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So gentrification is spreading through DC like an incredibly slow wildfire and it seems to be gobbling up pretty much anything and everything in the city. I can't think of a neighborhood that I haven't heard of adventurous young professionals hunkering down in in favor of milder rent and property prices. Very obviously there is an unmet demand for urban, transit friendly, affordable housing which I believe is a huge driving force behind this phenomenon. My question is, when will enough of DC become gentrified where this demand/supply relationship will reach a relative equilibrium? Will gentrification slow once all the 'historic' neighborhoods become revitalized? Will we eventually see poor as sin Hill interns living in PG en mass? Tell me what you think, you smart DC loving people.
As an owner of a condo in DC I hope gentrification NEVER end. I need my property's value to keep rising. Now if you're a renter that stinks, but fro a DC homeowner's perspective gentrification = great!
When housing prices relative to income get too high to satisfy demand. Once you hit a certain price point, you run out of people who can afford (or are willing to pay so much) for an urban home. This is barring a shift in preferences, which would also weaken demand (for example, if a bunch of companies move their offices further out then there would be less demand for some people to be closer to the city). I have no idea when this would happen, though.
You could look up actual data and model it, if you're interested. I remember before all this housing mess there were studies on the appropriate wage/housing ratio for a healthy and sustainable market. They used it to predict which areas would be hit the hardest once the bubble burst. If you're really adventurous you could try to predict it based on available space, housing starts, income level, real estate sales and prices.
When housing prices relative to income get too high to satisfy demand. Once you hit a certain price point, you run out of people who can afford (or are willing to pay so much) for an urban home. This is barring a shift in preferences, which would also weaken demand (for example, if a bunch of companies move their offices further out then there would be less demand for some people to be closer to the city). I have no idea when this would happen, though.
I feel like gentrification will continue to occur once all high-wealth demand is met. From what I can tell, gentrification occurs in a number of stages including a number of different levels of wealth. The gay people who made Logan the gayborhood for a period of time because of outpricing in Dupont, unless they bought their homes or are still hanging onto old leases, are being outpriced again. Shaw apparently is becoming the new gayborhood because of outpricing in Logan and since Shaw prices certainly aren't cheap anymore it will probably happen again. You can see a demographic and culture of people (in this case middle-low wealth gay people) starting off in one neighborhood and ending up in a completely different one because of outpricing. At some point the high wealth demand will be met, but the middle and middle-lower level wealth won't yet be met because acceptable neighborhoods to this demographic are continually being carved out.
What I'm trying to say is, as someone who moved to Adams Morgan while it was still affordable and is now living on H st NE because I was no longer able to afford Adams Morgan, I feel like eventually I'm going to move into a neighborhood thats slightly sketchy but on the upswing... and it won't eventually outprice me. I don't think that to fill a dilapidated corridore with new businesses really requires the level of wealth that most gentrified neighborhoods tend to end up occupying.
I'm not proud to be a gentrifier, by the by, I just want to move somewhere urban, transit oriented and slightly interesting and be able to stay.
Also, in reference to what you said about businesses moving away from the city, I feel like that might be in the past. If you look at NoMa and all the ridiculous amount of development that is occuring there, you can tell that there are some very wealthy people willing to put a lot of money on the fact that both businesses and people want to be in a transit friendly, urban environment. There's a book called The Option of Urbanism by Christopher Leinberger that makes a really good case for how the American Dream is shifting from suburbia to urbia.
It's in the long term interest of the city to allow and even promote gentrification. It produces a lot of investment in the city and improves the economic vitality of the regions. The poor are displaced, but gentrification per se isn't that harmful to the poor. They just have to move to a different neighborhood, but this is a zero sum game. We need service to easy the transition on the poor, but the process is a healthy one.
