With so much backlash in US cities about "gentrification".. Will things change or at least slow down due to awareness ?? (New York: low income, real estate)
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I mean you can't hear NYC without seeing gentrification in the same sentence. San Francisco is having huge protest against techies invading the city. Philadelphia is changing laws to not allow residents to be discplaced. Boston's mayor just gave a speech on how he will also change things to slow down gentrification.
Gentrification is now as common of a term as twerking.
Due to the huge amount of current awareness and grassroots movements going on.... how will this affect the process as a whole ??
I found it really funny about that lady that went to a bar with Google glasses in San Fran and basically got jumped and left running and crying LMAO.
I mean you can't hear NYC without seeing gentrification in the same sentence. San Francisco is having huge protest against techies invading the city. Philadelphia is changing laws to not allow residents to be discplaced. Boston's mayor just gave a speech on how he will also change things to slow down gentrification.
Gentrification is now as common of a term as twerking.
Due to the huge amount of current awareness and grassroots movements going on.... how will this affect the process as a whole ??
I found it really funny about that lady that went to a bar with Google glasses in San Fran and basically got jumped and left running and crying LMAO.
Any thoughts ???
The big 4 professional cities NYC, Boston, DC and SF are going through major gentrification changes due to changes in demographics as well as economics. NYC with its finance, insurance and real estate businesses, Boston with its biomed and education, DC with politics and lobbying, and last SF with technology attracts plenty of young educated college grads who come from the suburbs. A minor nod also goes to LA and Chicago, but LA and Chicago are not as dense as the other 4 major urban cores I have mentioned. Gentrification is part of the growing income inequality in this country at the moment. Cities were neglected 40 years ago throughout the Northeast thanks to disinvestment and the white flight. It took cities a generation to rebuild its middle class, and now the middle class are on the decline. Their is plenty of grass roots movements going on against gentrification, it reminds me of grassroots movements of that of Jane Jacobs who was against "urban renewal" which is the exact opposite of gentrification. Cities need middle class to susitain itself, cause of gentrification plenty of middle class and to a certain degree working class folks are moving to the south which is cheaper and offer more labor opportunities than the nit picky SF and Northeast cities.
The annual increases in property taxes on 1-family to 4-family houses is very limited. That is why you can have a $2,000,000 house in brownstone Brooklyn with property taxes of $5,000. That is not going to change, so house rich and cash poor owners will not be taxed out of their homes.
However, if long-term homeowners in Crown Heights or Bedford Stuyvesant (typically black families) that are house rich and cash poor can to sell their houses for over $1,000,000 to some white yuppies, they may choose to cash out.
Buildings with fewer than six units are not subject to rent stabilization laws. So the landlords can get what the market will pay.
So yes, gentrification will continue in these neighborhoods. Low property taxes will provide some stability. Homeowners will sell because they want to sell, not because they have to sell. Tenants in small buildings will be subject to large rent increases and will probably be forced to move.
One thing is this that I noticed is that gentrification picked up heavily during the Great Recession. People and analyst were touting that gentrification will not make it to Bronx, or stop at the border of between Bedstuy and Fort Green. gentrification picked up during the recession and pushed north as far as 161st in the Bronx to far as Washington Heights and Inwood in Manhattan. I think that if the economy picks up nationally as well as city wide along with increased wages for those making a living wage income, I believe prices will not increase but either stabilize or stagnate. Gentrification wont be around forever, neighborhoods change no?
As Kefir King advocated in an earlier post, neighborhood stability is paramount. Neighborhoods should never change.
The original sin was when Grand Central and the Empire State Building were constructed on the site of old neighborhoods, which should never have been torn down. Harlem used to be all White. They should never have allowed Blacks in. Lower East Side used to be Jewish and Italians and had peddlers on the streets: that should have been preserved, with billions in government subsidies and coercion to keep the Jews and Italians in place, if need be.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Popfizz
I mean you can't hear NYC without seeing gentrification in the same sentence. San Francisco is having huge protest against techies invading the city. Philadelphia is changing laws to not allow residents to be discplaced. Boston's mayor just gave a speech on how he will also change things to slow down gentrification.
