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To the OP: I'd say OAKLAND, CA is the quintessential example of a city filled with not just one, but several of the neighborhoods you described.
Its unique position in the center of the Bay Area (20 minutes east of San Francisco and 45 minutes north of San Jose) means that artists, hipsters and the like have made this their capital. SF is now almost exclusively upper-middle class, and San Jose (and its surrounding areas) are where most of the nicely paid Silicon Valley employees live. Because SF is too expensive, and San Jose generally lacks that urban, gritty history that most artists & hipsters seem to view as 'cool & hip', Oakland has been the perfect blend of urban grit, culture, and affordability that this class of folks have enjoyed gentrifying.
West Oakland, which at one point was 85% Black, now seems to be half Black, a quarter hipster/artist, and a quarter 'other'. There are other areas, particularly the western half of North Oakland, that are seeing an influx of hipsters, musicians, and UC Berkeley students who now visibly travel via bike up and down Martin Luther King Jr.Way (a major boulevard in the city that, up until the mid-2000s, used to be lined with African-American youngsters).
Another Oakland neighborhood that may not be as "pre-gentrification", but is also not as gentrified as it will be, is "Uptown" Oakland. Most people who grew up in Oakland remember when "The Uptown" (as new residents like to call it) didn't really exist. Back in the day, it was mostly Black, and was just another section of Downtown Oakland that was largely abandoned, blighted, and was a hotspot for drugs and prostitution. When they remodeled and reopened the Fox Theater, that was when things started to change.
I'm sure within 10 years, all of Oakland North and Northwest of Downtown will be largely White. It's inevitable; West Oakland, which is really the gateway for folks traveling in and out of the Eastern Bay Area, is one BART stop and one freeway exit away from San Francisco, while North Oakland is bordered by Downtown on one side,(UC) Berkeley on another side, and the increasingly glamorous hotspot that is now Emeryville on the other. I don't necessarily think there's anything wrong with a Whiter population, but there is something wrong with so many people, most often families of color, being displaced as a result.
I share your concern, but I think you're overstating things a bit. I do think low income renters, who in Oakland are pretty much anything but white, are in for a bad time. But there are also a lot of Black homeowners. The Golden Gate neighborhood in Northwest Oakland is, I believe, a neighborhood with a significant number of non-white homeowners.
What's happening in Uptown, and to a lesser extent in other parts of Downtown Oakland is, I think, more complicated. Downtown is the one part of the city where the population is going up, so there are more housing units. That reduces the displacement pressure, although it could of course get worse in the future.
The city needs to pay attention to what's going on and do what it can, not that it has a lot of tools available. An inclusionary zoning Ordinance would be a good start.
Point Breeze, Brewerytown, Francisville and Fishtown are all currently being gentrified already. The thing with Fishtown is it is a lot of industrial land, ESPECIALLY on the waterfront.
Areas that are seeing per-gentrification I would say are:
South Philadelphia Gray's Ferry
Dickinson Narrows
West Philadelphia Dunlap Haverford
West Powelton
Lower North Philadelphia West Kensington
Sharswood
West Poplar
West and South sections of Hartranft
East and South sections of North Central
Northwest Philadelphia Germantown
Not to nit-pick, but isn't Haverford in DelCo? I only ask, because I've never heard of a gentrified suburb.
I really think Camden is a prime candidate for gentrification. All of the old architecture and historic areas in that town, it's a shame it's so overlooked for being in South Jersey.
While I don't agree with the concept of "pre-gentrification", I think I understand what it's intended to mean. That said, I'll offer up Wynwood in Miami. It's totally an artist colony at this point with live-work galleries, some hip restaurants, bars and a few stores. However, it's highly intermingled with warehouses and a legacy poor/working class environment. It has a long way to go before it's considered fully gentrified. I dare say that on non-busy nights many people would be afraid to walk most of the streets alone or in pairs. Conversely, the monthly gallery walk Saturdays brings a flood of people to the neighborhood galleries and venues for a big street party replete with a giant "food truck food court" set up in an empty dirt lot.
Things in Miami change quickly. Had the economy not experienced its downturn in 2008, Wynwood would probably be fully gentrified. Upon the next boom, it's going to lose its edge when the poor and immigrant working class are driven out for retail and higher end housing. I think that this is going to be the pattern for most every poor neighborhood that's east of I95. The poor simply do not have the resources to fight the gentrification.
On the North Side of Pittsburgh, it's the Central North Side, and East Allegheny (Deutschtown) west of I-279. In the East End of Pittsburgh, it's Garfield, Larimer and Polish Hill.
I share your concern, but I think you're overstating things a bit. I do think low income renters, who in Oakland are pretty much anything but white, are in for a bad time. But there are also a lot of Black homeowners. The Golden Gate neighborhood in Northwest Oakland is, I believe, a neighborhood with a significant number of non-white homeowners.
What's happening in Uptown, and to a lesser extent in other parts of Downtown Oakland is, I think, more complicated. Downtown is the one part of the city where the population is going up, so there are more housing units. That reduces the displacement pressure, although it could of course get worse in the future.
The city needs to pay attention to what's going on and do what it can, not that it has a lot of tools available. An inclusionary zoning Ordinance would be a good start.
I agree with most of what you're saying here, but I don't think I'm "overstating" things at all. While there is tremendous population growth in Downtown, it would actually be an understatement to say that growth there "reduces the displacement pressure" in other neighborhoods. You have to remember that the types of people that the OP described (hipsters, artists, etc.) tend to be of quite a different class than Yuppies. In my observation, the condos in Uptown, Jack London Square, and throughout Downtown seem to be more or less occupied by Yuppies, who tend to be better off economically than the hipsters and artists who are "pre-gentrifying" North & West Oakland. North Oakland always had a sizable White population, but they were traditionally relegated the the eastern side. To see as many Whites (and middle-class people in general) west of the Temescal District, is fairly recent, just as seeing so many in West Oakland is new, especially since that was one of the very first neighborhoods to experience "White flight" in the mid-twentieth century. One drive through West Oakland, and anyone familiar with its history can see the impending displacement of many of the low-income home dwelling residents. The principal reason why all of the low-income residents won't be displaced in the non-SF neighborhood closest to Downtown San Francisco is because of the vast blocks of Public Housing in the area.
But you're right, Oakland does have a pretty large percentage of African-American homeowners. However, the share of the percentage is becoming more and more tilted towards East Oakland, as many Black families in the West & North continue to sell out to buy cheaper housing in peripheral suburbs.
Based on the OP's description, I'd say pre-gentrified....though I have a problem with that term in general.
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