What you are describing here is wealth and income inequaility, from which destructive gentrification (when residents get priced out of their homes) is a result rather than a cause.
And the reason people move to Bakersfield is that it is less shitty than they place they are leaving, not because it is some kind of fantasy working class paradise. It still has a high cost of living compared to national averages or even the American Southwest, and with very few amenities or opportunies offered by more progressive cities of equivalent size. It’s also well known as being a hotbed of racism and prejudice in an otherwise generally tolerant region…you know, if that’s part of your working class ideal.
It is notable how many “working class” parents in prior generations pushed and saved to send their children to college because how limiting and restricting a working class life can be, to the point that we now actually lack for skilled labor in good paying “blue collar” jobs. Work such as welding, pipefitting, and millwright are in high demand provided employees are willing to go where the work is and put forth the effort to do a good job. But regardless, the mining, steel mill, and industrial assembly jobs of post-WWII America are largely gone and are not coming back, nor is the Pleasantville fantasy of that life going to suddenly become reality in Bakersfield or elsewhere even if they did.
”Get immodest in Modesto!” We can sell this. It’s like Disneyland, if Walt Disney wanted to recreate Fantasy Kansas.
That sounds about right, but it doesn’t really convey the state of rent stabilization in the city. It’s like taking one frame out of a reel of movie film.
That number is shrinking rapidly. There are a number of ways that an apartment can come off stabilization. When the rent, through increases permitted by the rent stabilization rules, hits a certain number, the apartment goes free-market. The landlord is allowed to pass the cost of improvements on to the tenant in the form of increased rent. This is obviously open to abuse, by means of inflating the cost of improvements.
Bizarrely, the tenant’s income can cause the apartment to become deregulated. I think the magic number is $200,000 for two consecutive years, at which point the apartment becomes deregulated, which is obviously a windfall for the landlord.
Most deregulation is a windfall for the landlord. Obviously (again), the purchase price of a rental building is based on the rent roll. Nobody is buying a building where the rent roll will not permit them to make a profit. Rent-regulated buildings are profitable even with stabilization. Once they’re deregulated, the profits, relative to the purchase price of the building, go through the roof.
In short, the number of rent-stabilized apartments in New York is shrinking rapidly.
Yet you fail to realize that the underclass has grown massively. Just look at those sitting on the streets holding a coffee can hoping that at least some nickels and dimes go into it. And take a look at those living in a motel room hoping to get Section 8. Make no mistake, class warfare is a big issue these days. With all the automation and outsourcing the U.S. has lost a shitload of manufacturing jobs. Look at China. That country has more jobs than the US does. And don’t expect Trump to fix all this. He and his cronies right now are trying to do away with Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and just about every benefit to the poor. By just looking at the most liberal cities in the country such as San Francisco, New York, and DC, they are also some of the most expensive cities you can imagine. Seems like your vision of the future is to join the professional class and live in a gentrified neighborhood.
Minor nitpick – DUMBO doesn’t belong in that list. DUMBO (Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass) was a neighborhood, if you could call it that, with little to no housing stock. What you had was a very small number of people living more or less illegally in industrial spaces.
When NYC started to boom again, developers started building in DUMBO, mostly because of its proximity to public transportation and the nearby very expensive neighborhood of Brooklyn Heights.
DUMBO wasn’t gentrified. It was created. And nobody was driven out of the neighborhood, because there wasn’t anyone there to drive out.
I’m ready to start the Madonna Inn - North with you. We just have to drop the price to $39 a night (so we don’t attract the gentry losers!). Best to put it near the Gallo winery so people can get jugs of wine for like $4.
No I don’t ”fail to realize that the underclass has grown massively”; I’ve just pointed out repeatedly that this isn’t caused by gentrification, which you seem to regard as the source of all socioeconomic ills, but by growing wealth inequality and a lack of opportunities for upward mobility combined with inadequate preparation for aging populations on fixed incomes. And I’ve never suggested that Trump (or McConnell and Ryan)are going to do anything to address this, thank you to not attribute such claims to me.
I don’t have a particular “vision for the future” other than that urban planning needs to included mixed income housing and planning to reduce unnecessary living costs in transportation (e.g. not having to own a car to obtain suitable employment) but I’m also sufficiently in touch with reality to not idolize the racist armpit of California Central Valley or ‘70s-era Midtown Manhattan as being places desireable for anyone to live and raise a family.
Gallo? Now I know you’re having me on. Our customers drink Thunderbird and Rosie, and they don’t need no stinkin’ glass, ya snooty lib’ral!
