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I'm not quite sure what the racial animus comes into play over gentrification. It's a real phenomena that, while disproportionately affecting minorities, does affect white people as well.
Gentrification is when the 60 year old white grandma and third gen Boston resident is forced out of the city she lived in all her life because 20 something year old startup workers from Iowa made the rent triple.
It's not just "some obscure term parroted by poc to make white people seem racist".
Because that's how the term gets tossed around the most. In my Southern city, there has been a LOT of downtown redevelopment over the past eight years. Neighborhoods that were crime-ridden and had empty storefronts suddenly are lively and filled with restaurants, stores, and economic life. Unemployment is below the national average, household income is up, and everything looks pretty good. Hey, the growth isn't spectacular, but it's steady and continuous.
So during our current mayoral election, everybody should be excited about the city's new economic vigor, right? As in, "Wow, occupancy is soaring, businesses are moving into the inner city, property tax collections are rocketing skyward, and crime rates are dropping." You'd think the current mayor would have confetti tossed at him wherever he goes. Nope, his opponent is yapping non-stop about 'gentrification,' like freaking Bull Connor in reverse, and there's a good chance he might win. So then he'll cancel all the efforts that have been pumping new life into the city basically to appease the crowd.
Funny thing is, most of the neighborhoods in the city haven't been affected by gentrification in the least. Just downtown (Which didn't have much of a population to begin with) and two other neighborhoods that were run down.
Yeah, there are higher rents. But there is also higher opportunity and lower crime. You can't expect a neighborhood to become more livable and still be dirt cheap. It is an economic impossibility. So the people who are protesting gentrification are essentially saying, "We want crime and fewer jobs."
What's more, there's a bit of stereotyping going on there, for it assumes that all people in depressed neighborhoods rent. What about those same people who own their homes? Or the people who have hung on for dear life for decades, essentially owning almost worthless property? What about the people who have lived in a house over the course of a lifetime, and now actually have a property worth something? Why do you not want them to enjoy the increase in their property values?
You cannot simultaneously decry the endemic poverty of the inner city while fighting the very movement of people and capital that will ultimately alleviate it.
I think it is human nature to want the best of both worlds and no compromise, but of course life is more complicated than that.
I was very young but know something about the situation in Washington DC in the 60s and 70s. If you have ever seen the movie Being There that backdrop was pretty darn accurate of that era in DC. Before the time of that movie (1979) you had the riots of 1968 and the decade after there was the crack epidemic with more than a murder a day and an addict for a mayor. Any person in their right mind and with the means would try to get away from that situation. Problem was when the white flight took place the tax revenues followed to Montgomery, Arlington, Fairfax counties, etc. and DC was left an anarchic, crime-ridden shell of a city. Any nostalgia for those days in light of the current gentrification is looking at history through rose-colored glasses.
I don't know if this is what's happening in this part of Pennsylvania, but what you describe is typical of areas hard-hit by deindustrialization. When the local factories, mines, mills, docks, or whatever, shut down, the cities they're in tend to go to seed. People move, retailers leave, buildings are abandoned and its mostly just the poor, old, and disabled who stay put. The younger, more educated , or more ambitious folks tend to get out. Populations fall, taxes rise, and many city services decline--including police--which leads to more street crime.
PA is becoming a poor state. Period. Poverty in PA is almost as bad as Deep Southern states. A lot of the problem stems from low wages and reliance on government assistance. I have family and friends who come to visit and can't stop talking about how poor it is here. They are shocked at the living conditions.
PA is becoming a poor state. Period. Poverty in PA is almost as bad as Deep Southern states. A lot of the problem stems from low wages and reliance on government assistance. I have family and friends who come to visit and can't stop talking about how poor it is here. They are shocked at the living conditions.
The commonwealth of PA brings a lot of that on itself. The Philadelphia area is generally very wealthy, and then a to a much lesser extent Pittsburgh and a few other havens (Lehigh Valley), but outside of those areas PA is struggling.
'Gentrification' is when white people move into an area with POC, and its racist.
'White flight' is when white people move out of an area with POC, and its racist.
And of course if white people move into a white neighborhood with no POC, well, that's racist, too.
Basically, when white people move, it is racist, so if you are white just stay put. You don't want to be a Nazi, do you?
I'm a poor white person and I measure gentrification and flight by the economic level of the people moving in or out. As a poor white person, I am frequently forced to move through displacement. When white people move involuntarily, is that racist?
Because that's how the term gets tossed around the most. In my Southern city, there has been a LOT of downtown redevelopment over the past eight years. Neighborhoods that were crime-ridden and had empty storefronts suddenly are lively and filled with restaurants, stores, and economic life. Unemployment is below the national average, household income is up, and everything looks pretty good. Hey, the growth isn't spectacular, but it's steady and continuous.
