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Gentrification is small potatoes. Slumification is a much bigger issue in most of the country. Run down buildings, declining schools, increased crime, and abandoned storefronts. For every neighborhood getting better, there is one somewhere else getting worse. I'll take less crime, more commercial activity, and better schools over the reverse any day of the week.
But the one getting worse doesn't have to be in the city itself, particularly with sharply increasing suburban poverty these days.
in other words, we are now in the process of following the European model: wealth in the core city, suburban areas: not so much.
That's not really the European model. It's more accurate to say that in Europe whether an area is wealthy or not has nothing to do with where it is in the metro. There are wealthy and poor neighborhoods in the urban core, and wealthy and poor neighborhoods in the suburbs.
No city has completely transformed or "lost all it's flavor." Nor does gentrification cater exclusively to the rich. Nor do I think it's an exclusive problem and it happens because of various events. For instance, would this luxury apartment craze have happened if the housing crash didn't?
But this video does pretty much sum up what has happened:
Gentrification in itself isn't bad imo, but how it's mostly being done is. Instead of hiking rents and pushing people out of their neighborhoods to create "white collar playgrounds", improve those neighborhoods and improve the QOL for those people, and let it snowball effect throughout the city.
But the one getting worse doesn't have to be in the city itself, particularly with sharply increasing suburban poverty these days.
Fair enough. In general, the US is a young enough country that the upper middle class could buy a new house at the edge of town and still have a relatively short commute into job centers. As transportation innovations like streetcars, trains, and finally cars/freeways came online in the 19th and 20th century, the radius of commutable land around cities expanded, but it hasn't changed much in the last 40-60 years.
Those upper middle class people would just move to the next development out after 10-20 years when their houses started getting dated/out of style. New houses also fit better with the lifestyle of people as technology changed, coming set up with electricity, then phones, then modern showers, then air conditioning, then pre-wired for cable, then wired for ethernet, and now for the flow of modern home life.
The problem is, most developable land in top 10 metros has pushed out to the limits of a reasonable commute. Large chunks of open land are now an hour or more commute in these cities, and probably 40 minutes or more in most top 50 metros. So, faced with a really long commute for a new house, buying an old house in a much closer neighborhood and renovating became more attractive for many in the upper middle class. Declining crime in cities also played a huge role. The downside is now poor people are having to move due to increasing rent if there isn't rent control. It becomes a feedback loop as poor people leave, their delinquent children go with them, crime drops further, more wealthy move in, nice stores, restaurants and bars fill vacant storefronts or replace check cashing stores and payday loan spots.
There are concerns about the new transplants to New Orleans from other parts of the country post-Katrina who have no connection to the native culture and are focused only on money and ambition which typifies yuppies in general. A lot of the evacuees who were not able to return to the city were of less means but they are part of the native culture and the social fabric that made New Orleans unique.
I also think Charleston SC is seeing too many transplants from the Northeast. San Francisco is often mentioned as having its charm destroyed by the new tech workers who live in SF and commute to Silicon Valley. Charlotte is overrun with transplants to the extent it does not feel Southern anymore, feels more like a generic anywhere USA kind of place.
This is a big problem that's hurting cities like Miami, NY, LA, San Fran, etc. Not necessarily rich people moving in, but rich people not moving in. Too many foreigners are buying up units and houses just to store assets. They have no intent on moving in. This raises prices for everyone else.
This needs better regulation. You can't tell a person in Beijing China they can't buy a house in LA, but at the same time you can't keep letting people, and groups of people, from Beijing buy houses in LA just to sit on them. That hurts people actually moving to LA needing a house.
I also think Charleston SC is seeing too many transplants from the Northeast. Charlotte is overrun with transplants to the extent it does not feel Southern anymore, feels more like a generic anywhere USA kind of place.
When's the last time you've been to either of these cities? Charleston and Charlotte are still very southern and always will be. Charleston is transforming because it's been "found" by everyone, and the job market is hot, not because of too many Pennsylvanians.
Charlotte is not generic, it's young. The city has it's own identity. For a city that's so un-southern, the metro has the 6th highest "bible-minded" population.
Quit whining that the south is losing it's south-ness. The north went through the same thing in the 20th century.
I also think Charleston SC is seeing too many transplants from the Northeast. Charlotte is overrun with transplants to the extent it does not feel Southern anymore, feels more like a generic anywhere USA kind of place.
When's the last time you've been to either of these cities? Charleston and Charlotte are still very southern and always will be. Charleston is transforming because it's been "found" by everyone, and the job market is hot, not because of too many Pennsylvanians. Charlotte is not generic, it's young. The city has it's own identity. And for such an un-southern southern city, it ranks 6th in "bible-minded" American cities.
But this isn't even gentrification, it's migration.
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