slaves in. In more recent history, it drew middle class people to the suburbs, and redlined African Americans into urban ghettos. It tore down and displaced whole neighborhoods with Urban Renewal in the 1950s and 60s. Hope VI, the most recent iteration in American housing policy, was meant to build mixed-income communities, but in practice displaced thousands of low-income people from functional homes and neighborhoods. Gentrification, in many ways, feels like a new name for an old game. At least we now have a multi-racial gentry class.
And one of the positive perspectives on such an often ugly and difficult phenomenon:
In my twenty interviews, one wish came through stronger than friendliness. People want diverse neighborhoods, including different races, ages, and sexual orientations, with an array of careers, representing different socioeconomic classes. Brooklyn native Tyrone Harris said, "The diversity in the neighborhood is so good, that we can learn about the whole world in just one neighborhood, because we have Chinese, African American, Latino, and White. We have everything here. Puerto Rican, Spanish--you name it, we got it. But the thing is, are we using our assets? Or are we just sitting back saying, 'We don't like this or we don't like that.' See, it's easy to complain, but the question is: What do you want to do?"
A really important question. Anybody have ideas of how those of us in gentrifying neighborhoods--both folks who have lived "here" forever and those who are just moving in--can collectively benefit from our assets?
I've developed good relationships with my neighbors; Mary visits me with her amazing birds and is generous enough to take my packages. I thank her with candles and free books. She never minds when Nik plays Rockband late at night. And this, I think, actually matters a lot...as small as it all may sound.
But beyond that, I'm hungry to interact with those in my community in a way that feeds us all.
Thanks to Ramin for the heads up.
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jane jacobs' WONDERFUL book "the death and life of great american cities" is a good place to start analyzing what makes a neighborhood a successful, healthy, and rewarding place to live.
check-ch-check-check-check-ch-check it out. :)
you can also get involved with community programs in your neighborhood. Like maybe a town hall meeting, go see a school play which the local kids are involved, help organize a school (or shelter) fundraiser or whatever? Stuff like that.
I am glad to hear that you are friendly with others in the neighborhood. I like that. I hate it when people ignore me outside on the street. It pisses me off so bad.
Latoya had a good post on this over at Racialicious, pointing out that gentrification isn't just middle-class white people spontaneously moving into urban neighborhoods, it's also the result of very specific decisions by the state to push out lower-class people of color. http://www.racialicious.com/2009/05/12/more-notes-on-gentrification/
I'm worried this is going to happen in Coney Island, where the city's plan (to keep Coney Island as a historically low-cost entertainment site, and provide low-cost housing) is competing with a developer's plan (to remake it into an expensive, Six Flags-esque amusement park and build fancy condos). This is a clear instance when gentrification would be the result of specific business decisions.
Really, fuck Thor Equities! (the guilty developer)
Gentrification is really as much a class struggle as a racial one--I know poorer and working class white people -Polish neighborhoods and such- who have also been displaced. Be friendly. As people said, be part of your community. Try to spend locally in the neighborhood and at businesses that are not chains. I've seen people ride with Whole Food or Trader Joes bags from 14th St. up to Washington Heights--buy food in Washington Heights! (or wherever you are that you don't want to be strangled out of.)
Actually, the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Developement's plan also involves gentrification - except HPD would be using a developer that is a competitor of Thor Equities.
So Coney Island is screwed either way, no matter which set of gentrifiers wins.
For anyone who doesn't know what the fuck "gentrification' means, I am going to pull the first bit from Wikipedia since it's the first thing that came up on Google. Note that Wikipedia has a disclaimer saying their page may not represent the worldwide view on the subject, and I don't know enough about it to correct or verify any of this:
"Gentrification, or urban gentrification, is the change in an urban area associated with the movement of more affluent individuals into a lower-class area. The area experiences demographic shifts, including an increase in the median income, a reduction in household size, and often a decline in the proportion of racial minorities (if such minorities are present)."
Thank you! You don't even have to put the definition in your article, but you could hotlink a word to a working definition. I read all kinds of feminist and homosexual articles, books, and whatnot. Even so, I've been opening second windows to figure out what things like gentrification and cisgender mean the past few weeks. Please link to your words!
Hi,
Just, for future reference, may I point out that your use of the word "homosexual" isn't really considered appropriate by progressive groups. It's kind of a dated and clinical term. Some alternatives are queer or LGBTQ interest, etc. Thanks =)
Mollie
Is it really so hard to just google the stuff you don't understand at a glance? When you're reading about a new subject, sometimes there are unfamiliar words. Since this is the written on the internet and not in dead-tree-format, sometimes it's your job to quickly look up the new terms you find in your feminist and "homosexual" readings.
I know gentrification is used as a bad word, but I don't get it.
The neighborhood I moved into didn't have a lot of ethnic diversity, but it did have a lot of houses not taken care of, crumbling sidewalks, and officials looking the other way when codes were violated.
When I moved in and invested as much as I could in making the property better, others took better care of their properties too. We also get a lot of bad looks from people who don't choose to care for their properties.
Why is taking care of your property a bad thing?
Talking care of your property is not a bad thing. And gentrification can bring money into communities, if the new residents patronize businesses owned by the locals.
On the other hand, gentrification is a problem when low-income people who've been paying $500 in rent are suddenly expected to pay $1000 in rent -- or get out -- because their neighborhood is now "edgy." (Obviously, laws vary from city to city.) Same goes for property taxes if you're talking about homeowners.
My property taxes went up by 60% this year, in large part because people have been buying up the old houses in my neighbourhood for ridiculous prices ($450,000 for a two bedroom pre-war bungalo) and then pouring a fortune into renovations and additions (sometimes even extra stories). I can't keep up.
Because folks like you displace folks like me, because you have more money and can afford to pay more for housing.
Gentrification is kind of like bloodless ethnic cleansing - I've seen it happen here in Harlem and, frankly, I'd rather go back to the days of broken sidewalks and crackheads on the corner, because working class African Americans weren't being priced out of the community then.
Careful, your privilege is showing...do you seriously think no one in that neighborhood WANTED to take care of their property? Because my guess is that few of them could afford to do so. You say, "invested as much as I could," - how on earth can you be on this site if you don't understand that most people don't have money to invest?
I do not have a lot of money to invest, either.
"Invest" also refers to time and thought. While it's true that some people don't have time, at what point do you just give up? Yesterday when I saw some city workers throwing away tulip bulbs I asked for them. That took two minutes.
Do I know people don't want to take care of the property? When garbage is strewn all over the area between the house and sidewalk it is a fair thing to say.
Oh, yeah, and they gave me enough tulips that I can share with my neighbors. :)
Are you kidding me with this?
Right, has it ever occurred to you that people may be too busy feeding their children, or trying to live to 'wander round asking for tulips from building sites'?
Ever occurred to you that you may get a different response than a 'local' when asking for free stuff?
Taking care of your property is not a bad thing. It's the displacement of lower income individuals that's the bad thing. You probably never had the intent to displace anyone when you moved to your property. But that is how gentrification is often looked at. Where are lower-income individuals (generally minorities) to go if their home/rental prices go up and they can no longer afford it? All awhile, more affluent (generally caucasian) individuals or commonly referred to as YUPPIES (Young Urban Professionals), move into their housing.
Anyway... Courtney, I think it's great you are taking the time to get to know your neighbors. It really is about living a more multicultural society and embracing each and everyone of our differences. Talking to people like yourself or who are in the same boat about your experiences could also be helpful! Then encouraging them to do the same would be great! Just gotta keep building a better ,strong community. :)
And "YUPPIES" suddenly expect everyone to accommodate THEM. Suddenly neighborhoods where community flourished through block parties and street festivals are getting noise complaint calls. Same with neighborhoods where art and music flourished in galleries and clubs. Noise complaints whine whine whine. If you have a problem with noise move to the suburbs, don 't move to a neighborhood with a reputation for nightlife or block parties. Stay in Yorkville or go to the suburbs or something.
specifically the new Caucasian people, were un-friendly. My interviews revealed that the arriving gentry didn't say hello on the sidewalk, didn't hold doors open, and didn't try to meet their neighbors.
When I moved from a medium-large city in the South to a large city in the Northeast, I was struck by how people didn't say hello on the sidewalks. I wonder if many of those "unfriendly" new people are used to (and fleeing from) dense, urban environments where not making eye-contact or acknowledging passers-by is a way of maintaining privacy in an urban sink. Those new-comers might even feel that their personal space is invaded by longtimers' expectation of acknowledgement. Different neighborhoods, different ways.
There are definitely regional differences. I moved from a big city in the Northeast to a smaller city out West. It took me a long time to get used to the fact that guys who say "hi" to me in the neighborhood usually just mean "hi" -- not "nice ass."
Wow, that's not how I see gentrification at all. I see people like Courtney as the victim, not the victimizer. In my view, people with middle-class values and education but lower-class wages, like grad students and artists, as well as the kind of self-improving locals who tend to get vilified as oreos, live in a poor neighborhood because that's all they can afford. They improve the neighborhood because they tend not to participate in gang life or teenage motherhood, use drugs or borrow from loan sharks. They shut down crack houses and liquor stores, clean up parks, and volunteer to improve schools and libraries. Then when the area is nice enough for rich people to choose to live there, the rent shoots up and the people who made the improvements, like Courtney, can't afford to live there anymore.