So during our current mayoral election, everybody should be excited about the city's new economic vigor, right? As in, "Wow, occupancy is soaring, businesses are moving into the inner city, property tax collections are rocketing skyward, and crime rates are dropping." You'd think the current mayor would have confetti tossed at him wherever he goes. Nope, his opponent is yapping non-stop about 'gentrification,' like freaking Bull Connor in reverse, and there's a good chance he might win. So then he'll cancel all the efforts that have been pumping new life into the city basically to appease the crowd.
Funny thing is, most of the neighborhoods in the city haven't been affected by gentrification in the least. Just downtown (Which didn't have much of a population to begin with) and two other neighborhoods that were run down.
Yeah, there are higher rents. But there is also higher opportunity and lower crime. You can't expect a neighborhood to become more livable and still be dirt cheap. It is an economic impossibility. So the people who are protesting gentrification are essentially saying, "We want crime and fewer jobs."
What's more, there's a bit of stereotyping going on there, for it assumes that all people in depressed neighborhoods rent. What about those same people who own their homes? Or the people who have hung on for dear life for decades, essentially owning almost worthless property? What about the people who have lived in a house over the course of a lifetime, and now actually have a property worth something? Why do you not want them to enjoy the increase in their property values?
I have never assumed that all people in depressed neighborhoods rent. Much of Detroit has been depressed since at least the '70s and most people there own their homes. Owning has been cheaper than renting in Detroit for a long time, and there is no other place in the country where renting is a worse deal compared with owning.
I have never assumed that all people in depressed neighborhoods rent. Much of Detroit has been depressed since at least the '70s and most people there own their homes. Owning has been cheaper than renting in Detroit for a long time, and there is no other place in the country where renting is a worse deal compared with owning.
That's incorrect. I think it's a lot more common than you think, outside of the coasts.
It's not that unusual to be cheaper to own (at least PITI) than rent. But, people still rent because they are unable to buy, for whatever reason, (unable to save up the down payment, poor credit, etc.) or just don't want to own a home. (maybe they recognize that, while they can afford the mortgage payment, they might not be able to afford the additional expenses of maintenance, or, maybe they just don't want to be tied down)
Generally people with money have the means to decide where they they want to live within reason. Poor people usually do not have that ability. So yes the middle-class may choose to abandon an area when the demographics change begin to change or for whatever reason but it's a choice whereas poor/working class people being driven out of a neighborhood because they can no longer afford the rent is not a choice.
Why is "can't afford it" more compelling than "became dangerous". I grew up in a nice middle class neighborhood in the city. Over the years, more homes became rentals, and the neighborhood deteriorated. She finally decided to sell her home after she woke up one night to someone walking up the stairs to her second story bedroom. Her calling out scared him off, but he took her purse on the way out. They caught him months later, and he had broken into the house next door, to steal the drugs from the folks he'd bought from prior to that.
She put her house on the market shortly after that.
How is her leaving a "choice"? She was, in fact, driven out of the neighborhood she'd lived in since she was 10 years old.
When it comes to De-Gentrification, all races and colors try to move out whatever neighborhood that is going down the tubes.
Ive seen parts of metro ATL go from lilly white to Black during white flight, and from middle class+ black to a straight hood when they close down housing projects and gave people vouchers to the suburbs. At this point black and any white left all want out of the area.
Sad reality is when ever are area comes up, another will go down somewhere, as you have to send the problems elsewhere, and just pray its not where you live as that somewhere.
Because that's how the term gets tossed around the most. In my Southern city, there has been a LOT of downtown redevelopment over the past eight years. Neighborhoods that were crime-ridden and had empty storefronts suddenly are lively and filled with restaurants, stores, and economic life. Unemployment is below the national average, household income is up, and everything looks pretty good. Hey, the growth isn't spectacular, but it's steady and continuous.
So during our current mayoral election, everybody should be excited about the city's new economic vigor, right? As in, "Wow, occupancy is soaring, businesses are moving into the inner city, property tax collections are rocketing skyward, and crime rates are dropping." You'd think the current mayor would have confetti tossed at him wherever he goes. Nope, his opponent is yapping non-stop about 'gentrification,' like freaking Bull Connor in reverse, and there's a good chance he might win. So then he'll cancel all the efforts that have been pumping new life into the city basically to appease the crowd.
Funny thing is, most of the neighborhoods in the city haven't been affected by gentrification in the least. Just downtown (Which didn't have much of a population to begin with) and two other neighborhoods that were run down.
Yeah, there are higher rents. But there is also higher opportunity and lower crime. You can't expect a neighborhood to become more livable and still be dirt cheap. It is an economic impossibility. So the people who are protesting gentrification are essentially saying, "We want crime and fewer jobs."
What's more, there's a bit of stereotyping going on there, for it assumes that all people in depressed neighborhoods rent. What about those same people who own their homes? Or the people who have hung on for dear life for decades, essentially owning almost worthless property? What about the people who have lived in a house over the course of a lifetime, and now actually have a property worth something? Why do you not want them to enjoy the increase in their property values?
Why not? Replace 'underclass' with 'college-educated [broke and indebted] baristas' and a neighborhood becomes more livable - and should theoretically remain dirt cheap.
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