Why is Gentrification a Bad thing?

Great Debates
1

In Chicago Mayor Daley is talking of tax relief for poor people stuck in gentrified neighborhoods.

Driving around Chicago I’ve spotted signs (or grafitti) bemoaning the gentrification of their neighborhood.

Why do some people have issues with this?

It seems to me that gentrification is a good thing. As the middle class moves into poorer neighborhoods they bring renewal to that neighborhood. Crime rates drop, businesses in the area prosper, dilapidated buildings get a facelift or replaced and so on. The alternative is stagnation. “Everyone stay where they are…leave the nice areas nice and the crappy areas crappy!”

The argument I often hear is how awful it is to displace the people already living there. While they aren’t forced out at gun point they are usually forced out by the economics of the situation. As property values rise the property taxes rise as well and at some point the people living their can no longer afford to pay those taxes.

That sounds bad but those people can now sell a house that was worth $50,000 five years ago for $150,000 (or better) today. With this profit they have many choices they didn’t previously have. They can bump up their lot in life in another neighborhood or pick a neighborhood that is equally crummy to the one they used to live in and keep the extra money. Whatever the case they do have choices and they are not bad choices. As for having to move away from a neighborhood they may have gotten used to it obviously is no longer that neighborhood anyway. Personally I loathe moving but for $100,000 in my pocket I could learn to live with it.

All in all, in the interests of urban renewal and the like I can’t see why gentrification is a bad thing. While Mayor Daley’s tax relief seems nice on the face of it it would ultimately hurt the city since it would slow the pace of this renewal. People could squat where they are and never have incentive to move. It makes me think of the wonders of rent control that plagued Ney York City for so long.

What am I missing here? I keep getting the feeling of gentrification as being another rich screwing the poor situation but I just don’t see it. The worst I can see is renters getting displaced but overall that doesn’t seem sufficient to stop or slow the process.

2

For one thing, poor people often don’t own the houses they get kicked out of. Rich people give money to rich people to buy houses poor people are renting.

The rich give money to the rich and the poor end up on the street.

–John

3

If the people living in the area that is being gentrified own their houses, when the market value of that houses go up so does the property tax on that house. Since the income of the person does not go up paying the higher property tax can be a burden.

4

puddleglum:
My post accounts for exactly what you describe. Taxes are indeed the way that people in gentrifying neighborhoods get forced to move out.

But again my question remains. So what? Their taxes are higher because their house is worth MORE. So they may feel forced to move but it’s not as if they are being kicked to the curb. Far from it…they are able to cash out on a much more valuable house than it once was and can use that money for any number of things. It may be a hassle but they are being compensated for it.

yue han:
I mentioned renters in my post as well and I agree that if there is an aggreived party here it would be them.

Still, on balance, I’d say the process of gentrification is overall a beneficial thing. As neighborhoods ebb and flow they get revitalized and renewed.

What’s the alternative? Stagnation? Should we take a snapshot of the city and say everyone stay where they are?

5

I would venture to guess that the renters to whom you refer almost periphally in your OP are actually a good majority of the residents on these neighborhoods. So while you can easily spin it into “everybody wins except for a few renters” that is the crux of the issue. A huge percentage of people who have rental homes or apartments in a low rent area get displaced because thier landlords can make a buck selling the property. Do I blame the landlords? not really, it makes economic sense, and really, finding prpoerties with appreciation potential is the whole goal of real estate to begin with.
But i live in an area that is being gentrified as we speak (East Wicker Park, Chicago) and I’m terrified that my rent is going to start spiraling out of control, or that my building will be sold and gutted outright.
As for alternatives? I don’t really get the sense that my neighborhood is terribly stagnant, and I’m much happier with the local family owned mexican restraunts and groceries and drug stores than with the massive Kmarts and Starbucks etc that are starting to cropping up. So in that sense, (at least in MY neighborhood) its seems that the only interest being served by gentrification is that of developers and corporations looking to Ikea-fy the neighborhood. Its frustrating to me that “working Class” is now supposed to be a bad thing.
just a thought
CJ

