People complain about gentrification, but re-investment can't happen without it!!

[AJNEOA]

Originally Posted by drive carephilly

A few points after reading the thread -

1 - Gentrification and displacement are not the same thing. Some people will claim that a former warehouse district that gets upzoned to include residential units has been "gentrified" even though no one lived there before developers started putting in lofts.

2 - Displacement can only really be documented in NYC and SF. As it is renters move on average every two years and the most vulnerable renters move more often than the average. Technology changes and employment sectors change with it. No one is going to knock down two square miles of North Philly for a new Amazon distribution center and then knock down even more houses for the access roads. It would be insanely disruptive and prohibitively expensive. So instead it gets built on a greenfield in NJ right next to I-95. That's how it goes. Factories, modes of transportation, even entire industries become obsolete and new ones spring up in different places. This is what drives rural/suburban/urban migrations but even then these things happen over the course of 20-30 years. They don't happen overnight.

3 - The reason that displacement can be documented in NYC and the Bay Area is because housing production isn't keeping pace with demand and/or housing production is happening in the wrong parts of the region and/or infrastructure has lagged far behind population growth so that it takes longer and longer for people to get work which then encourages those who are best able to afford it to move closer to work and/or closer to transit stations which then drives up the cost of housing closer to where the jobs are. The Bay Area is easily the worst when it comes to this. Over the past decade ~650,000 people have moved here but only 120,000 units of housing have been built (The Bay Area "average people per household" is 3.1 which is up from 2.9 because of the crowding). At the same time it has added zero new transportation infrastructure aside from a few new ferries. Greater NYC is better at bringing new units online but not much better on the transport front. Over the last 20 years the NYC metro has grown by +4 million people and I can count on one hand the number of projects that have increased transit capacity.

I'm not sure if you've been watching what's happening around Philly, but there are two examples that I'd be interested in hearing your opinion on.

1. Displacement - The PHA is working with our Council President (Clarke) to displace tons of people in Sharswood (North Philly) by removing them from their houses to build a huge public housing district. Very backwards in thinking, but this seems like displacement in its purest form, hurting the very people that Clarke swears to want to help, by instead feeding labor unions expensive projects and lining his own pockets.

2. Gentrification - Point Breeze is improving on its north and east sides. The neighborhood association has used racism, aggression and even violence to keep people out. However, with what you said above, I don't think this is gentrification. Mainly because there are so many homeowners in PB. People that leave are often times choosing to leave. And maybe that would be different if the City of Philadelphia frequently forced people out of their homes for not paying taxes. Either way, I've yet to see people who needed to move without making a bunch of money on their home in the process (profit).

In regard to the OP's question, I think the reason that "gentrification" (however you might see it) is the only way is mainly because of income disparities. The USA has lost an enormous amount of good jobs, replaced by service sector jobs. The troubled neighborhoods with high crime rates are not going to improve because of a lot of reasons (e.g. multi-generational poverty), but mainly because there are no jobs that pay good wages that folks can work without having a "higher education". Even when a city "improves", the jobs that move in are not jobs that folks can get living in deep poverty...at least not in a common scenario.

The only way to improve neighborhoods without displacement is to get young men and women working jobs and feeling like they have a better future. Otherwise, we're just moving people and money around while watching income disparities increase.

[drive carephilly]

Originally Posted by AJNEOA

I'm not sure if you've been watching what's happening around Philly, but there are two examples that I'd be interested in hearing your opinion on.

1. Displacement - The PHA is working with our Council President (Clarke) to displace tons of people in Sharswood (North Philly) by removing them from their houses to build a huge public housing district. Very backwards in thinking, but this seems like displacement in its purest form, hurting the very people that Clarke swears to want to help, by instead feeding labor unions expensive projects and lining his own pockets.

Yup. Clarke isn't the sharpest knife in the drawer so this should come as no surprise. Kicking poor and lower-middle class people out of their houses to build subsidized housing has been going on in Philly for decades. A lot of the newer PHA projects in Point Breeze involved a lot of eminent domain and aren't even 10 years old yet.

2. Gentrification - Point Breeze is improving on its north and east sides. The neighborhood association has used racism, aggression and even violence to keep people out. However, with what you said above, I don't think this is gentrification. Mainly because there are so many homeowners in PB. People that leave are often times choosing to leave. And maybe that would be different if the City of Philadelphia frequently forced people out of their homes for not paying taxes. Either way, I've yet to see people who needed to move without making a bunch of money on their home in the process (profit).

The middle class population of PB has only been on the rise for the last 8-10 years. But the population of PB has been in decline for 55 years and the neighborhood has been full of vacant and abandoned properties for +30 years. The people buying houses there are now aren't displacing anyone. You might be able to point to some anecdotes about renters in Graduate Hospital not being able to afford the rent anymore but again, GH was in rapid decline for decades before there was any real reinvestment.

In regard to the OP's question, I think the reason that "gentrification" (however you might see it) is the only way is mainly because of income disparities. The USA has lost an enormous amount of good jobs, replaced by service sector jobs. The troubled neighborhoods with high crime rates are not going to improve because of a lot of reasons (e.g. multi-generational poverty), but mainly because there are no jobs that pay good wages that folks can work without having a "higher education". Even when a city "improves", the jobs that move in are not jobs that folks can get living in deep poverty...at least not in a common scenario.

Income inequality plays a role but it's more complicated than that. Industries and technology come and go. The housing market has been screwed up for since the late 90s and we've been underbuilding in most large markets for at least a decade and especially underbuilding in the places were people want to buy. The way we subsidize middle class housing also distorts that market. The way we fund schools is a big problem. The way we don't fund infrastructure also distorts regional housing markets.