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Let's accept your dumb logic and say that bidding up the price of a good so it becomes unaffordable for someone violates their freedom.
Its called common sense. then again I forgot Im @ city data, that sorta thing doesnt exist here
Quote:
You don't have the right to stay in a neighborhood that you can no longer afford. That doesn't mean your freedom has been violated. It just means you should have bought property there while it was cheap. Your mistake not to.
Doesnt necessarily mean its right to jack up rents and property taxes just cuz you feel like it. And I see you totally missed the part of people buying homes back when it was cheap and losing.....read my post to again.....quite interesting to call my logic dumb when u dont even exercise proper reading comprehension. Furthermore, if I dont have the right to stay in a neighborhood I suddenly cant afford despite owning and/or paying taxes in the area (for services that I was supposed to but never received mind you), then if (this is a proverbial if) you should ever have your land seized due to eminent domain, communist/socialist revolution or whatnot, I dont wanna hear no bellyaching either. Its real easy to talk smack, but i bet you if hte shoe was on YOUR foot, you and all these gentrification cheerleaders would be bigger cry babies than a maternity ward. have a seat.
Everybody please calm down and discuss the topic, not each other. Remember you're not fighting for a prize or whatnot, and that in real world (not the media created one) people actually can have different opinions without fighting over the differences.
Yac.
Its called common sense. then again I forgot Im @ city data, that sorta thing doesnt exist here
Doesnt necessarily mean its right to jack up rents and property taxes just cuz you feel like it. And I see you totally missed the part of people buying homes back when it was cheap and losing.....read my post to again.....quite interesting to call my logic dumb when u dont even exercise proper reading comprehension. Furthermore, if I dont have the right to stay in a neighborhood I suddenly cant afford despite owning and/or paying taxes in the area (for services that I was supposed to but never received mind you), then if (this is a proverbial if) you should ever have your land seized due to eminent domain, communist/socialist revolution or whatnot, I dont wanna hear no bellyaching either. Its real easy to talk smack, but i bet you if hte shoe was on YOUR foot, you and all these gentrification cheerleaders would be bigger cry babies than a maternity ward. have a seat.
You did not respond to any of my points. You just restated your arguments that I already refuted.
There are many people in this country who cannot afford basic goods like groceries. I assume you shop at grocery stores? Then you are partially to blame for food being unaffordable.
Explain why it is ok for you to jack up the price of food but not ok for the gentrifier to jack up property values.
Also it is completely wrong to equate price increases with land seizures. That is like arguing that if a car becomes too expensive for me, there is no difference between that and someone breaking in and stealing it.
EXACTLY! The poor locals had leases and the slightly more fortunate ones owned those properties (and not all of them sold them either). And most were tax paying citizens, which certainly should give them a say in the neighborhood.
Since the city doesnt "belong" to anyone, the gentrifiers are no more entitled to the neighborhood/city than the locals. The locals have JUST AS MUCH right to live in the area as the "newcomers". And I personally feel the locals who didnt break the law and worked hard should ESPECIALLY be able enjoy a newer, revitalized community, esp since they survived the neighborhoods darkest hours.
If people move out, it should be on their own free will.......prior to gentrification, thats how city neighborhoods changed hands.
You must be new to this country.
We do not alter our economic policies based on the impacts they will have on communities. As I've said (and will keep saying), tens of thousands of jobs were lost when just one steel mill in Western PA was closed down, which turned a thriving town -- of mainly white people -- into a ghost town against the desire of the whites. Google Homestead, PA. It was cataclysmic for the area, and no one in government or business cared. In fact, we look back on the 80s as a relatively good period although hundreds of thousands of jobs and countless communities were destroyed. Did I mention that Homestead was a mainly white community that had been in place for 100 years?
You're beating your head against a wall needlessly if you think somone is going to step in and somehow screw with the economic redevelopment of D.C. to preserve African-Americans living here.
Its called common sense. then again I forgot Im @ city data, that sorta thing doesnt exist here
Doesnt necessarily mean its right to jack up rents and property taxes just cuz you feel like it. And I see you totally missed the part of people buying homes back when it was cheap and losing.....read my post to again.....quite interesting to call my logic dumb when u dont even exercise proper reading comprehension. Furthermore, if I dont have the right to stay in a neighborhood I suddenly cant afford despite owning and/or paying taxes in the area (for services that I was supposed to but never received mind you), then if (this is a proverbial if) you should ever have your land seized due to eminent domain, communist/socialist revolution or whatnot, I dont wanna hear no bellyaching either. Its real easy to talk smack, but i bet you if hte shoe was on YOUR foot, you and all these gentrification cheerleaders would be bigger cry babies than a maternity ward. have a seat.