These good people are repeatedly putting in the effort to improve their communities, then being forced out while richer people reap the fruits of their labor. That seems like a great injustice to me.
Actually, that's a good point. I can no longer afford to buy the house I already live in.
We have had 2 or three neighborhood garage sales, a neighborhood group which succeeded in getting new sidewalks and sewers put in, that sort of thing.
This neighborhood never had a block party before I moved in, but it did have a crack house. And yes, I made a lot of noise complaints and calls on domestic violence wherein the "noise" of a woman screaming for him to stop precipitated the complaint. I don't like the idea that if you don't like noise move to the suburbs. I'm supposed to tolerate the "culture" of crack houses and domestic abuse just because it was there first?
I think one of the key points (among many) in the scenarios you two have outlined here is who gets to enjoy the "improvements" that young white professionals make on neighborhoods like these. Are the "crackheads" and noisy neighbors living better lives now because you called the cops on them and 'cleaned up' the neighborhood? Probably not. The tricky thing about gentrification is that the (mostly) white gentrifying force doesn't just move in and make a neighborhood better for everyone, they make a neighborhood better for particular demographics because of their ability to subject other demographics (ie, poor people, usually people of color) to displacement, arrest, and other (structurally violent and racist) quality of life measures. "Improving" a neighborhood doesn't make poverty or drug use *better* -- it just shunts it off elsewhere (usually through violence measures) so you don't have to look at it. For the most part, people who lose their homes and communities due gentrification--many of whom are then driven into jails, homeless shelters, unstable housing arrangements, or simply even less desirable neighborhoods than before--were better off before these "improvements" ever happened.
You may believe that people like "crackheads," "gang members," or teenage mothers don't have a right to things like affordable housing (and that is a whole different conversation). But I bet you can at least imagine how the processes of rooting out 'undesirables' like these inevitably has much broader effects on everyone else living in the neighborhood who might also be low-income and unable to accommodate the ensuing change in real estate values.
This might be a good time to point out that I am neither young nor white. I am a mixed-race, first generation American in my mid-forties. It would not be possible for me to move to the suburbs because I have not been able to afford a car for years.
Since the neighborhood group was begun, one Latino family has bought a house here, a Jewish family that previously rented bought the property, a lesbian couple moved in. I hesitated to quote this before because it seems like bean-counting. The fact is that before, people who had lived here for years were too afraid to introduce themselves; now the neighborhood is mostly people who know one another's names.
Have I helped the drug dealers? Well, no, I haven't. I don't believe that makes the activities in the community group without merit.
It's illuminating to see how people assume I must be a young, white, rich racist because I moved into a neighborhood I could afford and was interested enough in it to try to make it a better place to live.
Actually I think people generously assumed that you were naive rather than prejudiced and small minded when you agreed with such a horrific comment.
Congratulations on your compassion towards the people around you. I especially enjoy the part where you conflated block parties with crack houses and domestic violence.
I guess when the gentrifiers logic is as sound as yours, residents should welcome you with open arms!
Sorry, I honestly don't know what you mean, Pololly. I don't know what bad comment I "agreed" with.
I intended to point out that if you call the police, it might not be that you are a meanie that doesn't like noise, but that you might be making a domestic violence call.
I certainly didn't mean to insult you or anyone on this thread.
So, African American and Latino culture is the "culture of crack houses and domestic violence"?
You really are a racist!
And yes, you should move to suburbia - you'd be a lot more comfortable out there with the open racists.
So, African American and Latino culture is the "culture of crack houses and domestic violence"?
No, I think it's pretty clear from the above post that that was the culture of the neighborhood he/she moved into, and he/she worked with other members of the community to try to make it better. I didn't see anything in the above post about that being somehow essential to African American and Latino culture. But thanks for throwing the "racist" charge around so liberally. It's bound to improve the quality of the discussion. Are you suggesting that anyone who opposes crack houses and domestic violence in their neighborhood is a racist?
Er, where did I mention African American or Latina? I specifically said this neighborhood did not have ethnic diversity, but did have crack houses. So they were white crack houses. Is that better or worse? If you assume crack houses mean black/latina, then who is the racist?
Cleaning the neighborhood didn't help the people who ran crack houses. Letting them continue helps...whom? Cleaning the neighborhood did make it so that the people afraid of the crack houses but who didn't participate are now able to let their children ride their bikes on this street with less worry.
Are you being sarcastic? I hope so otherwise your comments are so racist and classist that they are beneath discussion. So these gentrifying superheros close down crackhouses and liquor stores? Do they wear little capes and tights? So wealthy white twenty somethings don't do drugs and drink? And low income people of color are just these sub-human, people devoid of rights and thoughts just going around "participating in teenage motherhood" If this is what you think it's no wonder gentrifiers can't look people in the eye.
I guess you missed the part where she said the neighborhood was mostly white. It seems that you assume low income equals minority to the point that you didn't bother to read closely. I think you need to examine why that is.
If the 'good ones' are being villified as oreos, what race are they?
If the neighborhood is mostly white and he still thinks of poor neighborhoods as 'oreos' and the rest, what race does he think of poverty in?
Please stop trying to insinuate that we are being oversensitive.
Also, race aside (and that's a big if), this is a horribly classist comment.
Azinyk,
So, what your saying is that poor people have bad value systems, and we need middle class people like you to live among us as missionaries, and teach us about the evils of teen pregnancy, gang membership or being so poor that you have to use loansharks.
I guess we should bow down and worship people like you!
Sorry, but poverty is NOT caused by "lack of middle class values" (no matter what the op ed pages of the New York Times say) but by - wait for it....
THE LACK OF MONEY.
It's bad enough being poor - but to be forced out of one's own home because people like you can afford to pay more - and then to be patronized too!
That is beyond the pale.
liberal racism - you're doing it right!
Your comment is RACIST.
In my view, people with middle-class values and education but lower-class wages, like grad students and artists, as well as the kind of self-improving locals who tend to get vilified as oreos, live in a poor neighborhood because that's all they can afford.
Are you for real with this comment? The underlying belief in this comment is that the culture of the blacks who live in this area is a bad one (and in the next paragraph you specify - crack and crime). Think about it. According to you, the only 'good' minorities in the area supposedly identify with white culture (and are ostracised by the bad blacks as 'oreos' accordingly). And they are only there because they can't afford to move to better areas.
What unbelievable hateful dangerous anti black propaganda! Has it ever crossed your mind that the black community is full of reformers and acitivists who have worked tirelessly THEIR ENTIRE LIVES to better the lives of those in their communities? How dare you minimize and nullify the work of the activists, community organisers, direct service providers, bloggers, students, pastors, other POC who give their all in their communities every day. They are supported and celebrated in many of their communities - more that some arrogant 21 year old artist twat who just arrived with their white privilege not even dry? Just because you don't see it, doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Are you in churches, community groups, schools every day? Who are you to think that you can accurately take the pulse of a community of which you are an OUTSIDER? Because your white skin gives you psychic powers?
Has it ever occured to you that many people are willing to sacrifice and toil to stay and work on the problems in their communities rather than just leave? That they have a connection to those communities and those communities to them?
I'm a black person with a great education, who has a good job and according to you must have felt ostracised by other blacks. NONSENSE. You have NO IDEA about my life, my experiences, my beliefs and my relationship with my community, white society or anything else. How dare you presume to speak for me and people like me! How dare you presume to bash the black community by taking and twisting my experiences when you have no right, no knowledge and no credibility on this issue. You don't have a clue why or how the black community policies itself and you have no leg to stand on in critique or even discussion. Throwing phrases like 'oreo' around is disgustingly ignorant at best, straight up racist at worst.
Thank you for unmasking all of the 'gentrification is harmless' type comments on this thread. This is what underlies them. Arrogant privileged kids with horribly neo colonialist attitudes towards minorities destroying the communities that were created by the racist policies of their parents.
"How dare you minimize and nullify the work of the activists, community organisers, direct service providers, bloggers, students, pastors, other POC who give their all in their communities every day."
This is my exact problem with that comment. It presupposes that community activists don't exist and that we need middle class whites to show us the way. It's so frustrating. Unless these activists are performing in front of their face, they don't exist at all to the average middle class person patting themselves on the back for single handedly improving the entire neighborhood so it's fit for middle class habitation.
...some arrogant 21 year old artist twat...
I was with your comment till I got to that phrase. Goddamn -- slang for women's body parts as insults on a feminist blog.
Really?
But then you decided I was wrong?
Woe is me...
I agree with you.
I am totally on board with the overall analysis of the comment, but the insult slinging got me to back away.
I'm not looking for majority approval or checking my tone to make you feel comfortable, because I don't care. Here's a shock: not everyone cares what the 'reasonable' (read detached and white) voice of reason thinks.
I guess when someone insults me and my race in such a disgusting way, I should turn the other cheek and respond in a calm and helpful manner, 'educate them' and we can all learn together with our hands joined in a circle singing kumbaya.