6

Another complaint is that as neighborhhods attract more middle class people they become infused with middle class values: there are alot of people out thier that like funky, laid back, crummy neighborhoods. They like being able to blast thier stereos, buy pot locally, sit on their stoops and chat, throw parties and not worry about whether or not someone spills something that stains. They like that no one looks down on a 93 civic, that everyone thinks shopping in thrist stores is normal. Crummy neighborhoods sometimes develop thier own personality, thier own “feel”. When a neighborhood is henrified–often by people atracted to that very feeling–that uniqueness is swallowed up in chain resturants, chain groceries, chain everything.

I agree with you that gentrification is an inevitable, and perhaps overall, positive thing. Cycles of genrifiction help repair and maintain old buildings, for one thing. But there is reason for resodents to feel a sense of loss.
(it is also worth noting that the apraised value of a house may have little or nothing to do with the actual value. People may well get screwed by this, I dunno)

7

Does anyone know if there’ve been any studies done on a possible correlation between gentrification and a rise in numbers of homeless? Just a WAG, but if people have been driven to low-rent neighborhoods by necessity (and I’m willing to bet that this is a majority of residents), then making the low-rent neighborhood high-rent would seem to be more likely to drive people into the parks and under the bridges. If they could only afford to rent where the rent was low, then the next step once the rent is raised by gentrification would seem to be under the stars.

And that would be a reason to consider gentrification a bad thing.

jayjay

8

Well, as Yue Han mentioned, generally the urban poor rent, and don’t own. So, property values go up, the landlord raises the rent, and the renter has to pay more, which he can’t afford.

9

I’d imagine that the neighborhoods affected by gentrification are not the unsafe ones, but the decent, solidly blue collar, neighborhoods where a person of modest means can live and raise a family in safety. When the rents go up due to gentrification, the poor end up displaced into the slums. It’s this polarization that people object to, I think.

10

>> the landlord raises the rent, and the renter has to pay more, which he can’t afford

Well, where is it written that you have a right to cheap rent? If the landlord raises the price beyond what you are willing to pay, then you move.

Renting has its advantages and disadvantages. Maintenance is the landlord’s problem as are all ownership responsibilities. You cannot have it both ways. If you want the advantages of renting, then you have to take the disadvantages. Also, if you want to rent long term, no one prevents you from signing a lease for a period as long as you want. You want to make sure you are not kicked out in the next 30 years? OK, sign a 30 year lease.

I used to go to a place to eat because I really liked it and the prices were quite low. Then they jacked up their prices substantially and I had to stop going there. That’s life in a market economy.

11

No one has a right to cheap rent. But if you’re poor, and the rent is high, you become homeless.

Gentrification clearly can be done legally; the debate is, should it be done? Specifically, should the Mayor give tax relief to people who are victims of it?

–John

12

>> should the Mayor give tax relief to people who are victims of it?

I say no. How would you define and qualify to be a victim of gentrification? That is just too narrow issue and you end up creating a bigger mess that you are trying to resolve.

I will say this though: Taxes are calculated on assessed values and the assessment can jump suddenly due to market conditions. I would be in favor of putting a cap on how much your assessment can increase yearly not just for poor people, for everybody.

I just don’t understand measures that only have poor people in mind. If something is good, it is good for everybody. But the “only help the poor and screw the non-poor” is not a good or healthy policy.

I can understand someone lives in a house and the area starts appreciating very fast. Suddenly they find their taxes increasing dramatically although they are living in the same house. Not only that but this may a temporary spike and the value may decrease again later. To smooth these spikes I would say a cap of (say) twice the rate of inflation might be a good idea.

As for your central point of poor people becoming homeless, I don’t see it. They can move to other places. I think it may be the job of the government to help low income people in very general ways but helping them live here rather than there is not what I would consider a government responsibility.