I feel like gentrification will continue to occur once all high-wealth demand is met. From what I can tell, gentrification occurs in a number of stages including a number of different levels of wealth. The gay people who made Logan the gayborhood for a period of time because of outpricing in Dupont, unless they bought their homes or are still hanging onto old leases, are being outpriced again. Shaw apparently is becoming the new gayborhood because of outpricing in Logan and since Shaw prices certainly aren't cheap anymore it will probably happen again. You can see a demographic and culture of people (in this case middle-low wealth gay people) starting off in one neighborhood and ending up in a completely different one because of outpricing. At some point the high wealth demand will be met, but the middle and middle-lower level wealth won't yet be met because acceptable neighborhoods to this demographic are continually being carved out.
What I'm trying to say is, as someone who moved to Adams Morgan while it was still affordable and is now living on H st NE because I was no longer able to afford Adams Morgan, I feel like eventually I'm going to move into a neighborhood thats slightly sketchy but on the upswing... and it won't eventually outprice me. I don't think that to fill a dilapidated corridore with new businesses really requires the level of wealth that most gentrified neighborhoods tend to end up occupying.
I'm not proud to be a gentrifier, by the by, I just want to move somewhere urban, transit oriented and slightly interesting and be able to stay.
Also, in reference to what you said about businesses moving away from the city, I feel like that might be in the past. If you look at NoMa and all the ridiculous amount of development that is occuring there, you can tell that there are some very wealthy people willing to put a lot of money on the fact that both businesses and people want to be in a transit friendly, urban environment. There's a book called The Option of Urbanism by Christopher Leinberger that makes a really good case for how the American Dream is shifting from suburbia to urbia.
My point was more that you have a limited amount of space and available money. Gentrification can't necessarily continue forever because eventually you'll run out of room. How long it would take to do that, I'm not sure (I was thinking in terms of the next 10, 20, 50, 100+ years, not necessarily just in the next decade). There could also be a change in preferences over time. Just like the American Dream is shifting now, it'll probably shift again sometime in the future.
I used to think gentrification was bad, but I'm pretty sure it will continue so long as values keep shifting away from suburban living to urban living just like urban blight emerged when people took to the automobile.
You'd be hard-pressed to convince me that U Street or Dupont, for example, are worse places today than they were in the 70s, 80s, and even 90s.
My point was more that you have a limited amount of space and available money. Gentrification can't necessarily continue forever because eventually you'll run out of room. How long it would take to do that, I'm not sure (I was thinking in terms of the next 10, 20, 50, 100+ years, not necessarily just in the next decade). There could also be a change in preferences over time. Just like the American Dream is shifting now, it'll probably shift again sometime in the future.
Sorry, what did you mean by available money? Also, since we don't know how long gentrification will last we don't know what kind of reach it will end up having, so running out of room isn't a factor I don't think. There is a finite amount of high density historic housing, however, which is something to consider when the majority of DC's gentrification is occurring in neighborhoods dominated by pre-WWII housing. I feel like I read an article at some point about the possibility of the entirety of DC becoming completely gentrified, which is also why I mentioned Hill staffers living in PG as the next frontier, in a world where all of DC is gentrified.
Obviously the gentrification will stop at some point, but I think that at the cost of gentrification other places will definitely become much worse. If many European cities are any example, a city with high wealth at the points of highest density have low wealth at the points of lower density. Who knows, if gas really raises in price and the most viable infrastructure upgrades are those that utilize the least amount of fuel (transit), exurban counties could end up being lower income, if only because of how much is needed to pay to get into the city.
Really, I just hope that DC can find an equilibrium between transit and non transit oriented housing so that demand can be met and choosing transit doesn't necessarily need to mean choosing expensive housing.
Also, the next American Dream shift will be when we have HOVER CARS ala Back to the Future II. Only half joking.
I used to think gentrification was bad, but I'm pretty sure it will continue so long as values keep shifting away from suburban living to urban living just like urban blight emerged when people took to the automobile.
You'd be hard-pressed to convince me that U Street or Dupont, for example, are worse places today than they were in the 70s, 80s, and even 90s.
I can't agree with you more. As much as I hate displacement, I am so excited to see what this city is going to look like when its done changing. I love living where I live just because we're in such a transitional period and watching the city evolve is simply thrilling to me.
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