Why Acres Homes escapes gentrification (Houston, Riverside: closing, income, live in)

[Toofa]

Originally Posted by hbcu

Research gentrification more in Houston please

They only take the elementary schools and that’s it. Have not seen a middle school nor high gentrification ever. They’ll fight to build a new school before doing that - see Carnegie, etc.

Acres Homes will have infill but no major gentrification like other places. Too much around to change.

What places do you think have a better chance of being gentrified?

[Vicman]

I'm not sure Carnegie's the best example of a school built predominately by Heights gentrifiers?

Carnegie was initially Jones Vanguard, located at Jones High School in South Park. That place is not gentrifying, and back then the tensions between the Vanguard and neighborhood kids were discussed here https://www.houstonpress.com/news/th...divide-6559380

Then it moved to the former Carnegie Elementary School and was in Sunnyside, also not gentrifying https://www.houstonpress.com/news/a-...cision-6559598

Carnegie is now in the Fourth Ward, which is zoned to Heights High (previously Reagan). https://www.houstonpress.com/news/ca...w-home-6729021 - That place is gentrifying but is filled with DINK types. The population did increase after the 4th Ward move: https://www.schooldigger.com/go/TX/s...73/school.aspx

Carnegie's student enrollment is seen here: https://www.houstonisd.org/cms/lib2/...negie%20HS.pdf

• 188 zoned to Lamar
• 125 zoned to Bellaire
• 81 zoned to Wisdom (former Lee)
• 49 zoned to Westside
• 46 zoned to Westbury
• 40 zoned to Heights
• 32 to Madison
• 30 to Waltrip
• 27 to Sharpstown
• 25 to Worthing
• 25 to Sam Houston
• 19 to Yates
• 19 to Northside (former Jeff Davis)
• 17 to Austin
• 16 to Wheatley
• 16 to Sterling
• 10 to Furr
• 10 to Chavez
• 33 to other schools (including North Forest, Booker T. Washington, Milby, Kashmere, and Scarborough)

I bolded the schools in "gentrifying" areas. HCBU, I just don't think that's very many kids...
The highest concentration of kids going to Carnegie seems to be West U/Bellaire/Braeswood place...

Originally Posted by hbcu

They only take the elementary schools and that’s it. Have not seen a middle school nor high gentrification ever. They’ll fight to build a new school before doing that - see Carnegie, etc.

Acres Homes will have infill but no major gentrification like other places. Too much around to change.

[AcresHomes44]

Originally Posted by DejaBlue

To be frank, the schools and the area being very dominate African American keeps it from being gentrified.


Look at the areas that are up and coming and being gentrified or already are. They are Hispanic dominate. Gentrification tends to be white people and from what I've seen, people WILL and DO move to fixer uppers around Hispanic people but not so much around black people.

My cousin's children go to Oak Forest and hers are the tiny specks at the school. It is Hispanic and White. The gentrified people feel secure with Hispanics and less blacks.

Inside the Loop, the glorified elementary schools are majority white and Hispanic with a few black children but not many. Maybe one lone or 2 on the class picture. It's going to take a LONG time for Acres Homes to be less black. Hispanics are there but not really.

Even if schools aren't your goal, the schools give you an idea of who is around for the long haul and who feels comfortable staying and if the demographics don't skew one way, people look elsewhere.

Most don't go "schools are eh when the numbers ate 28%" Hispanic but will if that's 28% African American.

HAR is a great research tool. Look at a handful of schools if you see 25%+ Hispanic, you will definitely see a large number of white students. 25% white, or 35% white. If you see 25%+ African American, the percentage of white will not top 10% ever. Barely 8%. If you find a school that is the exception, link it here because I sure haven't seen it and I've looked. I mean all over the city but especially in those hot areas.


I'm talking lower end areas moving up. Nice areas DO have a good mix of everyone but there's the "okay, they're good blacks like the the Huxtables on the Cosby Show or Banks' on Fresh Prince or Johnsons on Blackish and not riff raff types" so people are cool mixing and mingling their children. Less money? Not so much.


It is what it is and that's what is stopping gentrification in Acres Homes.

Acres Homes will always be black, bottom line. It was designed as a wooded, urban inner-city community with a suburban feel to it. The schools would have to get better, crime almost become non-existent and the infrastructure would have to be halfway decent for Acres Homes to be thought of for gentrification. That, and the old folks who live there....

[LocalPlanner]

Originally Posted by DejaBlue

To be frank, the schools and the area being very dominate African American keeps it from being gentrified.


Look at the areas that are up and coming and being gentrified or already are. They are Hispanic dominate. Gentrification tends to be white people and from what I've seen, people WILL and DO move to fixer uppers around Hispanic people but not so much around black people.

My cousin's children go to Oak Forest and hers are the tiny specks at the school. It is Hispanic and White. The gentrified people feel secure with Hispanics and less blacks.

Inside the Loop, the glorified elementary schools are majority white and Hispanic with a few black children but not many. Maybe one lone or 2 on the class picture. It's going to take a LONG time for Acres Homes to be less black. Hispanics are there but not really.

Even if schools aren't your goal, the schools give you an idea of who is around for the long haul and who feels comfortable staying and if the demographics don't skew one way, people look elsewhere.

Most don't go "schools are eh when the numbers ate 28%" Hispanic but will if that's 28% African American.

HAR is a great research tool. Look at a handful of schools if you see 25%+ Hispanic, you will definitely see a large number of white students. 25% white, or 35% white. If you see 25%+ African American, the percentage of white will not top 10% ever. Barely 8%. If you find a school that is the exception, link it here because I sure haven't seen it and I've looked. I mean all over the city but especially in those hot areas.