All those Central Valley cities are not the same. Bakersfield is out in the middle of nowhere, and while Modesto isn’t exactly Santa Barbara, it’s not that bad, and is pretty close to some decent places. And if you like almonds (the initial a pronounced as in “and”), you’ll be in heaven.
Salinas is even closer to some very sweet locations, but it has a very significant gang problem.
Please explain how “more desirable condition” can be made to NOT translate to “commands a higher price.”
Don’t get me wrong; I’m personally sympethetic to the idea that I should be able to naturally gravitate to a lifestyle which is sufficient to meet my physical needs plus allow me access to a minimum level of creature comforts (a level determined by ME), and to remain there as long as I want, without needing to ever strive again. But I’m really skeptical that anyone has proposed a mechanism by which these conditions can be achieved and applied simultaneously to every person who desires it.
You keep missing the obvious reality people are pointing out to you. Gentrification is not some kind of evil magic. And revitalization is not some kind of good magic. They’re both the same thing; putting money into a neighborhood to improve it.
And then, when the neighborhood is improved, rent prices will go up. That’s going to happen regardless of whether the neighborhood is improved by evil gentrification or good revitalization. People will pay higher rents to live in better neighborhoods. (And the prospect of those higher rents were the reason people were willing to put money into improving the neighborhood.)
The only way poor people get to stay in the same neighborhood year after year and never have to face a rent increase is if the neighborhood stays bad. Then nobody will live there by choice, everyone who can afford to will live someplace better, and poor people will be stuck there because they can’t afford anywhere better.
I’ll say that we do somehow have our checkers in the right place. Since you suggested mixed income housing that right there could promote some wealth equality.
I lived in Bako for two years when I joined this message board and i want to go on the record to say its the worst place I’ve ever lived and that includes Midland & Houston, TX and Rancho Cucamonga, CA.
I don’t know if San Bernadino should be on the list of failing cities since home prices there were just listed as some of the most expensive in the nation, roughly equal to Denver. I don’t have anything to add tothe debate since its been fairly well coveredthat gentrification is a neighhood getting better and better is generally a good thing. I’m mainly here just to say Bako is the asshole of California and Fresno is the armpit.
Gentrification is a good thing with some negative side-effects. The right solution is to allow gentrification and then use some of the extra tax revenue coming in to address those side-effects: directly helping who are priced out and funding better public services in general. The negative side effects could also be reduced with more flexible building codes which allow rapidly gentrifying neighborhoods to build more housing.
Of course China has more jobs than we do. China has more than 4x the population of the US. That’s like saying New York City has more jobs than Philadelphia. If China had less jobs than the US, almost assuredly China would be far more aggressive militarily. So let’s chalk that up to a good thing.
Most of the ideas you’ve posted simply will not work (and that’s being very, very kind). You cannot make a neighborhood better and expect prices, be they home prices or rents, to remain flat, especially in urban areas where there is a high demand for housing. The best civic planners can do is ensure that some sort of affordable housing is made available, but in a way that still attracts investment. It’s a tightrope, for sure.
Also, as a lifetime NYC resident since well before its revitalization, you can keep your Bakersfield. I applaud many of the changes, especially the safety we now enjoy. I do miss the independent retailers, and I wish there were a way to keep more of them around, and I miss Little Italy, which has been all but totally consumed by Chinatown. And surprise - there are still lots of neighborhoods here, like the Filipino sections of Jackson Heights or the pockets of low, low level mobsters pretending they still mean something in Ozone Park.
Lastly, for those unfamiliar with NY real estate, especially residential rental, most investment is speculative. The cash-on-cash return for rental properties in NYC is well below the national averages, but due to a thriving economy and limited space, demand so far outstrips supply that prices are sky-high and even held in 2007-2008 when the real estate market tanked. Investors are hoping to turn over their property 5 or 10 years down the line for an outsized capital gain (and certain real estate tax laws can keep most, if not all, of that gain tax-free) that will more than make up for the lower returns on rents.
San Bernardino County (and specifically Loma Linda and more affluent neighborhood in Redlands) may have high housing prices but the City of San Bernardino is pretty much a complete blight, from the gang violence and abject poverty to its Chapter 9 bankruptcy for the last half decade.
A California legislator just introduced an actual solution to the housing woes in his state’s expensive cities, but I’m sure it will go nowhere because of the regressive NIMBY and anti-gentrification crowd.