The only problem is I'm not one of the good 'oreo' types. (I'm probably on crack as well, right) I'm one of the "gets pissed off at racist comments" types. That comment was racist and, frankly, it's racist whatever you think about it.
As I said, I agree with your analysis of the comment as racist. I'm not denying the racist ideology involved. I agree with you.
I'm also not trying to force you into an opinion you don't hold for the sake of some sort of consensus. I, in fact, never have - even when you attacked me on the post I made last week. I've been very consistent on that, and I think you need to separate your preconceptions of from the what I've actually said.
That being said, I, personally, don't find it productive to use flame text and scream at someone who's brought up a point I don't necessarily feel is completely on base. That type of behavior shuts people out as opposed to educates them to other viewpoints.
I'm not going to lecture you on your tone - that's silencing (I do read the helpful links in the sidebar). I'm also not going to tell YOU how YOU should comment - that's just mean.
I will, however, say that I agree with your analysis and disagree with your approach. I've done nothing to attack you. I feel as if you simply don't like me for whatever reason (this is the internet, you can't hear the tones I use in my voice) and feel as if I'm always attacking you. I'm not. I never did.
I don't think you're attacking me but your comment was a tone argument and mine is not changing. The other thread was the other thread - I don't feel any rivalry of anything. Usually comments will be borne of a particular viewpoint so it wouldn't be suprising that we are on different sides of the argument in multiple threads. I understand the theory of why I should use very non threatening language to 'educate' people but that's not really gonna be my primary concern all the time. When I feel like educating, I'll educate. When I feel like expressing anger I will too.
The truth is that most people will say the most offensive things in a very civil tone and have no interest in even listening to the other side and absolutely zero interest in changing their minds. Look how quickly this argument moved to reverse racism, being pc and liberal guilt. If I wanna pretend those arguments are 'ok', I can go watch fox news.
Look, don't worry. Privilege wouldn't be much use if it wasn't self perpetuating and able to present itself as reasonable would it? No oppressed group will be as consistently reasonable as patriarchy/white supremacy can be, because they have the luxury of being the status quo. I'm not gonna get sucked into that trap. I'll be unreasonable, angry or conciliatory but not because I hate you or anything weird like that.
Neo-colonialist! THAT'S the word I was looking for. Thank you. That's exactly what gentrifiers who think they are improving the outplaced community members are.
Thanks for bringing this up. It has really been on my mind a lot lately. I just got a job offer at the Library of Congress in DC (after being laid off in January- I feel really damn lucky to have gotten this job). I will be moving from the suburbs of Northern Virginia to the Lincoln Park neighborhood on Capitol Hill. I'm moving because it's way too far to commute and I'd like to walk to work. The western part of the neighborhood is very yuppie, but houses decrease in value (and skin tones become darker) as you go east. My new house that I'm renting with two other people is on the border of this area, notorious for it's spreading gentrification.
One more thing to consider is this f*ing economy that is screwing over young people. I graduated with two master's degrees and a shitload of student debt. I'm thirty and can't afford to live on my own in such an expensive city as DC. So I think in some part, the rising cost of college and student loans is to blame, not to mention the inability of most young people to get decent paying jobs with benefits. I can't hardly afford the rent of this place, but I've been so broke for so long I really know how to live cheaply. No Starbucks for me! It's no wonder young people are moving into these neighborhoods- we're "low income" too, despite our middle-class upbringings.
I'm hoping I can get involved in the neighborhood in the ways that Azinyk has said. But I don't know if I'm being too idealistic and I am just one of those white yuppies raising the rents for everyone else.
I would sure as hell hope that you DO NOT "get involved in your neighborhood" the way Azinyk did!
Because Azinyk's way is the way of a patronizing racist.
And I would hope you don't want to be a patronizing racist.
The hood doesn't need White missionaries to educate us about the evils of our ways!
So, please, no, do NOT use a racist like Azinyk as your role model!
You know, I have a big problem with identifying college-educated and college-indebted people as "low-income". I'm one of those people myself, struggling to figure out how I will pay back my loans, and still have food and shelter, when the time comes, but my prospects in life are a hell of a lot better than someone who is poor and can't find a better job because they don't have the education or support to. I still carry my middle-class values and social capital and status into a poor neighborhood if I move there, even if I don't make very much money myself. Class isn't just about the amount of money you make, so let's not pretend like it is.
I think the definition of "low income" should be "low income," despite race, education, cultural or class background. If you can't afford to pay the bills, you can't afford to pay the bills, even if you may have some theoretical privileges that may or may not exist in reality.
As someone pointed out downthread, I think we should direct our ire towards the landlords and developers who are raising rents and making things generally unaffordable. This is the kind of thing that people can come together around in a neighborhood, despite who was there first. I don't want expensive condos next door either that could raise my rent.
Shouldn't everyone have the right to live close to where they work regardless of income? I think we should be working towards an affordable housing movement (this is the kind of "involvement" I was referring to), rather than squabbling about gentrification and other pc-guilt tripping.
I agree-- low income means low income. If you want to talk about other factors like education and race, then talk about those. There's no need to change the meaning of the word "income", which will only result in confusion.
Right, so you don't value this discussion so it is 'pc guilt tripping'.
Let's be clear - an affordable housing movement is a valuable suggestion because you have care about the issue of low income but you don't care about the racial composition of a neighborhood or gentrification so it is pc guilt tripping.
It's not a group of people discussing their own experiences. It's not minorities or people living in gentrified areas giving their response to the open question that the OP raised. No, it's pc gult tripping. Because you said so. I mean, you'd think that given this is a 'reflecting on gentrification' thread, that the issue of gentrification would be relevant. But I guess my tiny black brain can barely comprehend your special white logic. If only there was a white person to explain to me how a conversation should be framed. All us silly people are doing is discussing our own experiences and what we think are priorities. We forgot that because race isn't important to you (given that you are such an expert) that it shouldn't be important to anyone. And shouldn't even be discussed on a discussion board in a post that specifically brought it up.
Thank you. For a second there, we were all forgetting our place!
I used the term "pc guilt tripping" to refer to liberal/progressive whites telling other low-income whites that they shouldn't move to an area they can afford because it's mostly minority. That's all I was referring to and I'm sorry you took it to mean that I don't think this should discussion should be about race, because that's not what I meant at all. I do value this discussion because I'm learning a lot and obviously race is an extremely important part of any discussion about gentrification.
I guess the point I was trying to make is, should I, because I'm white, go into even more debt to live in a white-only area I can't afford so I don't have to feel guilty about displacing another low-income person who is a minority? I'm saying that we're all struggling, and pc white liberal guilt isn't really doing anything to solve problems.
I wouldn't bother apologizing yet because I don't think you really understand my complaint.
I used the term "pc guilt tripping" to refer to liberal/progressive whites telling other low-income whites that they shouldn't move to an area they can afford because it's mostly minority.
I'm lost. Lots of POC on the thread are advocating just this action. In fact, this is what the whole discussion is about. If a POC thinks this is the case and a white person agrees, how is that PC/liberal guilt tripping?
It's funny because you imply that white people can have no motive except guilt to agree with many of the POC of this thread.
If you think about this, it's pretty offensive cos it implies that there is no merit to the argument or logic to the argument. If you assume that the ONLY reason a white person can hold it is guilt, then you are saying outright that not only is the argument wrong, there must be no logical reason to ever hold it. So why do many POC hold it? POC don't have liberal guilt so they must just be...because they're irrational? Stupid? Blind? And white people just do it cos they feel guilty?
Or maybe they both disagree with you? Maybe they have just looked at the argument and come to a different conclusion. But you have come to the argument so closed minded (but yes, very civil) that you have stated that your conclusion is the right one and not only is everyone else wrong, they must be acting out of some emotional problem.
Otherwise, why must it be liberal/ pc guilt tripping?
This is what I mean by your special logic. Obviously you must think that we are all pretty stupid and irrational otherwise you would address the merits of our various arguments rather than dismiss them outright. So my question is - is it because the argument originates from POC that it must be wrong? Welcome to the policing of white privilege in full effect.
You probably have no idea of the assumptions and biases which underly your words and actions. I don't think you are doing it intentionally or to be mean but it's time to put on your big girl/boy pants and start deconstructing your beliefs and being explicit with your prejudices instead of expecting to be taken at face value and applauded all of the time. Fact is, by dismissing the entire other side of the argument as pc guilt tripping, you were making an implicit argument about how white people behave, how black people behave and how they all should behave.
Deep breaths. It will pass.
And no, I'm not patronizing you because you're black.
I'm patronizing you because you are angry and just too darn funny.
The offended, sanctimonous victim. Whether Rush Limbaugh or Clarence Thomas, Adolf Hitler, Richard Nixon, or Britney Spears. . .it never gets old.
Does it not occur to you that s/he might have a very valid reason for being angry?
So I guess now I'm the bad guy because I compared a feminist blog commenter who seemingly cares about racial justice to Adolf Hitler? Oops.
So I guess now I'm the bad guy because I compared a random feminist blog commenter, who seemingly cares about racial justice, to Adolf Hitler, who killed tens of millions of people and had never even heard about the Internets? Oops.
