What is gentrification?

[Docere]

Is is it just a big rise in housing prices/rents rising and going out of the reach of working class people, or does it mean a specific kind of demographic change with hipsters and yuppies moving in and bringing in their brunch places, artisinal cheese shops etc.?

If an unhip area sees a significant increase in income and housing prices but remains unhip, is it gentrification?

[James Bond Agent 007]

Gentrification is a noun that begins with a g and ends with an n.

[The North One]

The return of white rich people to the inner city.

[Pedestrian]

It's not just rents rising. The rents rise because housing and businesses are renovated and improved. Things actually get more desirable because they are BETTER.

[Via Chicago]

Originally Posted by Pedestrian

Things actually get more desirable because they are BETTER.

better is subjective

[hauntedheadnc]

I live here. I live here in a house that has been mine for upwards of twenty years, or which has been passed down in my family. It's a nice enough house, nothing special or anything, and it could use some improvements but hell... The roof doesn't leak and it's mine. The neighborhood is attractive, interesting, perhaps even somewhat "funky."

That attracts your attention. You buy a house down the street from mine and fix it up. You tell your friends. They come and buy houses and fix them up. Together, you all decide that what the neighborhood really needs, instead of that frumpy old laundromat on the corner is a high-concept craft cocktail bar where you can sit and sip while you wash your clothes. And so it shall be. Other "handcrafted artisan luxury" businesses follow suit based on the success of the Sip 'N' Sudz that used to be the Washeteria.

Meanwhile, thanks to all these improvements, land values have been rising and with them, taxes. Landlords on the strip are starting to take notice of the success of the Sip 'N' Sudz and raise their rents accordingly. The handcrafted artisan luxury businesses don't really have a problem with this, but the barber, the independent pharmacy, and that place where you can buy (and have repaired) musical instruments can't hack it and close. Likewise the convenience store. Then the card and stationery store. Then the independent office supply place. More handcrafted artisan luxury stores take their place and soon, you can buy vintage eyeglasses, handcrafted artisan luxury ice cream sandwiches, and handcrafted artisan luxury farm-to-fiber (sourced locally) clothing at a store where one tee shirt costs $40.

Meanwhile, more and more people like me are either cashing in and leaving or dying off, and more people like you are buying up the houses, fixing them up and flipping them, or fixing them up and renting them out as Airbnb rentals. The land values keep rising and with them the taxes until the tax bill is simply too much for me to pay and finally, I sell out too and use my earnings to either go into a nursing home or buy myself a trailer out in the county because everything everywhere in the city undergoing the same handcrafted artisan luxury mutation. Or, I possibly leave the area altogether in search of some place where land values and housing costs are somewhat normal.

The last you see of me, I'm either heading down to Greenville, SC or Charlotte or Raleigh or some such, where one can still reasonably expect to purchase a house while earning no more than the wages paid in those cities; or I'm trailer shopping and searching for a little plot of land in the county on which to put my trailer.

[cannedairspray]

Originally Posted by Via Chicago

better is subjective

Safer with more amenities is pretty universally considered "better".

The gentrification outrage was always off my radar until Spike Lee started to complain about it. The hypocrisy of it really made me laugh hard and provided some quality entertainment.

So that's a bonus: while gentrification is good for the people who own homes in the area, it's also good for the rest of us, via hysterical tone deaf rants from people talking about how they were "there first", not realizing exactly how MAGA-esque they actually sound.

[eschaton]

Gentrification is the replacement of a lower-income population in a neighborhood with a higher-income one, nothing more or less.

All sorts of other things tend to get brought into the discussion that shouldn't, because they aren't absolutes. For example, gentrification really doesn't have anything to do with race except insofar as race and income intersect. Working-class white neighborhoods not only gentrify, but they tend to gentrify more rapidly than poor black neighborhoods. And although black gentrifiers are relatively rare, they play a localized role in areas like DC, Atlanta, Chicago, and NYC.

There's also no real reason why gentrification has to affect only urban areas. It's absolutely a dynamic which is occurring for example in smaller walkable towns, which in some cases end up getting functionally taken over by retirees, weekenders, and wealthier people who can work remotely. Similarly, a neighborhood doesn't have to start poor and blighted to be gentrified. Lower-middle class areas which become upper-middle class also gentrify.

If a formerly depopulated area like a warehouse district becomes a hot place for infill loft apartments and condos, that is not gentrification, because there is not a lower-income population which is being displaced in order for the wealthy to move in. Similarly, "revitalization" of commercial areas is really not gentrification (even if gentrifier-type businesses move in) unless there is residential spillover.

[sopas ej]

Originally Posted by Docere

Is is it just a big rise in housing prices/rents rising and going out of the reach of working class people, or does it mean a specific kind of demographic change with hipsters and yuppies moving in and bringing in their brunch places, artisinal cheese shops etc.?

All of the above, I think.

Originally Posted by Docere

If an unhip area sees a significant increase in income and housing prices but remains unhip, is it gentrification?