Gentrification is now as common of a term as twerking.
Due to the huge amount of current awareness and grassroots movements going on.... how will this affect the process as a whole ??
I found it really funny about that lady that went to a bar with Google glasses in San Fran and basically got jumped and left running and crying LMAO.
As Kefir King advocated in an earlier post, neighborhood stability is paramount. Neighborhoods should never change.
The original sin was when Grand Central and the Empire State Building were constructed on the site of old neighborhoods, which should never have been torn down. Harlem used to be all White. They should never have allowed Blacks in. Lower East Side used to be Jewish and Italians and had peddlers on the streets: that should have been preserved, with billions in government subsidies and coercion to keep the Jews and Italians in place, if need be.
I mostly agree with you. I just want to add that the wall on Wall Street needs to be rebuilt, Canal Street needs to be flooded again so we can push barges from east to west, most of all, the Verrazano Bridge needs to be blown up, like yesterday.
I'm sure the Hudson River wants some of her property back also. All that landfill down by the World Trade Center is nothing more than glorified litter to the old broad.
Is anyone in NYC doing anything about gentrification more than mildly grousing about it? There hardly seems to be the "backlash" here that there is in SF.
What we are seeing is something playing out in other successful cities not just in the United States (New York, San Francisco, Dallas, etc..) but in Europe as well (London, Paris,), that is there has been a huge shift in thinking in certain demographics towards urban living.
Post WWII cities all across the USA and elsewhere were seen as dirty, crime ridden and so forth. The ideal was to marry and move to the country/suburbs where one could raise a family in a nice home of your own.
Fast forward fifty years and the children, grandchildren of Baby Boomers if not many themselves do not see suburbia living as any great shakes. People want to be where the "action" is culturally and so forth, and they don't want to drive several hours and or take mass transit to do so. Many younger married women or couples simply did not want the type of arrangement their parents or grandparents had. That is a wife whose husband leaves on the 7:20 train and returns on the 6:45 if he does each day at all. This while she is stuck in suburbs supposedly content with children, a house, playing tennis and lunching with the girls. Men also want to be an active part of their children's daily lives, and not just on weekends. Often by the time many commuter fathers get home their children have had dinner and are on their way to bed.
For cities like New York all this was happening at the right time. They had started putting the past behind them and turning themselves into places that urban professionals wanted to live in again.
Look around Manhattan, Brooklyn, and even Queens and Staten Island. A large part of the "growth" is in households seeking to raise their families in the city.
As for the "reaction" of current local area residents slowing things down. I doubt it as the die is cast. First of the historical dominant trend in NYC housing, renting, works against them. When you do not own your own home it puts you at the mercy to an extend of someone else's decision.
Take Williamsburg where as recently as the 1980's and much of the 1990's landlords were begging anyone to purchase their property. Now all that land is worth vast sums and you cannot blame owners if they want to cash out.
Really big question going forward is not if gentrification can stopped or scaled back, but how to manage the thing so all sections of a population can share equally.
What we are seeing is something playing out in other successful cities not just in the United States (New York, San Francisco, Dallas, etc..) but in Europe as well (London, Paris,), that is there has been a huge shift in thinking in certain demographics towards urban living.
Post WWII cities all across the USA and elsewhere were seen as dirty, crime ridden and so forth. The ideal was to marry and move to the country/suburbs where one could raise a family in a nice home of your own.
Fast forward fifty years and the children, grandchildren of Baby Boomers if not many themselves do not see suburbia living as any great shakes. People want to be where the "action" is culturally and so forth, and they don't want to drive several hours and or take mass transit to do so. Many younger married women or couples simply did not want the type of arrangement their parents or grandparents had. That is a wife whose husband leaves on the 7:20 train and returns on the 6:45 if he does each day at all. This while she is stuck in suburbs supposedly content with children, a house, playing tennis and lunching with the girls. Men also want to be an active part of their children's daily lives, and not just on weekends. Often by the time many commuter fathers get home their children have had dinner and are on their way to bed.