Yes, you are, because you're insulting the person rather than engaging with his/her point.
Oh. Well I guess I could work on not insulting people as much. That would probably be a good idea.
Well... no. A recent college grad making $22,000 in New York is low-income, and in light of all her debt, she needs low rent. If you want to talk about class, it can be discussed as class. But income is pretty straightforward: If you make $25,000 in New York, you necessarily have to live somewhere with cheap rent. That doesn't make you less of a potential gentrifier (despite all the talk of class, we all know that a lot of white faces on the streets of a once-black neighborhood make it a more lucrative sell for realtors), but it also doesn't make you any less low-income.
I never said it did. Where do I say that a low-income college graduate is not low-income?
But gentrification is about culture as much as it is about money, and there is absolutely a cultural (as well as financial) distinction between a low-income college-educated person and a low-income high school-educated person or high school dropout. My white college-educated friends in New York who are moving to Brooklyn because they can only find jobs that don't give them a high enough income to live their middle class life there are still a part of the gentrification of an area that is historically low-income poor people of color.
Er, heh, okay, I did imply that they weren't low-income. But I still have a hard time equating someone who is culturally middle-class with someone who is culturally poor - even if the person who is culturally middle-class is financially poor. That erases the distinction of class and a lot of gentrification is a class-based shift.
I agree with wax ghost. My entire adult life in the US I have been low income. My income last year as a nurse was less than that of a new fast food employee.
That said, I have a bachelor's degree, language skills, management experience, experience teaching in public school, computer skills, personal vehicles, a houseful of crap, and savings my family has lived off for four years as a student or unemployed, that mean I am not needy or without opportunities the way underprivileged people are. The only public safety net I took advantage of was free health insurance for my children (in addition to buying comprehensive private insurance for the entire family), when I was unemployed, just to be sure my children were covered.
This is like the way the term "unemployed" is used in Japan, where it is common to report people's ages and occupations along with names. Even a retired founder of a major corporation is called "unemployed," the same as a homeless person discovered dead under a bridge. Not the same.
Ooh. Flatbush?
I'm just going to toss in my own probably unpopular alternative advice on gentrification: try not being a gentrifier.
I think it's reductive and a cop-out the way that these conversations so often cast gentrification as the unavoidable reality faced by young educated people with cultural capital but meager pay checks. I am 100% in favor of discussions about harm reduction approaches that some people have outlined here (eg, patronize local businesses, don't call the cops on your neighbors for minor quality of life stuff, etc, etc), but I think that sometimes these discussions obfuscate the fact that you actually *can* make choices about where you live that will mitigate the impact that you have on the community you're moving into.
In NYC, that might mean resigning yourself to spending an extra 20-30 minutes on the train in order to get to where you live. Or choosing to live in less "hip" boroughs. I mean, let's face it, writers and grad students can absolutely afford to live in Staten Island. But we're not going there in droves. If you're totally committed to living in Brooklyn, why not take the train a few extra stops and go to Midwood, for instance, where the discrepancy in cultural capital between you and the long term (mostly Jewish) residents isn't going to be as severe as in Bed Stuy or Lefferts Garden, plus the extra distance means the area's less likely to be targeted for intense gentrification in the near future. There are plenty of comparatively stable, low to middle income and ethnically mixed neighborhoods that folks on a 30k salary can afford to live in. You don't *have* to decide to live in one of the four or five neighborhoods that are being most aggressively gentrified right now just because you want to be near all your friends or because you want to be two train stops from restaurants and bars. There may be no perfect solution, but all affordable neighborhoods are not equal, and there are areas you can choose to live in where you can reasonably deduce that you will have less of a negative impact than in others.
As someone who's both been a gentrifier and, at other times, conceded to both financial and geographical inconveniences in order to avoid being a gentrifier, I understand that it's a complicated issue. I do, however, think that it's important to remember in these conversations that gentrification isn't an inevitable given. And a lot of times, however well meaning we are, we become gentrifiers simply because we don't WANT to be inconvenienced. Which is a choice that we have because of a profound amount of privilege.
Great point regarding cultural capital.
I do think it's kind of funny that a lot of young artsy types looking for a deal would never consider moving to, say, Sunnyside or Kew Gardens, where you can find a nice, inexpensive apartment that's a half hour subway ride into Manhattan. Like, move to Brooklyn instead of Queens and you immediately lose your cool badge.
It sounds sort of like you're saying that white people shouldn't move into neighborhoods that aren't traditionally white, because it might upset the culture of the area. How do you think it would go over if someone said that black people shouldn't move into a white neighborhood because it might upset the culture there?
You're asking people to seek out housing that is more expensive, or far away from their jobs, or inconvenient in other ways in order to ... what... oppress themselves because no one else is doing it? The types of people who can't afford slightly higher priced housing might also not be able to afford to spend an hour or two each day on the subway. That time cuts into your ability to work, exercise, eat healthy, pick up your kids, whatever it is you have to do...
I didn't say anything about "upsetting the culture of the area." If you are confused about what "cultural capital" means, I'm sure Wikipedia has an entry on it. For me, "culture" is distant second priority behind material concerns like securing low income community members' continued access to jobs and housing. I do not think that white people should inconvenience ourselves in order to oppress ourselves; I think that white people should inconvenience ourselves because in the end, that inconvenience might mean that someone else (or many someone elses) might be able to keep their home.
As for the secondary effects you connected to these inconveniences, first of all, I think you're setting up an unrealistic (and extreme) scenario. The reality is *most* front line gentrifiers don't have kids (families with small children don't typically flock to areas with high crime and crappy schools). If you want to eat healthy, a gentrifying neighborhood is one of the worst places to be--poor neighborhoods are by far the most underserved by grocery stores, restaurants and the like, and especially by those that carry the "healthiest" products (eg, fresh produce, organic foods, etc). But even that's beside the point. I think it's more important to ask, is your ability to maintain a convenient gym schedule more important than someone else's ability to keep their home? You do realize, right, that once a neighborhood becomes unaffordable, everyone who gets displaced will subsequently be forced into the longer commute that the gentrifiers decided they didn't want to make. Gentrification just forces other people into the same inconveniences, except that the displaced are even more poorly equipped to deal with them (e.g., a 2 hour commute probably sucks more for someone working double minimum wage shifts than it does for a freelance writer or grad student).
Like I said before, it's a complicated issue and I fully acknowledge that the inconveniences of not-gentrifying are indeed sacrifices--and they are sacrifices that not everyone is able or willing to make. In the past, I myself have been among those people who said "you know what? Fuck it, I *want* to live close to my friends and to Manhattan." My only point here was to underscore that many of us *do* have a choice not to gentrify, and I think that choice is often forgotten or neglected in these conversations.
It's actually very simple.
The privileges of affluent young White professionals are getting in the way of the necessities of poor working class African Americans and Latinos.
And yes, your desire to be near your friends and your gym is 1,000 times less important than the need of working class people of color to have affordable housing that is near their jobs and their children's schools.
And when your luxury lifestyle choices get in the way of somebody else's necessities, the ethical choice is to give up your luxuries.
That is, you don't have to live in Bed Stuy - you can go out to Lynbrook or Valley Stream and take the LIRR to work, just like your cousins, brothers and sisters do.
And if you moving out to White suburbia means that a Black or Dominican family gets to keep their apartment - then you did a good thing for the world.
Bottom line, the best thing you can do for the ghetto is to chose not to live here.
Please do so.
I find it strange that someone concerned about racial justice actually seeemd to endorse white suburbia. I won't dispute that gentrification causes a lot of problems, but surely white flight has caused some problems of its own. For every black or Dominican family that's lost their apartment in NYC, there's five more black families living in Detroit, or East St. Louis, or Cleveland, that have seen the wealth in their home plummet, their jobs disappear, and their state governments abandon them because white people had to live in places with white picket fences five minutes from the nearest golf course. White people have to take their unearned privlege somewhere (as long as this society continues to be as racist as it is). I don't think voluntary residential segregation offers any sort of long-term, systemic solution.
this is an interesting point.
from my studies on this issue, displacement happens most in high-density cities (hence all the new york passion here), but white flight happens more in the low-density cities (tucson has huge issues with it, and it's been pretty detrimental to a lot of the communities there). so this would indicate that the density of the area would suggest the most racially-sensitive courses of action.
i am not too thrilled with the suggestion that whites move out to the suburbs from an environmental standpoint. most urban planners would tell you that the massive suburbanization that has taken place since the 50s is responsible for many of our environmental issues from rising carbon levels to (foreign) oil consumption to urban heat island effects. so i don't think encouraging suburbanization is a good solution. AT ALL.
in fact, most urban planners think that higher urban density is CRITICAL to avoiding global warning. so it seems to me, that, to avoid destroying communities, the most important thing is to pass wide-ranging laws that protect existing residents and maintain a certain percentage of low-income housing. then areas can be densified with the minimum amount of displacement.
as i write this, i'm sure another perfectly good square mile of unspoiled on the periphery of my city has been developed.
