What's Wrong With Gentrification? (The Displacement Myth)

[10023]

Whats Wrong With Gentrification?
The displacement myth.

By Adam Sternbergh
Published Dec 11, 2009

At least there was one upside to the downturn: It brought gentrification to a thudding halt. Because gentrification, as we all know, is a dirty word, and one that never tastes more sour than in the mouths of the people who practice it. n+1, the literary journal of the Brooklyn renaissance, headquartered in the rigorously revitalized Dumbo, just published two tut-tutting pieces on the subject: a book review titled “Gentrified Fiction” (en garde, Jonathan Lethem!) and an essay, “Gentrify, Gentrify,” which decries the annexation of Brooklyn into “Ikea-hoods” and calls on gentrifiers to (somehow) “ally with the displaced.”

Displacement is understood, of course, to be gentrification’s primary evil consequence. Housing prices balloon; boutiques and bistros blossom; and before you know it, some bearded dudes in vests have bought the local bodega and opened a saloon festooned with taxidermied animals. Thank God that’s all over, right?

Back in 2003, Lance Freeman, an associate professor of urban planning at Columbia, wanted to find out just how much displacement had occurred in two predominantly black, rapidly gentrifying neighborhoods: Clinton Hill and Harlem (Freeman’s home). But “much to my surprise,” he wrote in his book There Goes the ’Hood, he didn’t find any causal relationship between gentrification and displacement. More surprising, he found that “poor residents and those without a college education were actually less likely to move if they resided in gentrifying neighborhoods.” How does that square with our beliefs about Ikea-hoods?

Often lost amid our caricatures of benighted hipsters invading a blighted neighborhood is the fact that without gentrification, you’ve simply got a blighted neighborhood. “The discourse on gentrification,” Freeman writes, “has tended to overlook the possibility that some of the neighborhood changes associated with gentrification might be appreciated by the prior residents.” Freeman contrasts the late-century decline of Harlem with the conditions of the Lower East Side (or Harlem) decades earlier. Early urban slums were bustling and overcrowded, and thus could sustain a wide range of services. By contrast, Harlem lost 30 percent of its population in the seventies alone. Such neighborhoods became penal colonies of poverty, drained of population, services, and hope. Which explains, in part, the lack of displacement when gentrification improbably arrived. Once these neighborhoods improved, people opted to stay if they possibly could.

Not everyone, of course, could stay. As neighborhoods gentrify, buildings are sold, landlords raise rents, and some people are forced out. In an ideal world, you wouldn’t have to wait for the dual bugaboos to arrive before you get a decent grocery store or adequate police patrols. It’s ironic, though, that after the white-flight disasters that climaxed in the seventies, most people agreed that our cities’ only hope was reintegration, both racial and economic. In parts of gentrified Brooklyn in the last decade, this actually started to happen.

For a neighborhood, or a city, abandonment is a death sentence. Gentrification—especially when coupled with intelligent urban policy—can serve as a reprieve, even if it arrives in the form of guilt-wracked hipsters and yoga studios. And it’s why cities from Buffalo to Braddock, Pennsylvania, are trying to spark similar renewals by luring artists and creative small businesses. These efforts are easy to dismiss or caricature as well; no doubt someone in Braddock has already opened a saloon with antlers over the bar. Yet the ailing cities that save themselves in the 21st century will do so by following Brooklyn’s blueprint. They’ll gentrify as fast as they can.

http://nymag.com/news/intelligencer/62675/

[Austinlee]

There's only so many artists to go around! They can't bring back EVERY dilapidated hood in the country.

[10023]

Originally Posted by PA Pride

There's only so many artists to go around! They can't bring back EVERY dilapidated hood in the country.

Well it doesn't have to be artists... it can be students, the gays, any old yuppie

Point is, the argument that gentrification is somehow a bad thing because it takes broken neighborhoods and fixes them is ridiculous. If the neighborhood gets more expensive, it's because it has become a more desirable place to live, which is unequivocally a good thing. And according to some actual work on the subject, previous residents aren't even displaced to any meaningful degree, which is the only even quasi-valid argument against gentrification.

All gentrification is, really, is the reversal of a trend that began after WWII (white flight) which ideally would have never happened in the first place... one can't lament white flight and then complain about gentrification.

[Crawford]

To be fair, gentrification in NYC is totally different than in any other American city (with the possible exception of SF), and therefore Freeman's study findings cannot be extrapolated to other cities.

NYC has rent control, a vast public housing system, and enormous middle- and lower-income investments by two agencies: NYC HPD (Housing Preservation and Development) and HDC (Housing Development Corporation).