1. Rents are based on demand, if they are going up in an area it is not because gentrifiers are "jacking up the prices", but because there is increased demand in an area. DC actually has more laws in place with regards to rent control than most places, one can appeal rent increases, but also in older buildings they are limited to only a certian % increase each year. Newer buildings operate under different set of rules. Demand though is still high, so rents are as well.
2. Those who are gentrifying areas are not "jacking up property taxes", again property tax rates in DC are pretty much the same as they have always been. What changes is the assessed value, and the assessed value is again, based on demand. Like it or not, when houses improve around you, this means your house will increase in value. Again, this can be appealed, and DC does have policies to help mitigate property tax burdens on certain types of owners. But if you think your home would maintain the same assessment since the day you bought it, you are mistaken. I will be honest, DC keeps the assessments on the low side, but at the same time they cannot ignore increasing prices in neighborhoods. Example, one can take Trinidad, which was one of the worse neighborhoods in DC during the crack epidemic, and was pretty bad recently too. Trinidad houses are being sold there now for between $400K and $600K. This increases the value of all of the surrounding houses, but also the property assessment of the houses in the neighborhood. This is because of increased demand for the neighborhood. While you may see it as those gentrifying jacking up property taxes, what it is something different, the value of houses is rising, so assessments do along with it. Their houses are worth more, so the government is imposing a higher tax, because it is a tax on value, and the market determines the value of the house based on sales. The difference is many people bought when the value was low, because demand was low, now the value is high, and the property is getting more valuable, so they are taxed on the new assessed value.
It is pretty obvious you do not understand how these market mechanisms work. You are seeing it as unfair and that's it.
Last edited by DistrictSonic; 02-05-2014 at 10:31 AM..
I think this may have been said already, but since DC belongs to NO ONE, then what makes the gentrifiers the supreme authority as to who can and cant live there? Esp when they barely know Jack about squat when it comes to living in the city? If the long time locals are not more entitled to live in DC, then explain why gentrifiers are more entitled to live in a city/neighborhoods they either barely know or avoided for years???
We decided long ago that people can't restrict to whom their neighbors sell. That benefited many blacks in the 60s and it benefits black homeowners today. It's a good system.
We do not alter our economic policies based on the impacts they will have on communities. As I've said (and will keep saying), tens of thousands of jobs were lost when just one steel mill in Western PA was closed down, which turned a thriving town -- of mainly white people -- into a ghost town against the desire of the whites. Google Homestead, PA. It was cataclysmic for the area, and no one in government or business cared. In fact, we look back on the 80s as a relatively good period although hundreds of thousands of jobs and countless communities were destroyed. Did I mention that Homestead was a mainly white community that had been in place for 100 years?
You're beating your head against a wall needlessly if you think somone is going to step in and somehow screw with the economic redevelopment of D.C. to preserve African-Americans living here.
Enjoy your stay in the U.S.
Exactly!
The main question I have for the "natives" is this: why don't you just live where you can afford to?
DC is expensive but many other places are not. Why should DC be cheap just so YOU can live there? Why are you entitled to live here?
I'm from NYC. I was born there. I can't afford to live there right now as much as I'd like to. But do you see me whining on the NYC board about how I "own" the city and I got pushed out by the wealthy? I'm not entitled to living in Manhattan if I can't afford it. You are not entitled to living in DC if you can't afford it.
Why are you making this about "owning" DC? It shifts the point of this discussion. Has anyone said that to you?
Did it ever occur to you that everyone has their own reasons for not wanting to move? Is it so hard to understand why poor people might get upset at the idea of gentrification jacking up prices to a point where they can no longer afford to stay in a given place????? Do you really expect them to be happy?? Seriously?
OH BTW, I'm not one of those people, so don't go there.
Why are you making this about "owning" DC? It shifts the point of this discussion. Has anyone said that to you?
Did it ever occur to you that everyone has their own reasons for not wanting to move? Is it so hard to understand why poor people might get upset at the idea of gentrification jacking up prices to a point where they can no longer afford to stay in a given place????? Do you really expect them to be happy?? Seriously?
OH BTW, I'm not one of those people, so don't go there.
I think most understand why people are upset at being priced out of a neighborhood they never bought in. There's also the historical instituionalized discrimination at work that makes it falsely seem like a race parallel.
I think what confuses many of us is the lack of understanding basic economics by many posters who see conspiracy or some illicit agenda when in reality it's just supply and demand. Class B housing has actually dropped in rental price as new class A units have been built. People think those shiny new buildings are driving up price but so long as there is high demand for an area, they are lowering rental costs by supplying more housing the wealthier newcomers want and leaving the older stock alone.
Lots of first wave "gentrifiers" who couldn't afford to buy have been priced out of those neighborhoods along with locals. I think what happened is a few generations settled into a certain belief about urban development (suburban rich, urban poor) and were caught off guard when the culture shifted.
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