PLEASE, everyone....please don't encourage environmental harm in the name of protecting ethnic neighborhoods. BOTH GOALS are vital to society, and rather than slinging insults back and forth, let's explore solutions.
This is just not a realistic suggestion, imo.
For radical minded folks who get the concepts of privilege and oppression, going into this area of thought kind of makes sense. But really, to me, it plays into some bizarre "white man's burden" mindset. No one needs anyone else to make sacrifices for them.
Cultural capital differences go both ways. Should we say that a minority couple shouldn't move into an area where they can afford to be, but they are not as well off as the neighbors, because they might make companies think that the area is going downhill?
Bottom line - you're affluent, you're educated, you're Caucasian, your race runs this country (no matter who the president is at the moment) - please take advantage of your White skin and class privileges, rather than making my neighborhood unlivable for people like me.
You don't have to live in Harlem (in fact I'd prefer you didn't)- try Inwood, or Washington Heights west of Ft Washington Av, or Riverdale.
And you don't have to be in Bedford Stuyvessant or East Williamsburgh - try Bensonhurst or Bay Ridge (or go across the Brooklyn/Queens line to Howard Beach).
You have options - a lot more than the Black and Latino folks you are displacing do.
Please use them.
Being a gentrifier is a lifestyle choice - please don't do it.
Gotta agree with this. It reminds me of a lot of white/wealthy "issues", which are really one question spread out over a variety of areas:
"How do I live a really privileged, exciting life that meets all of my expectations without feeling too guilty?"
The problem is that people always look for the personal, rather than the net. It's all about personal fulfillment, which ignores much greater issues. It must be nice to have delightful cultural interactions with your neighbors whereby you grow as a person, but the net here is that eventually many of those neighbors won't be able to afford being able to be your neighbor any more.
It's the same with so many other privileged issues. How do I be environmentally friendly while still commuting long distances and purchasing a lot of goods? How do I reconcile spending a ton for private college with economic justice issues? How do I get education to reform without sending my kids to public school? And of course, how do I be a gentrifier without hurting the local community?
The questions a lot of people are asking are wrong, because they're based on a privileged presupposition that personal pleasure and fulfillment is the jumping off point, and it isn't.
I would have liked to live on-campus for college. It'd make my life easier, I wouldn't have to get up early, and I'd probably have more fun. But I got a commuter's scholarship that lets me go to school without spending exorbitant amounts of money that really ought to be spread out more and that could do more good for more people if it wasn't spent on me. Ditto on how I commute to school. Carpooling and taking the train limits my schedule, and requires time input, but the alternative is wasteful and unsustainable.
The answer to how do I be a "good" gentrifier is to not be one. It's a silly question that's predicated upon personal privilege and satisfaction.
Sacrifice. Voluntary sacrifice in the face of easier, more pleasurable, more personally fulfilling options, and finding your fulfillment in said sacrifice, is the only way to do it. Anything less is like asking how to get water out of a sinking ship while you're drilling holes in the hull.
Yes, thank you, I think that's exactly it. In my experience though, what makes is uniquely hard to argue with people who don't understand gentrification is that they will do everything in your power to convince you they don't have meaningful social privilege compared to the rest of their neighbors and they will do everything they can to convince you they didn't have a choice about where they live. I can't tell you how many "broke" white college graduates with low end creative sector jobs have tried to convince me that they were in the same boat as as their next door neighbor who has three kids, no college degree, and works at burger king. It's the amazing thing about privilege is how it makes itself completely illegible to the people who have it.
Just read some of the comments in this thread and you'll see the same defense of privilege.
"I'm not affluent."
"Let's define low-income on strictly economic grounds."
"Cultural capital? Pshaw!"
"It's the building owners' fault, not mine!"
It's cognitive dissonance. We believe in owning up to privilege, but only to a certain point, and then our more base, primal desires take over. The desire for community, personal happiness, material goods, and convenience kick in, and suddenly we're seeing arguments for why someone with a college degree in a neighborhood where a lot of folks don't even have GED's isn't privileged.
Trying to reduce this down into any one issue, be it racial, cultural, or economic, just won't do the trick. We understand how gentrification works, but putting into action a plan that would substantively make our lives harder so as to prevent people from being forced to leave their neighborhoods goes against our most basic human instincts.
Sacrificing pleasure, material comforts, and recognizing that sometimes we can't solve everything are the only way to stop gentrification.
Humility and sacrifice with a conscious acknowledgement of our privilege is the only solution. Cognitive dissonance will stop everything else.
Low income literally means low income. There is no reason to redefine that. If we want to discuss things other than simple income, there are other phrases for that... like class, or cultural capital, etc.
Maybe some people have said that because they are low income they don't have more cultural or class capital, and so maybe that's what you're complaining about. But it doesn't make any sense to take a word with a clear meaning, like income, and then try to redefine it to mean a whole bunch of other things too.
Its like if I say I have black hair, and you say that I don't really have back hair because I don't also have black skin. It doesn't make any sense. Someone is low income if their income is low, regardless of any other factors. There are other phrases to talk about each of those other factors or the combination of all of them.
Sure, but the problem is that if we simply focus on income as the source of power we ignore the cultural/social power of privilege.
People can have the exact same income yet have vastly different cultural opportunities, advantages, and services.
In that sense if we act like gentrifying is okay because one only makes x dollars a year it's not going to solve anything.
But yes, my issue was the conflation of "low-income" with "little cultural impact".
This definition of low-income also shows little care for the issue of dependents. 20k a year supporting one person is way different than 20k a year stretched over three.
Well, yes, I totally agree we should be discussing things other than income. I just do not want to define the phrase "low income" to mean something other than "having a low income" because that would be incredibly confusing. Low income means low income-- if we want to talk about societal impact, let's talk about that, not redefine other words to mean it.
Hey GregoryAButler: You know, I think you're one of the first people I've come across who has flat out said: whatever you do, NEVER be a gentrifier. I applaud you for actually saying that. I'm actually really interested in talking about gentrification, because I'm definitely am apt to believe what you're saying is the only really right answer. But then I am also wondering the following:
I think to address gentrification, and I'm not an expert by any means, but I think you'd have to really address the system, who owns the buildings, who owns the businesses, who owns the infrastructure, etc etc. What the government's plans are for "cleaning up the area." How the government can control designated buildings as "low income" housing. Apartment buildings that only rent to "low income" people. Companies that come in and start building newer, fancier apartments. How much is the individual contributing to actually affect the entire conversion? Seems like focusing on micro interactions or micro choices misses the point of whats going on large scale and what to do about it.
Additionally, there's an element to this that seems segregationist and it makes me uncomfortable.
However, if thats really the only thing to be done-- NOT move into gentrified city areas-- what can be done to stop other young/white/middle-upper middle class people from doing the same? Does anyone know organizations that focus on anti-gentrification, or ways to affect the government to try and protect housing, etc.?
And if you're not affluent?
So how is what GREGORYABUTLER is suggesting not encouraging de facto re-segregation? And why is this supposed to be a good thing?
I think that if you move into a neighborhood that has block parties, you shouldn't complain about the block parties. But I don't like the idea of telling people that they can't move where they want to because of their skin color, education, or whatever.
It sounds like people are saying that even if a young and in debt couple LIKES the culture of an area and has no plans to change it, no intention of calling noise complaints on block parties or anything, they STILL aren't welcome because some other company might take that as a sign that they should mess with the area. To that I say, place the blame where it lies. That young couple who likes that area and isn't going to mess with it is not responsible for what someone else does. And if they want to clean up their own property they should be able to, as long as they don't pressure other people to imitate them.
If there are companies that have grand plans to buy up an area and change it, I think you should be complaining about those companies-- not about the broke and in debt recent students who are trying to find whatever housing they can afford.
Here's a question. If someone with Indian heritage, who looks Indian, but who speaks english as a first language and went to college and now has a decent job and a lot of debt, wants to move into a neighborhood that was traditionally Indian, is that bad? Are they still an oppressive gentrifier? Is being a gentrifier about your skin color, or your accent, or your education, or your job, or all of the above?
(Oh, and by healthy eating upthread, I meant being able to spend those 45 minutes cooking dinner at home instead of sitting on a train-- not the quality of restaurants in either area)
I think there's a lot to respond to here, but I'll just say this:
If it helps, you can think of gentrification as analogous to consumer activism. Let's say I am politically opposed to environmental and labor exploitation. But then I go into Wal Mart and buy some jeans or whatever. Does that mean that those jeans magically *weren't* made in a sweatshop and sold to me by an underpaid nonunionized worker? Of course not--and I just participated in the systems that created those exploitative conditions by buying those jeans. You might not *want* low income people or people of color to lose their homes, you might have the best intentions in moving into an ethnically diverse neighborhood, but if your'e a gentrifier, the material effects of your social privilege don't magically disappear just because you have good intentions.
Whether you're buying the Wal Mart jeans or gentrifying, you're
participating in a system that is structurally unequal. Just like lots of people inconvenience themselves in order to make socially responsible consumer choices, other people inconvenience themselves in order to make socially responsible living choices. Also like with consumer activism, it functions on a larger scale than that of the individual. One person cannot single handedly gentrify a neighborhood just like (conversely) one person cannot singlehandedly bring down Wal Mart by boycotting it. But people make individual choices based on their vision for larger social change.