Rent-controlled housing and public housing are both obviously non-market, so the relative level of neighborhood gentrification is irrevelent, and no one will be displaced. There are many rent-contolled and public housing units in even the poshest Manhattan neighborhoods.

As for HPD and HDC they fund roughly 10-15,000 units of new and renovated housing units a year. Again, this is non-market housing, and not directly impacted by gentrification. You may know about HPD from Shaun Donovan, the current HUD Secretary and HPD Commissioner under the Bloomberg years (and considered a future NYC mayoral candidate).

HPD and HDC have huge roles in the city housing that is unlike any other market interventions in any other American city. The following website is for The Northrose, which is a giant HPD/HDC development in the Melrose section of the South Bronx.
http://www.thenorthrose.com/

The fact is that if you live in NYC, and are poor, unless you are a recent immigrant, you are highly unlikely to live in market rate housing. Therefore, in NYC at least, the poor cannot be displaced by gentrification. The middle class may be affected by gentrification, but definitely not the poor.

I don't think other U.S. cities have such a huge proportion of their poor in non-market housing, but I would guess that SF has a relatively high number. After all, SF has a considerable proportion of poor, and basically no affordable neighborhoods, so there must be a high proportion of non-market housing.

[Crawford]

Oh, and another issue I have with the article is that it assumes any neighborhood improvements are due to stereotypical gentrification, with artists and then yuppies moving in.

If anything, I would say that immigrants play the largest role in the upgrading of U.S. inner-city neighborhoods. The multimillion dollar waterfront homes and condos being built in Manhattan Beach and Mill Basin, Brooklyn are all by first generation immigrants. The improvements in countless anonymous neighborhoods across the U.S. are largely due to immigrants.

And neighborhoods can be upgraded from within. Thinking about what I know (Brooklyn), the Syrian Jews of Gravesend have turned a blah community into one of the most impressive urban mansion neighborhoods anywhere. There are many other such examples in cities throughout the country. It isn't "outsiders", but upwardly mobile neighborhood residents.

[tallboy66]

There's a difference between being developed into a desirable place to live and closing or forcing out existing businesses just to make it more desirable for people who would not otherwise move in to it.

[10023]

Originally Posted by tallboy66

There's a difference between being developed into a desirable place to live and closing or forcing out existing businesses just to make it more desirable for people who would not otherwise move in to it.

Existing businesses like pawn shops, liquor stores and check cashing places? I don't think that's a different thing at all - displacing these in favor of a real grocery store and a nice bistro or two is exactly the kind of positive change I'm talking about. Oftentimes these new businesses are much needed and appreciated by the current residents, there just needed to be some gentrification to get the neighborhood over the hump of becoming economically compelling for such businesses to set up shop.

[ambiguoustraveller]

When I lived in West Philly, I noticed a number of anti-gentrification signs that involved scribbling over anything that said "University City" and replacing it with "West Philly". When I discovered that it was white people doing this, I found myself shaking my head. Based on this fact and the statistics in the article, I can't help but wonder if it's not the original residents being displaced by gentrification, but rather the initial wave of newcomers (ie activists and artists who moved there in the first place because it was cheap). As we know, these types of people are VERY conscious of the status of neighborhoods, and are quick to leave when they suddenly becomes "uncool". And, of course, despite their hatred of gentrification, they are, of course, the first step in the whole process. I'm not blaming anyone, I'm just annoyed by the hypocrisy of the situation.

I was disturbed to hear, recently, that some of these very same people spraypainted the front of a recently opened restaurant in West Philly with "GENTRIF***ERS" on it. The restaurant was opened by extremely community minded people who had run restaurants in the neighborhood for 25+ years, long before it was ever gentrified. This goes to prove that those who complain about gentrification are often people without any long term attachment to the area. They don't want the neighborhood to improve because it somehow destroys their credibility.

[the urban politician]

Gentrification leads to Chipotle, Jimmy John's, Godiva, Starbucks, Jamba Juice, and Barnes & Noble on every friggin corner, and it's starting to get kind of lame.

If gentrification didn't come with the chain mentality, I wouldn't mind. If gentrification, for example, meant rich people wearing tophats & monocles and driving Rolls Royces while saying things like "Egad, what foolhardy people are these!" while looking at the scum around them then that would be kind of cool. But instead, gentrification consists of people wearing gym pants while eating burritos at Chipotle after an evening sitting and staring at their laptops on a couch at Barnes & Noble.