13

originally posted by sailor:

Signing a long term lease is no guarantee. At least in my area, an owner has the right to evict a tenant with a 30-day notice for just about any reason - including planned renovations, which pretty well describes the gentrification process. Also, a long term lease does not necessarily include restrictions on how much your rent can be increased. As a landlord or real estate investor, if I lock into a 30-year restriction on my investment income, I should be beaten with a stick to pound the stupidity out.

Aside from the aesthetic disaster of neighborhoods that all look alike, sort of like the Wonder Bread of architecture, the problem is the average rent. Sharp increases cause renters to either move or get roommates. Let’s see…

Moving to another area can get pretty expensive - and is hitting the pocketbook of a socioeconomic class unlikely to have an emergency cash reserve. Many residents of poorer areas rely on public transportation - depending on the area, they may have difficulty accessing their jobs. I don’t know about you, but an extra hour or two waiting for a bus lowers my quality of life. Knowing my family has to wait longer to have dinner doesn’t help.

Roomies to share the rent. Well, unless the landlord finds out that our apartment now violates the local housing density regulations, in which case we all move out. Besides, I always wanted to live two families in a one bedroom apartment with only one toilet.

Making the neighborhood a bit better is a good thing. Turning it upside down, shaking it, and sweeping away the residents who fall out is a bad thing.

14

Consider the housing project: believe it or not, half a century ago these were thought to be wonderful ideas. Shortly after they went up, a certain Jane Jacobs pointed out (in “Death and Life of Great American Cities”) that one of the central problems with these wonders was that there were income caps on the residents, so that the neighborhood could never develop: it would always and forever be nothing more than housing for the poor.
A half century later we know how this story worked out. This is the alternative to gentrification: in the long run, you wind up in a neighborhood where you sit up at night listening to the gunfire. The long run has a disconcerting way of becoming the short run before you know it, unfortunately.

15

>> Signing a long term lease is no guarantee. At least in my area, an owner has the right to evict a tenant with a 30-day notice for just about any reason

seawitch, you are telling me you live somewhere where contracts have no value and are unenforceable. You are going to have to provide some evidence for that. A landlord can evict you with a 30 day notice if you have a month to month lease, just as the tenant can leave with a 30 day notice. If the lease is for a longer period of time, both sides are bound (in theory, in practice the tenant can disappear and the landlord is stuck). Also, selling the building has no effect as the building is sold subject to any leases, mortgages or other encumbrances. Please get your facts straight or provide some evidence.

16

Gentrification sucks.

The city that I live in used to have livable areas for people of different incomes. It has always had it’s expensive parts, but there were always “student ghettos” that people could afford to live in. Then came the “new economy” and now a two bedroom starter home costs literally half a million dollars. I pay $1200 a month rent (not includeing California utilities) for a one bedroom shack on a busy street. No one who can afford to live here works here. Only 19% of the people that work here can afford to live here. Our teachers, firepeople and other solid middle class workers have to live in other places and make long commutes. The people in the lower income brackets (like that maids that ensure that our tourism fetching hotels run) have to live literally hours away or else make due with “creative houseing”, which often refers to living in someone’s walk in closet or back-yard storage shed (I’ve met people that have done both, along with people who camp year round in the woods because the can’t afford a place to live and they banned sleeping in cars) Our once vital community has lost its glue. It is no longer a place where people live, work and play.

It isn’t just a matter of some people moving elsewhere. It is a matter of detroying neighborhoods, breaking apart families (think I can ever afford to live in San Francisco near my family? I don’t), createing massive commute problems and turning problem areas even worse.

17

Amazing. In the 1960s and 1970s, liberals decried “white flight,” condemnning as evil racists any middle or upper class whites who fled the cities for suburbia.

So, were these liberals delighted when middle and upper class whites started moving BACK to the cities? Of course not! They decried “gentrification.”

Bottom line is, if you’re a middle class white American, you’re evil if you live in the suburbs, and you’re evil if you live in the city.

18

even sven, welcome to the real world. That’s not the new economy, that’s life and it’s always been like that. I cannot afford to live where my parents lived. Why should I be entitled to that? It turns out other people are willing to pay more than I am to live there. That’s how a free market works.

