Why Acres Homes escapes gentrification (Houston, Austin: 2013, how much, transfer)

[SouthernBoy205]

Originally Posted by hbcu

I grew up near Mo. City and watched how businesses abandoned our areas despite no one leaving the area.

The school district did their best to destroy the prosperous high school with blatant rezoning and creating division within blacks which turned out to be wrong as some got the short end of the stick with rezoning.

Ain’t no difference between between my old community and Westbury except a higher markup for the same house. But businesses purposely don’t come even though people are there.

Yes! The system fails us every chance they get and every chance we give to them. Things like what you’ve mentioned happen every damn day. It’s so tiring and disgusting, but people on here and people with privileges will tell us that what we see and experience is all lies. Stop playing with my intelligence like Idk what goes on.

[As Above So Below...]

Originally Posted by SouthernBoy205

Yes! The system fails us every chance they get and every chance we give to them. Things like what you’ve mentioned happen every damn day. It’s so tiring and disgusting, but people on here and people with privileges will tell us that what we see and experience is all lies. Stop playing with my intelligence like Idk what goes on.

Except no one said those things don’t happen. The issue was the championing of segregation.

[SouthernBoy205]

Originally Posted by As Above So Below...

Except no one said those things don’t happen. The issue was the championing of segregation.

Vicman gets it a lot more than you, and he’s white. We’re back to our hiatus until further notice.

[LocalPlanner]

I am not convinced at all that the Texas Parkway and FM 1960 situations were caused by businesses deliberately choosing to leave an area solely because it served predominately AA customers, just out of racial spite. Prove it. If they were performing just as good as previously, they would have no reason to leave.

Now, might Anglo customers quit coming when the shopping demographic becomes dominantly AA (or for that matter Hispanic)? Yes, that I can believe. If that was enough to cause business performance to decline, then the businesses might leave. But that's because of performance, not because they just wanted to be hateful.

Note: Willowbrook still appears to be performing OK despite it having a heavily AA customer base. It got the first H&M in the region, if I remember correctly.

[SouthernBoy205]

Originally Posted by LocalPlanner

I am not convinced at all that the Texas Parkway and FM 1960 situations were caused by businesses deliberately choosing to leave an area solely because it served predominately AA customers, just out of racial spite. Prove it. If they were performing just as good as previously, they would have no reason to leave.

Now, might Anglo customers quit coming when the shopping demographic becomes dominantly AA (or for that matter Hispanic)? Yes, that I can believe. If that was enough to cause business performance to decline, then the businesses might leave. But that's because of performance, not because they just wanted to be hateful.

Note: Willowbrook still appears to be performing OK despite it having a heavily AA customer base. It got the first H&M in the region, if I remember correctly.

Whew chile. The privilege.

[LocalPlanner]

Originally Posted by SouthernBoy205

Whew chile. The privilege.

Yes I am a white male and acknowledge my benefit from unearned privilege. I still stand by my statement. You really think those businesses left just out of mean spite?

[Vicman]

On one hand, it's true that businesses first and foremost care about money don't truly care about what color buys their products...

...but they perceive minority-only client bases as being not profitable enough, which would explain why businesses withdraw once Anglo Whites are scared away (perhaps Willowbrook Mall will be an exception? Fingers crossed!). This explains the lack of higher end businesses in Prince George's (see Cashin article).

Also the Tuscaloosa monkey business was explained by the city government trying to attract more business, and businesses saw a majority black school district as being problematic.

Tuscaloosa’s residential population stagnated during the ’90s, and the school situation took on special urgency in 1993: Tuscaloosa was vying for the Mercedes-Benz plant where Melissa Dent now works, which officials hoped would draw people to the city. Just a few years earlier, Tuscaloosa had lost out on a bid for a Saturn plant. In an interview early this year, Johnnie Aycock, who at the time headed the Chamber of Commerce of West Alabama, suggested the schools had scared Saturn away. “We learned that lesson. We learned that lesson completely.”

Having said that, it's important to butter up people with privilege to bring them on board your side. MLK understood this well when he did his civil rights activism.

Originally Posted by SouthernBoy205

Whew chile. The privilege.

[SouthernBoy205]

Originally Posted by Vicman

On one hand, it's true that businesses first and foremost care about money don't truly care about what color buys their products...

...but they perceive minority-only client bases as being not profitable enough, which would explain why businesses withdraw once Anglo Whites are scared away (perhaps Willowbrook Mall will be an exception? Fingers crossed!). This explains the lack of higher end businesses in Prince George's (see Cashin article).

Also the Tuscaloosa monkey business was explained by the city government trying to attract more business, and businesses saw a majority black school district as being problematic.