[the urban politician]

^ Come to think of it, it's worse than that.

In the old days the gym pants wearing yuppies would stare at their laptops at Barnes & Noble, then go to Chipotle and eat a burrito.

This new generation decided to skip a step and now they're wearing their gym pants, staring at their laptops, and eating a burrito at Chipotle all at the same time. Barnes & Noble got booted.

[10023]

Originally Posted by the urban politician

Gentrification leads to Chipotle, Jimmy John's, Godiva, Starbucks, Jamba Juice, and Barnes & Noble on every friggin corner, and it's starting to get kind of lame.

If gentrification didn't come with the chain mentality, I wouldn't mind. If gentrification, for example, meant rich people wearing tophats & monocles and driving Rolls Royces while saying things like "Egad, what foolhardy people are these!" while looking at the scum around them then that would be kind of cool. But instead, gentrification consists of people wearing gym pants while eating burritos at Chipotle after an evening sitting and staring at their laptops on a couch at Barnes & Noble.

I think that's a function of the particular city or neighborhood, and cities should do more to discourage chains. But I don't think Chipotle screams "gentrification" (Starbucks, fine). You see just as many chains in poor neighborhoods, it's just McDonald's and Popeyes instead. I agree that chains suck, but I don't think gentrification is usually to blame.

[fflint]

Originally Posted by Crawford

I don't think other U.S. cities have such a huge proportion of their poor in non-market housing, but I would guess that SF has a relatively high number. After all, SF has a considerable proportion of poor, and basically no affordable neighborhoods, so there must be a high proportion of non-market housing.

SF has a hybrid form of rent control and a very small ratio of public housing units, but overall I think you're right in your larger point that SF is unlike most cities, as is NY, when it comes to how much 'gentrification' can actually displace existing residents. Only increases on existing leases in pre-1980 rental units are controlled, at roughly 2% per year--but unlike New York, all landlords are free to rent all vacant SF units at market rate and nothing built since 1980* is controlled. Meanwhile, according to the San Francisco Housing Authority, the city currently has 6,451 public housing units, out of a total of 358,504 units citywide. Public housing is really not a major factor here as it is in New York and other big American cities.

*One developer recently agreed to build some rent-controlled units in a big downtown development for an overall density bonus.

[Gordo]

^There are a significant number of BMR units (both rental and for-sale) that are administered by the Mayor's Office of Housing (that are either a percentage of units in new buildings or individual buildings built in conjunction with market rate buildings), as well. In addition, there are thousands of units owned by non-profits and rented at below market rate to various groups (depends on the non-profit and the individual building - some examples of groups for these buildings include low-income seniors, low-income families, families at 80-120% of AMI, formerly homeless, etc, etc), typically with city support of some type (either financial, or simply that the city doesn't allow the building to be torn down or used for anything else). I don't know what the total numbers are for those, but all of those different types combined have to total thousands, if not tens of thousands of units.

[tech12]

Originally Posted by fflint

SF has a hybrid form of rent control and a very small ratio of public housing units, but overall I think you're right in your larger point that SF is unlike most cities, as is NY, when it comes to how much 'gentrification' can actually displace existing residents. Only increases on existing leases in pre-1980 rental units are controlled, at roughly 2% per year--but unlike New York, all landlords are free to rent all vacant SF units at market rate and nothing built since 1980* is controlled. Meanwhile, according to the San Francisco Housing Authority, the city currently has 6,451 public housing units, out of a total of 358,504 units citywide. Public housing is really not a major factor here as it is in New York and other big American cities.

*One developer recently agreed to build some rent-controlled units in a big downtown development for an overall density bonus.

Actually, SF has the second highest ratio of public housing units for big California cities...just barely below Oakland. SF also has the second highest number of public housing units in CA, despite being the 4th largest city.

Public housing units as % of total housing units:

Oakland - 3,308 units - 2% of housing units (+ 11,142 section 8)
San Francisco - 6,451 units - 1.8% of housing units (+ 21,000 section 8)
Sacramento - 3,144 units - 1.7% of housing units (+ 11,000 section 8)
Los Angeles - 9,300 units - 0.7% of housing units (+100,000 section 8)
San Diego - 1,800 units - 0.4% of housing units (+ 12,000 section 8)

I couldn't find anything for San Jose or Long Beach, which seem to only have section 8, but no public housing...as for Fresno, their numbers cover Fresno county, rather than the city alone, so i excluded it. And now, here's how the California cities compare to some other cities around the nation:

New York - 178,554 units - 5.4% of housing units (+99,228 section 8)
Baltimore - 10,000 units - 3.4% of housing units (+12,000 section 8)
Seattle - 5,200 units - 1.8% of housing units (+8,400 section 8)
Chicago - 16,500 units - 1.4% of housing units (+35,000 section 8)
Detroit - 4,000 units - 1.1% of housing units (+6,000 section 8)
Houston - 4,200 units - 0.5% of housing units (+15,000 section 8)

(all stats taken from their city's respective housing authority websites, and the census website)

SF isn't really all that different from these other places in terms of it's proportion of public housing...in fact it's in the upper end of the spectrum. SF has the 5th highest number of public housing units of those cities (not to mention the 4th highest number of section 8 recipients)...while at the same time it's also the smallest of all the cities geographically. With all these facts taken into account, i have to say public housing IS a bigger factor in SF than you realize. I can think of at least 12 neighborhoods that have public housing in SF: Hunters Point, Visitacion Valley, Oceanview, Diamond Heights, Potrero Hill, the Mission, SOMA, the Tenderloin, Chinatown, North Beach, Bernal Heights, and the Fillmore.

[KB0679]

Originally Posted by 10023

Existing businesses like pawn shops, liquor stores and check cashing places? I don't think that's a different thing at all - displacing these in favor of a real grocery store and a nice bistro or two is exactly the kind of positive change I'm talking about. Oftentimes these new businesses are much needed and appreciated by the current residents, there just needed to be some gentrification to get the neighborhood over the hump of becoming economically compelling for such businesses to set up shop.

Many of these neighborhoods can already support a basic, low-cost grocer with fresh produce but they are simply underserved.

[llamaorama]

I guess it matters what kind of neighborhood it is.

Its quite a shame if you had a vibrant community where people have lived a long time. But then there are the gritty and transient type of places that nobody would shed a tear over. The only concern before turning someplace like that into rubble might be the net supply of affordable housing down the road.

How do you seperate them just looking at numbers of low-income people?

[PhillyRising]

Originally Posted by ambiguoustraveller

When I lived in West Philly, I noticed a number of anti-gentrification signs that involved scribbling over anything that said "University City" and replacing it with "West Philly". When I discovered that it was white people doing this, I found myself shaking my head. Based on this fact and the statistics in the article, I can't help but wonder if it's not the original residents being displaced by gentrification, but rather the initial wave of newcomers (ie activists and artists who moved there in the first place because it was cheap). As we know, these types of people are VERY conscious of the status of neighborhoods, and are quick to leave when they suddenly becomes "uncool". And, of course, despite their hatred of gentrification, they are, of course, the first step in the whole process. I'm not blaming anyone, I'm just annoyed by the hypocrisy of the situation.

I was disturbed to hear, recently, that some of these very same people spraypainted the front of a recently opened restaurant in West Philly with "GENTRIF***ERS" on it. The restaurant was opened by extremely community minded people who had run restaurants in the neighborhood for 25+ years, long before it was ever gentrified. This goes to prove that those who complain about gentrification are often people without any long term attachment to the area. They don't want the neighborhood to improve because it somehow destroys their credibility.

I can't believe people living in crappy neighborhoods in Philly would be against gentrification. Why would you prefer to live in a slum over seeing your living enviroment became more stable and vital?

I think Westrum faced this kind of attytude when they tried to build new homes near Girard Ave. People actually fought to keep their slum. Sad.

[fflint]

Originally Posted by tech12

i have to say public housing IS a bigger factor in SF than you realize.

I'd have to say you're right, although technically Section 8 isn't the same thing as people living in public housing. The non-profit assisted housing is also a huge non-market force in the central city, absolutely. Crawford was right in noting tens of thousands of San Francisco's most vulnerable residents are effectively protected from displacement via gentrification.

[tech12]

Yeah, i know section 8 isn't really the same...but all the websites mentioned the section 8 stats right next to the public housing unit stats, so i just included them too (i tried adding some public housing stats for other cities too, but they combined their section 8 and public housing stats into one number, rather than having them separate, or they just had the number of people receiving assistance, rather than the number of actual housing units).

[Policy Wonk]

Originally Posted by KB0679

Many of these neighborhoods can already support a basic, low-cost grocer with fresh produce but they are simply underserved.

The economics of grocery stores are pretty harsh - and highly, highly, dependent on high margin sales to cross-subsidize low-cost staples.

You can't support a grocery store selling only Wonder Bread and Cheerios and dealing with food stamps in their various electronic forms is a pain in the ass.