Astorian you are very right that some people, when they see something they don’t like, the only solution they see is to legislate against it.

19

I believe that the contracts are enforced. Just that the landlord insists the contract include the ability to order the tenant to move with 30-day notification for reasons including renovation, sale of property etc. Any landlord who doesn’t cover for eventualities like that should be clubbed with seawitch’s stick.

With a clause like that, though, a landlord claims renovation, boots the tenant, add a fresh coat of paint, replaces a light fixture and opens it for rent at twice the previous rate.

Similar situations have happened to friends of mine here in the 98% occupancy Bay Area.

20

This is a two pronged situation here.

The first prong is good. It breaks up crime ridden neighborhoods, salvages and restores old buildings that would have been vandalized or allowed to crumble until they had to be ripped down and removes and rebuilds unlivable structures that are dens for criminals, drugs and people hiding from the cops. As the value of buildings increase, taxes go up and so do rents. People who move in will not tolerate slumlords who bully, threaten and harass people living in low rent homes, refuse or delay expensive repairs or have to be bribed into making them. Eliminate the desperate poor and crime drops because no one needs to steal or rob to pay the rent, to buy food or have to use drugs to forget the daily stress of living like an animal. With increased wealth, the city will take better care of the area, knowing that their work will not be torn up overnight by vandals, no one will harass their workers, no one will shoot at their crews and graffiti will not completely cover a freshly painted wall two hours after the painters leave.

With a better class of people comes fewer vandalism claims, fewer arson events, fewer police calls and fewer ambulance runs. The area benefits, is turned from being a sewer into a garden, less trash in the streets, less sullen and angary groups milling about, bored, poor, looking for trouble and less gang influence.

Less localized disease, like AIDS, hepatitis, STDs, and less human waste in the gutters, alleys, behind stoops, in elevators, hallways and on stairwells.

The second prong is not good. You displace poor people who live in crappy places because of their funds. They put up with slumlords, belligerent and lazy supers, rats in the rooms, leaky sewer pipes, bums in the stairwell, drug dealers, neighbors who act more like animals than human, squatters in empty buildings, gangs on the streets, nightly shootings, rapes, beatings, break-ins, and walls smeared with graffiti because they have nowhere else to go.

They drink or do drugs to escape the nastiness of the day, are trapped in abject poverty, grew up learning to be hateful, selfish, defensive and taught that they are shit, and how to work the system to survive. People use the street and buildings as public toilets, they are exposed to enormous amounts of disease, their homes are small, walls thin, and many have to pay the landlord extra under the table even with housing assistance, in order to keep their homes.

Landlords might rent a place for $500 a month but housing will only give them $350, deciding that is all the place is worth, and probably being generous at that. So, the landlord requires a payment of maybe $100 additional from the tenant, secretly, or he will reject housing and toss them out.

People clumped together in abject poverty often develop strange bonds and alliances with neighbors and the neighborhood. Like, years ago, in Hells Kitchen in New York City, they experimented by enabling and encouraging a large portion of the people to move into better areas. They even financed the moves.

To their great surprise, many people, after moving out, moved back! They missed the action, the excitement, the adventure and the type of friends and neighbors they had grown up with. They knew nothing else!

So, after the poor are driven out of an area, where do they go? To a worse area? Eventually, if gentrification continues, the poor will be driven into a massive slum, where things will get worse and turn into a time bomb, just waiting to explode.

Now, if those being forced out are being assisted by being helped to find suitable places, in better areas, with rent control, then it is beneficial because it breaks up ghettos in which racism, antisocial behavior, high crime and much resentment grows and forces the previous inhabitants to learn a different and better lifestyle.

There are some cities which do not have poor or slum areas and no concentrations of any one race and their crime rates are lower than the national norm. They don’t dump the poor and disabled into groups of cheap old homes where no one else wants to live, like CETA did and does, nor forces them to live in high crime areas.

If gentrification of an area just forces the people out, then all it is doing is generating not only a bigger problem but postponing a growing crisis.