I'm talking lower end areas moving up. Nice areas DO have a good mix of everyone but there's the "okay, they're good blacks like the the Huxtables on the Cosby Show or Banks' on Fresh Prince or Johnsons on Blackish and not riff raff types" so people are cool mixing and mingling their children. Less money? Not so much.


It is what it is and that's what is stopping gentrification in Acres Homes.

Well, 3rd Ward is definitely gentrifying in terms of housing (block by block). And its legacy population is still predominately black and lower income. (The schools of course are not gentrifying.) And the SW portion of 5th Ward also (though 5th Ward has been more mixed black / Hispanic in the last 15 years). Then of course 4th Ward - it was black and flat-out poor, but high-income Anglos moved in anyway (much to the dismay of many).

Look what happened in DC - major Anglo gentrification of working class black neighborhoods. It will happen here too.

[As Above So Below...]

I dont see why Acres Homes would be gentrified to be honest. With the exception of the far southern side of it, its not really close enough to make property values go up that much. Its too far from 610.

[hbcu]

Like Sunnyside and Acres Homs - areas where folks own land don’t change easily

A lot of people rented in the heights so they never owned so it was easy to change. Certain parts of third ward was taken over by land speculators but the core areas where people live won’t switch over

[LocalPlanner]

Originally Posted by hbcu

Like Sunnyside and Acres Homs - areas where folks own land don’t change easily

A lot of people rented in the heights so they never owned so it was easy to change. Certain parts of third ward was taken over by land speculators but the core areas where people live won’t switch over

It depends on how many of the owners are elderly and don't want to pay taxes on the rising property value. Or their children, if the owner has passed on- I know many hold on to the property for sentimental reasons (and the deed may have passed to multiple children, complicating decision making), but there will still be those who choose to sell and take profits.

[WRM20]

Originally Posted by AcresHomes44

Acres Homes will always be black, bottom line. It was designed as a wooded, urban inner-city community with a suburban feel to it. The schools would have to get better, crime almost become non-existent and the infrastructure would have to be halfway decent for Acres Homes to be thought of for gentrification. That, and the old folks who live there....

There's also a number of properties with huge title problems due to a number of generations of folks dying without wills. It takes a ton of money to get that stuff cleared up.

Originally Posted by LocalPlanner

Well, 3rd Ward is definitely gentrifying in terms of housing (block by block). And its legacy population is still predominately black and lower income. (The schools of course are not gentrifying.) And the SW portion of 5th Ward also (though 5th Ward has been more mixed black / Hispanic in the last 15 years). Then of course 4th Ward - it was black and flat-out poor, but high-income Anglos moved in anyway (much to the dismay of many).

Look what happened in DC - major Anglo gentrification of working class black neighborhoods. It will happen here too.

There are better schools in the Third Ward now. Energy Institute has a new buiklding there, the Law Enforcement HS has a new building, Yates was rebuilt, Austin is being rebuilt...

Originally Posted by hbcu

Like Sunnyside and Acres Homs - areas where folks own land don’t change easily

A lot of people rented in the heights so they never owned so it was easy to change. Certain parts of third ward was taken over by land speculators but the core areas where people live won’t switch over

The biggest land speculator in the Third Ward is the Midtown TIRZ, which has been buying land East of 288 at the behest of the jerk Garnet Coleman, who, as far as I can tell, hates white folks and doesn't want them moving into the Third.

[LocalPlanner]

Originally Posted by WRM20

There are better schools in the Third Ward now. Energy Institute has a new buiklding there, the Law Enforcement HS has a new building, Yates was rebuilt, Austin is being rebuilt...

Yates and Austin are zoned schools, and while their physical plant may be better than it was, as far as I know, affluent families have not chosen to send their children there. EI and LE are magnets, not zoned schools.

The biggest land speculator in the Third Ward is the Midtown TIRZ, which has been buying land East of 288 at the behest of the jerk Garnet Coleman, who, as far as I can tell, hates white folks and doesn't want them moving into the Third.

Yes, the TIRZ bought a whole bunch of parcels in 3rd Ward and other areas in SE Houston. Nevertheless, it hasn't stopped the march of upscale townhomes, the frontier of which is moving east of Emancipation Ave.

[Vicman]

Originally Posted by WRM20

There's also a number of properties with huge title problems due to a number of generations of folks dying without wills. It takes a ton of money to get that stuff cleared up.

This issue is also why big business didn't move into Bacliff in Galveston County, although that was because of a contest from the Galveston Daily News that gave away houses. Many homesites were changed hands when people canceled their subscriptions. Therefore the titles got confused. https://www.houstonpress.com/news/ga...acliff-6587565

Miller recalls that the land was so cheap in the 1950s that The Galveston Daily News bought a huge parcel and awarded free homesites to new subscribers. "If you canceled your subscription, you lost the homesite, and they gave it to someone else," Miller says. "So now, there are a lot of really ****ed-up titles in Bacliff, and that's why there's no big business there. Kroger doesn't want to build a store and have somebody come out of the woodwork with title to the land."

And this one:

The biggest land speculator in the Third Ward is the Midtown TIRZ, which has been buying land East of 288 at the behest of the jerk Garnet Coleman, who, as far as I can tell, hates white folks and doesn't want them moving into the Third.

I also wonder if Coleman's afraid the new residents won't vote for him. I wonder who will take control of the Midtown TIRZ?