Not in my opinion; that happens everywhere. Cost of real estate often goes up anyway. Especially in California. My parents bought the house that I grew up in (and in which they still live in) back when that neighborhood was "middle-class." Now, whoever is still considered "middle-class" will have to dish out more for what the same houses in the same neighborhood go for now.

Originally Posted by Pedestrian

It's not just rents rising. The rents rise because housing and businesses are renovated and improved. Things actually get more desirable because they are BETTER.

Originally Posted by Via Chicago

better is subjective

Indeed it is.

I'm amazed at how flippant and dismissive some people are about gentrification. Whole communities get displaced because of it.

And people always talk about residents, but what about business owners? They get priced out too. Long-time businesses who are part of the neighborhood/community find that they can't pay the rent anymore in a building they've been in for 20 or more years because the new owner of the building is charging much higher rents. So, out goes the laundromat and the mom-and-pop market, and in goes the fusion (and usually bad) French-"Asian" restaurant and kombucha bar, which (especially in L.A.) the transplants will go to because it's hip at the hour, and then the transplants (many of whom are a transient population anyway) will move on and the kombucha bar that replaced the lavanderia will go out of business after only 2 years, and the neighborhood is left with a vacancy or two, replacing the much needed laundromat.

So much for better, huh?

[cannedairspray]

Originally Posted by sopas ej

I'm amazed at how flippant and dismissive some people are about gentrification. Whole communities get displaced because of it.

The story of the world, but especially the recent (last 500 years) one of North America is a story of communities being displaced and replaced. British (and some French and Spanish) displacing Natives, Scottish and Irish and Germans displacing them, Italians and Slavs and blacks displacing them, Mexicans displacing them, etc etc.

I'm not sure why we're supposed to be selectively outraged about some of those and then accepting with others. I understand that economics introduce a slightly different dynamic to the ethnic/cultural displacement that we're used to, but then as mentioned, ethnicity gets wrapped up in gentrification anyway. Being outraged when it's rich white people displacing poor white people or poor blacks or poor Mexicans, seems just as silly to me as being upset that California is or will be soon be majority Hispanic. This is the story of human history. Are we to be protectionist on this front or not?

[McBane]

Originally Posted by hauntedheadnc

I live here. I live here in a house that has been mine for upwards of twenty years, or which has been passed down in my family. It's a nice enough house, nothing special or anything, and it could use some improvements but hell... The roof doesn't leak and it's mine. The neighborhood is attractive, interesting, perhaps even somewhat "funky."

That attracts your attention. You buy a house down the street from mine and fix it up. You tell your friends. They come and buy houses and fix them up. Together, you all decide that what the neighborhood really needs, instead of that frumpy old laundromat on the corner is a high-concept craft cocktail bar where you can sit and sip while you wash your clothes. And so it shall be. Other "handcrafted artisan luxury" businesses follow suit based on the success of the Sip 'N' Sudz that used to be the Washeteria.

Meanwhile, thanks to all these improvements, land values have been rising and with them, taxes. Landlords on the strip are starting to take notice of the success of the Sip 'N' Sudz and raise their rents accordingly. The handcrafted artisan luxury businesses don't really have a problem with this, but the barber, the independent pharmacy, and that place where you can buy (and have repaired) musical instruments can't hack it and close. Likewise the convenience store. Then the card and stationery store. Then the independent office supply place. More handcrafted artisan luxury stores take their place and soon, you can buy vintage eyeglasses, handcrafted artisan luxury ice cream sandwiches, and handcrafted artisan luxury farm-to-fiber (sourced locally) clothing at a store where one tee shirt costs $40.

Meanwhile, more and more people like me are either cashing in and leaving or dying off, and more people like you are buying up the houses, fixing them up and flipping them, or fixing them up and renting them out as Airbnb rentals. The land values keep rising and with them the taxes until the tax bill is simply too much for me to pay and finally, I sell out too and use my earnings to either go into a nursing home or buy myself a trailer out in the county because everything everywhere in the city undergoing the same handcrafted artisan luxury mutation. Or, I possibly leave the area altogether in search of some place where land values and housing costs are somewhat normal.

The last you see of me, I'm either heading down to Greenville, SC or Charlotte or Raleigh or some such, where one can still reasonably expect to purchase a house while earning no more than the wages paid in those cities; or I'm trailer shopping and searching for a little plot of land in the county on which to put my trailer.

If you own a $100k home in a dilapidated neighborhood that becomes gentrified and your $100k home increases in value to $300k, why should anyone feel sorry for you? Live it up the improved hood or cash out and enjoy the winnings.

If you rented and no longer can afford the neighborhood, that's something else. But so what. You move to the next neighborhood (and perhaps even become a gentrifer). Neighborhood demographics are cyclical. It's not as if a gentrifying neighborhood has ALWAYS been poor and populated by a certain demographic.