Though he's a bit less diplomatic than I was attempting to be (which is curious because when it comes to issues like "cis" suddenly he is all about the powers of persuasion), I think GregoryButler is basically right--gentrification is a lifestyle choice. Nobody (or at least very few people) *has* to do it.
It's not simply about one's culture. That's part of the issue, but far from all of it. Once a neighborhood becomes sufficiently gentrified rent/property tax rises to a point that starts squeezing out the original (poorer) inhabitants. White or black, Indian or Asian, when you bring middle class, educated, affluent privilege into a neighborhood and it reaches critical mass the economic disparity will eventually start forcing people out.
Gentrifiers don't just move to a poor neighborhood to kick it with people, they do it because the rent's cheap and because the neighborhood provides easy access to the cultural opportunities they want. The problem is that what's cheap rent for them is simply rent for the original inhabitants, and their cultural opportunities supersede the employment opportunities of the original inhabitants.
It's urban development and resegregation on economic and cultural lines reinforced by the economically powerful moving in.
And let's not conflate having student debt with not being economically powerful. If I hear that one more time I'm gonna vomit. Paying off student debt limits one's gross purchasing power, but the educational opportunities and the way they both offer more job opportunities and give the recipient cultural acumen far outweigh the monthly payments they're making.
It's this faux-poor bohemian lifestyle we've seen before: acting like one is poor when they're culturally, socially, and educationally rich, which translates into far better job prospects and earning over the long term. If college debt wasn't something that the degree itself paid off people wouldn't be going to college, but the value of a degree is such that it transcends the simple economics.
And this highlights another issue at hand: how does one really rescind one's cultural capital? It's not as simple as not shutting down block parties. That's just one aspect of things. Everyone doesn't just bring their culture to the table and share, wealthy culture eventually overpowers other forms of culture because of the social approval and wealth to back it involved. So even if gentrifiers don't actively pursue a Starbucks or a hip bar, the economy will bring it to them because they have the spending money and the cultural capital.
Disavowing all responsibility for our individual economic decisions is a great way for privileged folk to pass the onus of change onto corporations. The truth is that neighborhoods don't change until there's the influx of cultural and monetary capital that relatively wealthy folks moving in brings to a neighborhood. Being one of those wealthy folks and moving in can and does help eventually precipitate "bad" gentrification (as if there's a good kind).
Picture wealth as a disease that overrides poorer cultures and can force the movement of poorer people out of neighborhoods. Wealthier, educated people desiring cultural opportunities and cheap housing are the vector. If you know you're the vector and you still move in anyway you're knowingly "infecting" the neighborhood.
This has been a very intense discussion so far and while it has been enlightening, it has caused me to reflect a bit on my own thoughts on this issue.
I think there is a distinct difference in the types of gentrification--as has been discussed. I like to think of it in terms of "hard" and "soft" gentrification (like the IR definitions of power, because, in a way, gentrification could be viewed as an exercise of power). Hard gentrification would be something imposed by a governing body (i.e. the Coney Island example) and soft gentrification is the trickier to define--but has been illustrated by other post comments as individuals acting as "gentrifiers". Again, these are not scholarly or commonly accepted terms, just the way in which I frame this discussion in my own terms.
This may come as a slightly Pollyanna worldview, but maybe there is a point when neighborhoods establish a critical mass of diversity and these tensions described by many in reference to this post dissipate and people just go on with their lives and work for the common good of the community as opposed to the common good of the group within the community they identify with. In other words, perhaps there comes a time--albeit rare--when the power is balanced among all of the stakeholders in the community and soft gentrification is no longer a concern. This may come at a time when there is no one dominant group of people in a neighborhood that is being edged out by another emerging dominant group (as is roughly the case where I live)so everyone identifies themselves in more civic terms as opposed to social or racial terms.
I feel like I could expand upon this idea ad nauseum--but I will stop here and maybe add on latere...
Threads like this are just depressing. Lots of liberal hand-wringing with occasional sprinkles of "stay out of my neighborhood you racists" for the likes of Mr. Butler.
And by the way we don't all live in New York.
Calling it "liberal hand-wringing" is a hell of a lot easier than actually thinking about it, isn't it?
When there's this much negativity and so little in the way of positive solutions, then yeah it's hand wringing. My wife's and urban planner and I've discussed it at length with her and a lot of her colleagues. I lived in Chicago in Edgewater for two years and Logan Square for three (not that any of these NewYawkers know where the fuck that is) and now I live in an inner ring suburb. So gentrification is a something I've thought about. I know enough about it to know that it's complicated, and there's more than one valid take on it. I read the thread because I think about it and I'm interested in the problems but I don't see a lot of constructive discussion going on here.
And since you don't already see constructive discussion, you can't possibly engage in it, can you?
I have a question for those who are saying "don't be a gentrifier." Do you think its ok to tell someone who, say, does not have a college education, or is a racial minority, or a single parent, or whatever, that they shouldn't move into "nice" neighborhoods because it might lower property values and might make companies view the area as less important?
Well barring some pretty spectacular mitigating circumstances, because of this thing called "racism," if a group of people of color were to move en masse into a mostly white neighborhood, their skin color would not cause the real estate value in the area to go up, ultimately forcibly driving the original residents out of their homes and communities (usually when people of color move into a white neighborhood like that, it's caused white flight which is pretty qualitatively different from gentrification).
It is in this sense that cultural capital does not "go both ways."
I think its unfair to blame one type of people for the actions of corporations and not another type.
(Obviously I meant people who don't have any connection to the corporations involved)
You know what's *really* unfair? Is when entire communities of people are forced to move out of their homes just because a bunch of upwardly mobile folks decided they thought it would be cool to live there too and drove up the rent. It's also pretty unfair that the communities that are most likely to get driven out are also the ones that are most likely to be unable to find comparable safe and stable housing elsewhere. It is *really* unfair that the people who are most vulnerable to gentrification are also the most vulnerable to the systemic effects of classism and racism, such as homelessness, unemployment, imprisonment, drug use, police surveillance and harassment, etc, etc... all of which are guess what? Aggravated by the effects gentrification!
You accused me elsewhere of using language that belittled your arguments-- so what is it when you say that people "decided it would be cool" to live in some place? Do you think they don't have actual reasons to move somewhere where they can afford to live and work?
Another thing I meant to point out- I remember reading in a history class about how there were many points in the 20th century where working class whites and minorities could have come together on a variety of causes, mostly economic injustice. But because of race and cultural prejudices and divisions, it never really happened. I kind of think that with the economy as it is, we're at that kind of juncture now. There are all kinds of people struggling to find jobs and affordable housing now, and we should look to each other to see what we have in common and how we can work together to create affordable (and maybe even sustainable) communities. Maybe that is too Pollyanna for reality, but I think a lot of people are willing to work with their neighbors, regardless of race or background, to make improvements for the good of the community, and not in a "missionary" kind of way. Those of us who are struggling financially have a lot in common and want the same things. I just think we should take advantage of that and see the positives in it.
In Portland, OR awhile, a group was started to create a dialogue about gentrification in a historically black neighborhood.
Here's the article by Dan Savage, which makes some really good points:
http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/05/theyre_doing_something_about_gentrificat
From Dan Savage's post: You know what? White people in the 60s and 70s that didn’t want to live in racially mixed neighborhoods fled urban areas for the suburbs. It was called “white flight” and guilty white liberals everywhere agreed that white people sucked. Now white people are willing to live in racially mixed neighborhoods and it’s called gentrification and guilty white liberals everywhere agree that white people suck.
Sorry, guilty white liberals, but white people can’t suck for fleeing racially mixed neighborhoods back then and then suck for moving into racially mixed neighborhoods now.
I hadn't thought of that, but its a really good point. How can it be wrong to avoid ethnic/diverse neighborhoods AND wrong not to avoid them?
I reject the idea that its wrong for white people to move into the neighborhoods they want to be in, but its good for everyone else to move into the neighborhoods of their choice. I think people of color should feel free to move into the suburbs, and white people should feel free to move into the city. I don't see why de facto segregation has suddenly turned around into a good thing.
I support the idea of moving into a neighborhood without the intention of changing it. Don't try to shut down the culture that's already there, and if they bring in a Starbucks, continue getting your coffee from the locally owned shop that was there before. But I don't think its fair to hold people responsible for what the Starbucks corporation does just based on their skin color.
I'm willing to be Wal Mart disproportionately serves and is staffed by people with less "cultural capital." So if I don't want a Wal Mart moving into my town, should I say that people of color should stay out of my town just because it might potentially make Wal Mart want to open a branch there?
Hold people responsible for their OWN actions.
Hold people responsible for their OWN actions = ignore stuctural inequalities
So, seriously, what do you want me to say to apartment managers when I tell them that I don't want to live near black people? I can't believe that that's now the right thing to do.
I'm moving into a new city in the next year. I can just imagine trying to defend this argument when I'm looking for housing.