For cities like New York all this was happening at the right time. They had started putting the past behind them and turning themselves into places that urban professionals wanted to live in again.
Look around Manhattan, Brooklyn, and even Queens and Staten Island. A large part of the "growth" is in households seeking to raise their families in the city.
As for the "reaction" of current local area residents slowing things down. I doubt it as the die is cast. First of the historical dominant trend in NYC housing, renting, works against them. When you do not own your own home it puts you at the mercy to an extend of someone else's decision.
Take Williamsburg where as recently as the 1980's and much of the 1990's landlords were begging anyone to purchase their property. Now all that land is worth vast sums and you cannot blame owners if they want to cash out.
Really big question going forward is not if gentrification can stopped or scaled back, but how to manage the thing so all sections of a population can share equally.
Very good points about the demographics change. If either of the parents are working long hours, its not worth it to drive or take the trains for hours either day just to come home and get in the bed.
Another factor people have not considered is deindustrialization. Not only have most factories fled cities like NYC, industrial neighborhoods have been transformed for other uses. Corporate office buildings, film studios, and tech centers have sprung up in LIC, Dumbo, Manhattan West Side, among other neighborhooods. Wall Street and real estate have long been big parts of the cities economy, but as industry has gone down, the tech industry, creative industries, education, and social services/mental health have all expanded as parts of the cities economy.
What we are seeing is something playing out in other successful cities not just in the United States (New York, San Francisco, Dallas, etc..) but in Europe as well (London, Paris,), that is there has been a huge shift in thinking in certain demographics towards urban living.
Post WWII cities all across the USA and elsewhere were seen as dirty, crime ridden and so forth. The ideal was to marry and move to the country/suburbs where one could raise a family in a nice home of your own.
Fast forward fifty years and the children, grandchildren of Baby Boomers if not many themselves do not see suburbia living as any great shakes. People want to be where the "action" is culturally and so forth, and they don't want to drive several hours and or take mass transit to do so. Many younger married women or couples simply did not want the type of arrangement their parents or grandparents had. That is a wife whose husband leaves on the 7:20 train and returns on the 6:45 if he does each day at all. This while she is stuck in suburbs supposedly content with children, a house, playing tennis and lunching with the girls. Men also want to be an active part of their children's daily lives, and not just on weekends. Often by the time many commuter fathers get home their children have had dinner and are on their way to bed.
For cities like New York all this was happening at the right time. They had started putting the past behind them and turning themselves into places that urban professionals wanted to live in again.
Look around Manhattan, Brooklyn, and even Queens and Staten Island. A large part of the "growth" is in households seeking to raise their families in the city.
As for the "reaction" of current local area residents slowing things down. I doubt it as the die is cast. First of the historical dominant trend in NYC housing, renting, works against them. When you do not own your own home it puts you at the mercy to an extend of someone else's decision.
Take Williamsburg where as recently as the 1980's and much of the 1990's landlords were begging anyone to purchase their property. Now all that land is worth vast sums and you cannot blame owners if they want to cash out.
Really big question going forward is not if gentrification can stopped or scaled back, but how to manage the thing so all sections of a population can share equally.
The last part hit the nail on the head and I agree. Sad part is that gentrification only benefits a small group of people who live in pre existing low income or ethnic neighborhoods. Generally speaking landlords, businesses and educated residents welcome gentrification with open arms. Majority of people in these poor neighborhoods can not benefit from gentrification because they dont own property, dont have an education which can expand creative, entrepreneural, apprenticeship or high income opportunities and dont own a business. Gentrification can not work equally and never will. Gentrification only works on a micro level on an economic scale and not macro.
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