Having said that, it's important to butter up people with privilege to bring them on board your side. MLK understood this well when he did his civil rights activism.

You “butter” the ones up who at least tries to understand; hey, if they were decent human beings with sense and dignity, then we wouldn’t need to butter anyone up. I don’t kiss ass.

[Vicman]

Sadly a lot of people in positions of power are less sympathetic types.

Anyhow, I think of how Britain handed Hong Kong over. Margaret Thatcher probably in her mind wanted to saber rattle like she did with Argentina over the Falklands, but the realities of the situation were made clear to her, and the handover deal she did was the best she could do both for the UK and for people in Hong Kong.

As for a more local example: Lenwood Johnson, the activist who sought to protect the Allen Parkway project from being demolished, was also a type who didn't like to kiss ass (in fact he strongly criticized black politicians like Sheila Jackson Lee, since he felt they were secretly in favor of development - the article below noted he actually ignored white Republican politicians like Tom Delay). While his activism was helpful initially - former HACH officials stated that his resistance to their plans were quite unusual and that the activism was the reason why the complex wasn't initially demolished - https://www.houstonpress.com/news/le...-stand-6571928 it is possible that he may have been a little too stubborn at times, meaning that the ultimate final deal could have been a bit more generous for those in APV if he hadn't been stubborn at the wrong moments.

https://www.houstonpress.com/news/le...-stand-6571928

For another, Johnson's ample measure of righteous indignation appears to be suffering from diminishing returns. He goes into this, perhaps his toughest challenge yet, having alienated some of his most important allies -- most notably Gladys House, the president of the Freedmen's Town Association, and Joan Denkler, president of the Houston Housing Concern. House may be the one person who has fought the demolition of APV longer than Johnson. But these days, frustrated by Johnson's refusal to compromise, House is working alone to protect the interests of Freedmen's Town.

Denkler's largely white, suburban-based organization was instrumental in mobilizing the support of church and community groups when Johnson needed it most. Yet Denkler and Johnson have split over the latest alternative to demolition, the Allen Parkway Community Campus plan.

"I had to leave," Denkler says. "He's a remarkable man, but his political instincts failed him on this."

I don't know what deal Denkler is referring to, but the deal APV ultimately got was having many of its units removed and having its capacity reduced. I wonder if he would have gotten a better deal if he had chosen to compromise sooner.

Another article noted: https://www.houstonpress.com/news/al...-movie-6569148

Until the end, that is. By then, Johnson's reasons had less to do with the fact that, like everyone else, the poor need a place to live and more to do with sustaining his own very public life as APV's chief protector. Indeed, for better or worse, the story of Allen Parkway Village became hopelessly entangled with the story of Lenwood Johnson, who, as even his supporters acknowledged, made the mistake of buying into his own shtick.

On one hand you need a vociferous activism, but you also have to know when's a good moment to compromise.

Originally Posted by SouthernBoy205

You “butter” the ones up who at least tries to understand; hey, if they were decent human beings with sense and dignity, then we wouldn’t need to butter anyone up. I don’t kiss ass.

[SouthernBoy205]

Originally Posted by Vicman

Sadly a lot of people in positions of power are less sympathetic types.

Anyhow, I think of how Britain handed Hong Kong over. Margaret Thatcher probably in her mind wanted to saber rattle like she did with Argentina over the Falklands, but the realities of the situation were made clear to her, and the handover deal she did was the best she could do both for the UK and for people in Hong Kong.

As for a more local example: Lenwood Johnson, the activist who sought to protect the Allen Parkway project from being demolished, was also a type who didn't like to kiss ass (in fact he strongly criticized black politicians like Sheila Jackson Lee, since he felt they were secretly in favor of development - the article below noted he actually ignored white Republican politicians like Tom Delay). While his activism was helpful initially - former HACH officials stated that his resistance to their plans were quite unusual and that the activism was the reason why the complex wasn't initially demolished - https://www.houstonpress.com/news/le...-stand-6571928 it is possible that he may have been a little too stubborn at times, meaning that the ultimate final deal could have been a bit more generous for those in APV if he hadn't been stubborn at the wrong moments.

https://www.houstonpress.com/news/le...-stand-6571928



I don't know what deal Denkler is referring to, but the deal APV ultimately got was having many of its units removed and having its capacity reduced. I wonder if he would have gotten a better deal if he had chosen to compromise sooner.

Another article noted: https://www.houstonpress.com/news/al...-movie-6569148



On one hand you need a vociferous activism, but you also have to know when's a good moment to compromise.

Many times, there isn’t any compromising with people who have created this system we live in. What type of compromise is the residents of Third Ward getting?