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No kidding. I was just commenting on my particular block in Baltimore and those surrounding it, in which probably 90% of folks who had been there over 20 years had owned their house. Not a high cost area.
Then let me rephrase my previous question:
On what basis can you claim that long term renters are in no danger?
To new subsidized housing? Most people in these areas have rent assistance. And as mentioned above the neighborhood becomes vibrant with stores and scenery why would they complain about that. My grand parents tell me stories of when Philadelphia didn't have trash everywhere and even Kensington had people who took care of their property and community.
??? WhereTF do you get that idea? Got anything to support your outlandish claim? The vast majority of low income renters do not have rent assistance, and very few nonelderly childless adults have rent assistance.
The problem is, gentrification rarely "lifts all boats." Basically new yachts come in and everyone else is supposed to fend for themselves.
"Good" gentrification allows everyone to benefit.
As Spike Lee alluded to in his gentrification tirade, the city (NYC) didn't come to pick up the trash until the "white people" moved in, and ignored the complaints of the other residents.
Gentrification is about money and power most of the time, and in many cases the city government makes it abundantly clear who they care about.
Because candidates for office who claim to care about the complaints of the other residents...get accused of engaging in class warfare.
Structural racism has a huge impact on the application of city services. Ask all the middle class people in predominately non-white areas in Oakland clamoring for a Trader Joes.
What about structural classism? In Portland, non-white pastors mobilized a successful effort to keep Trader Joe's from moving into a gentrifying neighborhood.
I was a planner for two different cities that had no supermarket. I was part of the team to recruit them. The reality for them is that the shrink is high, the sales are low, and a new store is way too much of a financial risk in a local market that is risky . . . and it's especially unadvantageous for them because they usually have the surrounding suburbs saturated so a new store in these places would be a huge capital investment that would then cannibalize a lot of their existing business.
I'm not saying it's right - just explaining the why.
And after years of trying in vain the city finally said "screw 'em" and pursued this instead - Chester Co-op is where fresh food - and a community - finds a home - Philly.com
Which, IMO, is far more valuable for the community than a supermarket chain that is going to be siphoning money from community and sending the profits back to Syracuse or Cincinnati or wherever.
Some years ago I had an idea for a new kind of supermarket for an urban food desert:
A basic-to-moderate selection of nonperishable staples (assumes accessible neighborhood farmers markets) in a warehouse-type environment. Customers place orders 24 hours in advance, online or at kiosk in store. Customer picks up ready-to-go order next day. Lose impulse purchases but shrink limited to employees and vendors.
Unequal outcomes are plain to see for everyone. No one is trying to disguise racism and class. We're just not trying to pretend that class is irrelevant.
What I disagree with is characterizing the symptoms of poverty as the cause of unfair outcomes or as proof of the existence of racial persecution on the part of TJs or Oakland City Council. . . because we're anecdotally comparing poor black neighborhoods with rich white ones. If you were trying to compare them even in a very limited academic sense then you'd at least have a poor white neighborhood and a rich or middle-class black neighborhood as a control. Then you replicate that 10x and the differences that you find when you control for class are where your concrete, verifiable racism exists.
Perhaps that's a challenge then for another thread. Find a two middle to upper-middle class black communities, two white ones of similar incomes then four lower-middle or poor communities - two white and two black and compare the financial aspects, retail environment, municipal services, etc.
As a college-educated poor person free of crime, drugs, and other social pathologies, I have a vested interest in separating myself from the stereotypes and perceptions of others about poverty and poor people. I'd like to see a place for low-income people with degrees - how would life be like there?
I'm not saying that at all and I know that's not the case. I'm just pointing out who left, who stayed and who is moving in. It's pretty clear from the data that income inequality between ethnic groups in Oakland is growing at a rapid clip because first the white middle class left then 20 years later the black middle class left and starting about 10-15 years ago the Latino middle class started leaving. This isn't a pattern that's unique to Oakland. The only thing that's really unique about Oakland is the big influx of Asians and Latinos that began in the 80s.
Either way what you have is a shrinking black population that is becoming statistically poorer because the black middle class is moving out and it's been going on for ~25 years so, in the context of a question like "how come there wasn't more retail here?", there's your answer.
Yeah, so the more you zero in on a specific neighborhood the clearer the picture gets. The $ values are all in 2010 $ -
Temescal 2010 total population - 6,572
White - 3,345 $60,667
Black - 1,396 $50,802
Asian - 664 $43,567
Latino - 748 $29,650
2000 population - 6,439
White - 2,783 $54,911
Black - 1,822 $34,996
Asian - 781 $55,634
Latino - 657 $52,354
1990 population - 6,396
White - 2,692 - $52,146
Black - 2,380 -$42,505
Asian - 736 - $74,172
Latino - 505 - $36,749
So, a few things here . . . the black and asian middle classes appears to have left in the 1990s where you see a shrinking population and declining incomes foar those two groups. Perhaps more established Asian & Latino families moved on as they were replaced by more recent arrivals?
The population of the neighborhood has grown and, clearly, the white population has grown the fastest and these new people white people have more money than the whites who already lived there.
Additionally, while it appears that the black exodus continues it appears that there has been significant turnover there with new black residents being significantly more wealthy than the people who are moving out.
So, again, it's not that there are more white people around. It's that the white people who are around have more money than they used to . . . and so do the black people.
Given that the black exodus from Oakland began at some point in the late 80s and started to accelerate from there . . . and the foreclosure crisis didn't start until 20 years later it's not likely that's
the reason for a lot of displacement. It probably began with a diminishing quality of life in face of rising crime (in the 80s), rising rents, and stagnant wages. In other words, blacks, asians and latinos move to the suburbs for the same reason white people did.
I think it's important to consider the age of households when looking at income comparisons.
Whites have lower birth rates AND lower death rates than other groups, which produces a significantly OLDER population than do other groups. This means that, considering the normal earnings curve of most people, most whites will be higher on their individual lifetime earnings curve than will most others, and consequently will have higher mean and median incomes than other groups, ceteris paribus.
AAhhhhhh!!!!! Those are the worst possible neighbors! My neighborhood is becoming a little more stroller oriented these days. I don't recall too many kids when I first moved in on "my side" of the neighborhood. But now there are way more. Probably a function of the larger places nearby getting way more expensive. Now lots of families are in 2 bedroom condos!
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