For example, Point Breeze is a gentrifying neighborhood in Philadelphia (per Wikipedia):

The earliest references to Point Breeze" as a neighborhood "date to 1895."[3] The area was first settled by working-class European Jewish immigrants followed by Italian and Irish immigrants. In 1930s the neighborhood saw an influx of African Americans...

Point Breeze remained middle class until the 1970's and then things went downhill fast before it began to revitalize around 2010. Why should anyone apologize for that?

[MonkeyRonin]

Originally Posted by McBane

If you rented and no longer can afford the neighborhood, that's something else.

Is rent control not a thing in most of the US? Here, rent on a tenant can't increase beyond a set amount tied to inflation (a vacant unit however can be rented at whatever amount the landlord chooses), so the way gentrification tends to play out is that if and when a lower-income person leaves their apartment they'll be replaced by someone wealthier paying a now higher rent, but they won't be displaced if they stay put. That said, there are definitely some shady landlords out there who will try their best to evict older tenants paying below market rate rents.

[hauntedheadnc]

Originally Posted by McBane

If you own a $100k home in a dilapidated neighborhood that becomes gentrified and your $100k home increases in value to $300k, why should anyone feel sorry for you? Live it up the improved hood or cash out and enjoy the winnings.

If you rented and no longer can afford the neighborhood, that's something else. But so what. You move to the next neighborhood (and perhaps even become a gentrifer). Neighborhood demographics are cyclical. It's not as if a gentrifying neighborhood has ALWAYS been poor and populated by a certain demographic.

I speak from the perspective of a resident of the second-fastest gentrifying city in the nation. The average wage here is less than $10 per hour and the average house costs $289,000. When you get pushed out of your house in town here, you go to the county and lose everything you enjoyed about your in-town neighborhood. Increasingly, you leave the region altogether and head to the cities I mentioned. Asheville is running out of neighborhoods to gentrify and buildings to spruce up, so there's nowhere in town to go once your neighborhood becomes unaffordable.

You're also forgetting that gentrification is the process of pushing out businesses for more handcrafted artisan luxury. You lose your neighborhood hangout when it gets replaced with some artisanal fusion place where the entrees start at $15 more per plate than what they served at the old place. The cost of everything goes up.

Lastly, this dismissive "just cash out" attitude encourages people to treat their neighborhoods and homes as disposable, when I thought that the entire point of urban enthusiasm was to advocate for exactly the opposite. Homes are special, neighborhoods are special, and cities are special. They should serve as something other than things to sell out and throw away.

[McBane]

I don't buy this. Sorry. Neighborhoods are cyclical. So many neighborhoods the world over have changed demographics multiple times, going from rich to poor and back and forth. It's just what happens. You can't just freeze a neighborhood and say, from this point on, no one who doesn't fit the existing demographic is not welcome.

And yea, sometimes neighborhood joints close, but just as often they just move into an adjacent, less expensive neighborhood and in the process, help drive that area's improvement (gentrification?). But again, neighborhoods change. That's just life. And when those changes result in cleaner streets, less crime, and a higher tax base for a city, I view that as a positive.

[M II A II R II K]

Chain stores and franchises replacing unique shops and restaurants.

[MolsonExport]

Originally Posted by James Bond Agent 007

Gentrification is a noun that begins with a g and ends with an n.

/thread.

[hauntedheadnc]

Originally Posted by McBane

I don't buy this. Sorry. Neighborhoods are cyclical.

Again, I'm speaking from the second-fastest gentrifying city in America. True, some neighborhoods here have gone from rich to poor to rich again, but most have simply gone from poor to rich or middle-class to rich. As I said, we are running out of neighborhoods to improve. We are even running out of buildings to improve, although -- thank God -- the teardown wave hasn't crashed on us. Yet. Bottom line though, your advice to just move to the next neighborhood does not work for us here, and it especially does not work for the poor, the elderly, minorities, and most especially not for poor, elderly minorities. When you can't afford your home here, you have to leave the city altogether. If you're lucky you can still find something out in the county but increasingly you can't even do that.

And what does that mean? It means that the people who can least afford the expense of a car and a commute are the ones who have the longest commutes because they're having to live in neighboring counties and drive in to their jobs in Asheville.

And when those changes result in cleaner streets, less crime, and a higher tax base for a city, I view that as a positive.

Be that as it may, people still get hurt by gentrification. There's always collateral damage when there's change. All I ask is that you remember that.

[McBane]

Originally Posted by hauntedheadnc

Be that as it may, people still get hurt by gentrification. There's always collateral damage when there's change. All I ask is that you remember that.

Fair enough. I certainly don't wish anyone harm, but overall, gentrification is a good thing, despite the fact that it does negatively impact some people.

[10023]

Originally Posted by M II A II R II K

Chain stores and franchises replacing unique shops and restaurants.

Then a lot of what gets described as gentrification isn't.

In many cases, gentrification replaces chain stores with (more expensive) boutiques and restaurants.

[Pedestrian]

Originally Posted by Via Chicago

better is subjective

The market judges them better by being willing to pay more for them.