"I don't want to live near black people"
"Why not? That sounds pretty racist"
"Well, see, I read on a blog post once that I'm so much better and more desirable than them that if I move into their area it might hurt them, and its my job as a priveleged person who looks white to protect them by staying far away from them. But I'm not racist or anything."
Yes! Exactly. Jesus.
In other words,
1. Acknowledging race or racism = being a racist
2. Holding a complex view on race that would be difficult to explain to the masses = being a racist
3. Acknowledging that white people may be advantaged over black people = being a racist
4. 'read on a blog once" = minimizing and marginalizing the viewpoints of real life minorities trying to explain an issue in an appropriate forum
and:
"I read on a blog that I'm so much better and more desirable than them"
- implying that acknowledging white privilege must equal thinking that you are better than other races, rather than correctly seeing that society treats you better
- further this
1) means that white people who acknowledge white privilege are racists
2) creates a strawman of white privilege to be more easily dismissed
"it's my job as a privileged person who looks white to protect them by staying far away from them. "
- implying that white people have a special burden thus implying that minorities lack this burden and somehow minorities get special treatment
- implying that the burden 'privileged people face is somehow equivalent or greater to their privilege, thus making them the real victims
- implying that the presense on the privileged minority can never be a negative force for a minority community which in turn
- Minimises and insults the history of marginalised peoples (and their horrible mistreatment) and the collective history that they share by denying their collective mistreatment
In other words,
ITS REVERSE RACISM! MINORITIES ARE SO IRRATIONAL AND OVERSENSITIVE. THE SYSTEM IS FINE! ITS ONLY INDIVIDUALS WHO EVER DO WRONG! STOP COMPLAINING YOU OVERLY PC IDIOTS!
IM THE WHITE MAN AND THUS I UNDERSTAND RACISM BETTER THAN EVERYONE ELSE - SINCE I DECREE THIS IS NOT A RACE ISSUE, PLEASE MOVE KINDLY ALONG BACK TO YOUR CRACK HOUSE, OR WHATEVER.
I'm just trying to figure out how you justify saying that white people should stay away from minorities, or that people in general should stay in their segregated neighborhoods, as a good thing. I could have sworn "de facto segregation" was considered a bad thing in the US. I seem to remember an important court case about that...
And actually, yes, "reverse" racism is still just racism. When I say I'm a feminist it doesn't mean I think women should be above men, it means I think we should be equal. I think the same goes for racism. (And for the record, I'm actually mixed-race, and female, but you can call me the white man if you prefer.)
How about everyone tries to disassemble a racist patricarchical system which disadvantages and others people? If sometimes that means staying away, stay away. If sometimes that means integrating, integrate. Both you and Kate spend a lot of time trying to argue that every concept must be able to be articulated in one sentence or it is too complicated.
Why?
It's a discriminatory standard because the needs of minority communities may be more complex than those of a majority community. It's also discriminatory because minorities are seen as a monolith and so of course all their needs must be identical (and sum up able).
By the way, I'm not sure what races you are mixed (!) but you said up thread that you look white and you enjoy white privilege. You are clearly a defender of it. In your 'mock conversations' you are clearly talking to white people only. Are theirs the only opinions that matter? I'm unsure of why you think that other people should shape their beliefs and lives around the 'jokey' five min conversations between ignorant white people on issues they are not really interested in. But whatever.
I assumed you were male because you use similar tactics that are used by patriarchy against women - mocking dismissive tone to imply that they are oversensitive and irrational.
"gosh, it's all a bit complicated, isn't it!" type stuff.
Again, why should the limitations in your intellectual capacity or ability to explain, or pick intelligent friends, govern anyone else's lives? How worthless you must think we all are if you think your one off utterances so important that they should supercede our considered ideologies.
If you are really interested in listening and learning (which I'm not sure you are), it's time to really dig deep and ask yourself why anyone should really care more about what you think than what they know. If the only answer you can honestly come up with is that you look white, you're probably growing. Feel free to spend the next 20 posts trying to pretend you have other reasons.
I wish I could give this comment a lot more "like"s.
So are we supposed to live in segregated or mixed neighborhoods or not? I can't keep track of what's cool these days....
I think the point Pantheon (and Dan Savage) is trying to make is that as a white person, you're damned if you do and damned if you don't. What exactly are we supposed to do? Where would you suggest we live if we can't afford a yuppie whites-only neighborhood, and wouldn't really want to live there anyway if we could?
Please don't read too much into my other comment halfway up the thread mocking you. I've had some second thoughts.
You actually are a pretty good satirist. So comparing you to Rush Limbaugh and Hitler was probably a little extreme and dumb.
I guess I'd felt like I had to comedically rip into you because you were comedically ripping into everyone else. . .but the more I think about it, the more I realize I like your style.
Keep on truckin'. It hurts so good.
Please don't read too much into my other comment halfway up the thread mocking you. I've had some second thoughts.
You actually are a pretty good satirist. So comparing you to Rush Limbaugh and Hitler was probably a little extreme and dumb.
I guess I'd felt like I had to comedically rip into you because you were comedically ripping into everyone else. . .but the more I think about it, the more I realize I like your style.
Keep on truckin'. It hurts so good.
I gotta say, I was hoping to read something interesting here (I'm not Chinese and live in a Chinatown, which is why I'm interested), but now I'm going to follow just for the pololly lol. Shine on you crazy star!
Alternatively, you could not be an asshole and the conversation could go like this:
"I don't want to live in that neighborhood. I'll look somewhere else."
"Why not? Are you a bigot or something? Are you afraid of living near black people?"
"No, I'm trying not to contribute to gentrification. If a lot of people like me move to a historically low-income minority dominated area, it drives up rents and forces out long-term residents of the neighborhood. I don't want to be a part of that."
"Oh, that makes sense. Interesting."
I'm not going to pretend this is an easy issue to navigate--on an individual level, it's pretty hard to tell someone that they should stretch their budget even thinner to live farther away from their crappy-paying job. But we owe it to each other to have this conversation in a way that respects and recognizes the harm done by the aggregate of those individual choices.
Hooray for reductionism! Because we're all just individuals, and our own individual satisfaction and beliefs are all that matters! None of us are privileged! There are no greater forces at work than my own individual actions!
Nobody's saying "don't live near black people", and that's a complete straw man. There's nothing wrong with living near black people, or white people, or Asian people, or whatever. Ethnically diverse neighborhoods are just fine.
The problem is that this is a cultural/economic issue. Your personal desire to live in a hip neighborhood where you interact with a bunch of minorities has a net impact that supports a system of displacement of the same minorities and poor people that you so care about.
You act like making a purposeful decision to not live in a primarily minority neighborhood is racist, but the truth is it's only racist if your reason is to avoid those minorities. If, however, your reason is to set aside your privilege and make a conscious consumer choice that betters those residents you're actually HELPING MINORITIES.
Yes, sometimes the best solution is to STAY AWAY. Meddling doesn't necessarily solve things, and it can actually hurt things.
I really don't care about a hip neighborhood. I will be looking for a neighborhood with low crime where I can easily get to work. That might mean that I won't end up even wanting to live in one of the places you guys are talking about. I still just think its strange in principle to say that its better to stay out of neighborhoods where people aren't the same as you.
That's not the rationale, though, Pantheon.
The principle is that if you bring a certain degree of wealth and cultural affluence to a neighborhood lacking in this regard a critical mass can form, subsuming the original culture and forcing out the poorer people.
Consider it like invasive species. In principle it's nice to grow pretty trees, but if the pretty trees flourish too much and choke off the other plants they hamstring biodiversity and do more harm than good.
And BTW, a neighborhood with cheap rent, low crime, and easy access to jobs?
That's a hip fuckin' neighborhood.
I thought that by hip you meant something like full of writers and artists and poetry nights.
I agree with pololly and davenj that a white person who wants to move to a gentrifying, ethnically diverse neighborhood should be aware of the structural and systemic inequalities that exist in relation to his or her personal choice. To say that we should only worry about whether our individual actions are ethical in and of themselves is to deny whole networks of power, privilege, and social position in which each of us are implicated. It calls to mind the bewilderment of 1970s feminists who couldn't figure out why black women were calling them to account for ignoring black women's issues. After all, they hadn't done anything *overtly* racist. But in many instances they had ignored the racist social structures that allowed them to exercise white privilege in their pursuit of *white* women's liberation while ignoring the varied needs of women of color even as they purported to represent a monolithic group called "[all] women"
Similarly, holders of white privilege have a responsibility to recognize that privilege and the privilege structures in which we are implicated. This applies to gentrification because, as many posters above have suggested, where a white-privileged person chooses to live has consequences to those without white privilege.
That being said, I don't think that avoiding diverse neighborhoods is necessarily the best and most constructive option for race-conscious whites. It doesn't stop gentrification from happening - those same properties will just be bought by less conscious privilege-holders, whether those privilege-holders be individual families, slumlords, or developers. Instead of asking well intentioned white people to stay away from racially diverse neighborhoods, might it not make sense to ask them to do the hard work toward building diverse communities that are respectful and just toward all of their residents regardless of class, race, or economic background?
I think that might be a better approach too.
That's true, "avoiding diverse neighborhoods" is not necessarily the best solution for white people. But that doesn't mean that aren't some choices that are better than others.
Also, this is not a response to you specifically but the whole "damned if you do, damned if you don't" shtick is bunk (and for the record, Dan Savage has like, egregiously shitty race politics). On the one hand, yes, if you do choose to gentrify, there are things you can do to mitigate your impact, like working with your community, all the things the OP originally posted, etc. But the attitude "if you don't gentrify someone else will so you might as well do it" is sort of like saying "well if I don't shop at Wal Mart someone else will so it doesn't matter where I shop ultimately." You *can* still try to make socially responsible choices. And if you care about things like antiracism and economic justice, there are PLENTY of things you can do to organize against and educate about gentrification without resigning yourself to actually BEING a gentrifier.
Furthermore (and again this is my frustration with discussions like these), all mixed neighborhoods are NOT the same when it comes to gentrification. People always act like the ONLY affordable neighborhoods that exist are gentrifying neighborhoods and the ONLY way to live in a diverse area is to be a gentrifier. This is not true. If you are a person with social capital and a tight budget looking for a place to live, there are *plenty* of choices that you can make to mitigate your impact. Basically, try to avoid those specific neighborhoods that are most vulnerable. You can live in a working class white neighborhood. If you don't want to do that, you can commute a little farther and live nonwhite areas that are not centrally located (and are thus less likely to be prime gentrification targets). You can live in middle income, comparatively stable mixed neighborhoods (for instance, in areas where greater proportions of the nonwhite residents are homeowners, which means they're somewhat less vulnerable to displacement). Or you can live in other non-trendy (ie, non gentrifying) mixed neighborhoods (for instance: most of the borough of Queens, much of Staten Island, significant portions of the Bronx). Or at the very least you could just choose to live anywhere *but* those few neighborhoods that are being *most* aggressively gentrified, which is where your presence will be the worst.
Where does one find out which neighborhoods are currently ok to move into, especially if you're looking for housing in a new city at a distance?
For those whose suggestion to liberal whites is simply "don't gentrify," I wonder if you mean that any white liberal moving to an ethnically and racially diverse and economically depressed neighborhood is a gentrifier? Can you clarify this please?
I'd like to offer my own situation as a case study to facilitate further conversation. I hope that it opens up some of the complexities of the issue.
First, here's a bit about my class, race, and economic position: I'm a white woman in my late thirties married to a white man. I've worked in the food and beverage service industry for most of my adult life so far. Some years ago, I went back to school at community college, and worked my way from there to ultimately earn a master's degree. Last year, I earned only a $13,000 stipend as a teaching and research assistant. Next year, with my MA, I will earn a total of about $12,000 as an adjunct instructor. My husband earns more than me as a skilled laborer, but we are solidly working class in terms of income as well as our values, social and economic justice being the focus of our political concerns. We are both committed to anti-racist action in our political and personal lives and in our workplaces.
Recently, we bought a home in a mostly African American neighborhood because it's where we could afford a home, and because it's close enough for us both to walk to work. In this neighborhood, there is a community organization that works to recruit new businesses to the neighborhood and raises funds to buy abandoned buildings, renovate them, and sell them as single family homes. It's members are mostly (but not exclusively) white. My work/ class schedule generally prohibits my attendance at meeting of this community organization, but I do like to see new businesses coming in and old abandoned houses being restored. On the other hand, I also subscribe to the message board of this organization, and occasionally I see a few of its members expressing what appear to be veiled racist sentiments toward some of their African American neighbors. When I see this, I do my best to respond in a constructive anti-racist fashion.
I live where I live because I like it here and because it makes economic sense. I love my neighborhood and I love my run down old house, and even though I can't afford to do very much to fix it up right now, I do as much as I can. I plan on staying here for life, and I'm committed to this community. When I see this neighborhood growing economically, that makes me happy. Am I a gentrifier, and if so, does this mean that I shouldn't be here?
It probably depends. Some people might see you as a gentrifier; others might not. It's really not as cut-and-dried as the majority of this thread is making it out to be.
Um. . .pretty sure you're not a gentrifier.
I think it might be fair to point out that gentrification is not the worst thing that can happen to a neighbourhood. I work in property assessment, and there are three things that can happen when a traditionally cheaper, older neighbourhood suddenly looks very attractive compared to the expensive neighbourhoods that surround it: (1) - Gentrification; (2) - All the houses are bought as 'income properties' and rented to the traditional inhabitants of the neighbourhood, but not fixed up or improved in any way, ensuring that the landlord makes money while the neighbourhood inhabitants remain poor and do not own their homes; and (3) - A developer buys the whole block, levels it, and puts in condos or townhouses or a shopping concourse. All things considered, gentrification may not be the worst thing that can happen (especially if those really were the only three choices).
Gentrification seems like a symptom of a larger problem: if the original inhabitants had the same advantages of education and employment as the gentrifiers, there wouldn't be a problem with economic disparity or being priced out of your own home. The issues of class or ethnicity that arise when a neighbourhood is gentrified are simply the same problem that plague our planet in general: people form tribes, and they can't see the world from the point of view of another group. Trying to solve the 'gentrification problem' is merely treating the symptom; economic and social justice for all would take care of the disease.
Incidentally, the group that has probably suffered the most from gentrification where I live are seniors. They've lived in their houses for 50 years, and suddenly they can't afford the property taxes, because somebody's rich grandkids moved in next door. The Native population and traditional white inhabitants have also been subjected to some difficulties due to skyrocketing property values in my town (the average house price doubled between 2004 and 2007).
"Gentrification seems like a symptom of a larger problem."
Lol, yes. And words that have been coined in effort to describe that problem include: "racism" and "capitalism." You're absolutely right that it's important to remember the larger context but I have to note that saying that dealing with gentrification is merely "treating the symptom" is like saying "we shouldn't worry about fixing public schools in urban areas because that's merely a SYMPTOM of larger injustices."
Though also, I think you're totally right to include seniors amongst the list of demographics that are vulnerable to gentrification.
I'm also kind of curious if rents have risen during the recession and real estate implosion. To any of you who live in minority neighborhoods that are gentrifying- have your rents gone up over the past year? Just curious.
To what extent Bushwick is gentrifying, I'm not sure, but the total rent for my apartment is going down $100 June 1st, so it will be $50 less for me.
When I think about gentrification, two words come to mind: Right On!!!
I mean just look how much it improves neighborhoods. You have a place that's filled with meth, or crack, or LSD, or whatever, and there's all these undesirable people, people of the tinted persuasion (for lack of a better phrase), poor people, people with non-ironic clothing choices from K-Mart or what have you.
And then other people--smart, cool types--start planting trees, and they tear down the old buildings and build newer buildings, better buildings made out of environmentally sustainable materials shipped in from China by container barge.
And before you know it, there's all these amazing young, beautiful people everywhere, walking around, at 1 in the morning, drunk, loudly swearing, texting as they walk, refusing to give money to homeless people, participating in community uplift, in community renewal, and it's just fantastic.
So to all you other commenters out there ripping on gentrification: Screw you! Just because you're still stuck in the 20th century, in the pre-postracial era, relics of antiquity in this Age of the Aquarian Obama, doesn't mean you have to drag everyone else back into your politically correct, dashiki and Birkenstock-fuelled preironic dystopia of social justice, identity politics, and "structural inequality," whatever the hell that means.
This thread is so bizarre it would probably win prizes. And while I'm certainly the angriest, I'm not sure I'm the craziest!
This is a brilliant comment though!
Thanks!
I try to bring a comprehensive, schematic analysis that focuses on the serious side of these issues.
Gentrification only helps oppress. Simple.
I grew up, and still live, in inner city Pittsburgh where gentrification has been receiving a lot of attention. I encourage everyone to watch the links below if you want to see gentrification in action...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LoODGpf4ing
East of Liberty examines the gent. of East Liberty, in addition to the issues of class and race we need to discuss the issues of disrespect of history. They threw paintballs at an apartment buildig and cheered as they tore it down, they threw paint balls st someones home, somewhere where someoe raised their family, this is gentrification personified. To have the lack of compassion and insight to do this blows my mind, it is privlege run wild.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5gtL_kY3RE&feature=related
The same thing in our North Side community which now is home to two stadiums, high end dining, and one of the highest murder rates in the city. And now we get a casino here, yet we have no money to invest in improving the quality of services, safety, and health of the people that live in this community. And to those that say the casino will bring jobs to the community, think again, it is quite a process to be certified to work in a casio, even if you dont work directly with gamining or money. IF you are rasing three kids on your own something tells me you may not have time to take the gaming classes needed o work their..
Gentrification changes the OWNERSHIP of communities to people that more than likely have no understanding of the HISTORY of that community. Gentrfication changes the priorities of communities to serve power and money rather than humility and equity. Gentrification Disproportionately affects women and children who are already more likely than men to be impoverished. So simply put, don't gentrify. Shop local, participate, and LEARN about communities. It breaks my heart to see my working class city, that is so full of pride and history, cater to groups that have no true human interst in what we have to offer.
/rant lol
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JwW44XKzCh4&feature=channel_page
forgot this also