How Gentrification Does Not Improve The Economy

In the constantly changing economy of cities, the growth of city housing is oftentimes neglected. In “Cities Mobilize to Help Those Threatened by Gentrification” Timothy Williams recounts how gentrification has evolved over the years. Mentioning how cities have changed in order to appease the younger professionals, Williams shows how the city itself is in jeopardy due to the tax increases. Slowly loosing their faithful residents as well as historic culture cities face a big deal. Williams gives quotes from faithful residents, “…long time homeowners are victims of the success story”, (Williams 346). In “Cities Mobilize to Help Those Threatened by Gentrification”, Williams uses his credible quotes and modern statistics to generate the reader’s emotions, with desire to change how city officials go about gentrification in culturally infused cities.

Imagine the home you lived in for decades, being knocked down for a football stadium, shopping center, or new housing. That is gentrification. Webster’s dictionary defines gentrification as “the process of renovating and improving a house or district so that it conforms to middle-class taste” (“Gentrification”). Gentrification is not a new subject, as it has been occurring for centuries, dating back to medieval times, constructing forts over villages. Today, gentrification typically occurs in urban settings where buildings are vacant, and most of the residents live in poverty. Gentrification can destroy families, communities, and history. This topic is often at the center of debate for politics and town gossip, as developers are disrupting the current residents that reside in the vicinity. Gentrification occurs all around us, having pros and cons for each project. How is it ethical to kick individuals out of their home, and community for another’s benefit? Questions arise as the development and takeover of land often displaces individuals, their entire families, and livelihood. Temple University is a prime example of gentrification as well as other wealthy organizations, including football teams from the National Football League. The practice of gentrification comes to symbolize the new development and demolition of individual’s lives while trying to benefit the parties involved.

Webster’s Dictionary defines gentrification as “the process of renewal and rebuilding accompanying the influx of middle-class or affluent people into deteriorating areas that often displaces poorer residents.” This sounds frightening to lower class citizens. However, Justin Davidson, author of “Is Gentrification All That Bad?” claims “Gentrification doesn’t need to be something that one group inflicts on another; often it’s a result of aspirations everybody shares.” Gentrification does not need to be the rich pushing the poor out. It can be the rich and the poor working together to make their city a wealthier and safer place to live. Gentrification improves communities by allowing more economic growth for all.

The purpose of gentrification is to take struggling neighborhoods and stabilize them by investing in the neighborhood. Gentrification is “the rehabilitation and settlement of decaying urban areas by middle- and high-income investors.” (The Columbia Encyclopedia). These investors raise the value of the neighborhood by improving facilities and making the neighborhood look better. This doesn’t always benefit everyone since some citizens get displaced. However, the number of people displaced is very minor in

Growing up in East Austin, one would be accustomed to seeing rundown neighborhoods inhabited mostly by African American and Hispanic working-class families. In the past few years though, the view has drastically changed. Now brightly colored two-story homes housing affluent Caucasian families occupy the once dilapidated areas. The previously desolated lots are now the future sites of lofts and condominiums. The recent changes in East Austin are a clear sign of gentrification. Gentrification is the extremely evident process of displacement. Revitalizing a derelict neighborhood favors the entire community, not just the ones with money. However, revitalization and gentrification

First, let's start with what gentrification is. Google defines it as “the process of renovating and improving a house or district so that it conforms to middle-class taste”, but the image Gentrification usually evokes when brought into discussion is hipsters moving into a run-down but charming neighborhood and transforming it into something completely different. What is a hipster? Some may call them the fairy godmothers of the once neglected area, and others may refer to them as the monsters that are displacing families to make an artisan beard oil shop, but we’ll touch on that later.

Gentrification is the process of renovating and improving a neighborhood so that it can be more appealing to the middle-class taste and is negatively affecting many neighborhoods all over New York City. The gentrification of low-income neighborhoods can bring down a neighborhood and is responsible for the displacement of families who can’t afford to live in the gentrified area anymore due to the price of rent being dramatically increased. Landlords tend to raise rent to cast out low income renters and make room for higher-income renters who are looking to move into the neighborhood. Some of the lower class residents who are basically forced out of their homes tend to move in with relatives, search for a place to go in one of the city’s remaining cheap areas, and can even go homeless if they have no family, friends, or anywhere to go.

Many of our ancestors have arrived to this nation with aspirations of living a life of success. Indeed this is the land of the free and the home of the brave but according to gentrification, which is the removal of lower class citizens through property renewal, the increase in cost of living and demographic shifts, it feels as if we are living in the exact opposite. Gentrification indeed has had some advantages but overall it has led to the increase of the homeless population, the loss of culture, and other social issues. Although in this day of age, gentrification maybe impossible to prevent since capitalism is what move us, regulations should be enforced to diminish this demon.(Watt)

Inequality has been the country’s timeless struggle. Throughout the course of the United States’ history, there have been processes that have given a certain group of people the upper hand in a circumstance, thus fueling inequality in our nation. An ongoing process that negatively effects the lower-class and benefits the upper-class is called gentrification. Gentrification has been defined as “the replacement of the low-income, inner-city working-class residents by middle- or upper-class households, either through the market for existing housing or demolition to make way for new upscale housing construction” (Hammel and Wyly, 1996, p.250). Gentrification is deleterious because it “revitalizes” areas where low income residents reside in, thus causing the displacement and allows affluent residents to flood the given area whilst changing the entire environment from its original state. In my paper, I will be discussing how the process of gentrification begins and what it entails, define longtime residents, and describe the feelings of displacement felt by these residents.

Gentrification is the process of taking distressed inner city neighborhoods and upgrading them to be more attractive to upscale skilled workers, and major corporations; where the neighborhood is converted to more affluent residential use. Studies profile most gentrifiers to be affluent, young, single, urban professionals and young, married couples who are both wage earners and have no children or small families. Housing improvements, city service upgrades and expansion of the local economy is often attributed to these gentrifiers. There are many New York City neighborhoods in recent years that have gone through gentrification. Some of those neighborhoods include Williamsburg, Downtown Brooklyn and Harlem to name a few. Gentrification can be positive for all involved if the government is able to employ successful provisions where the negatives turn into positives and existing members of the community won’t become unable to afford to continue to live in their residences due to rising housing costs and thus be forced out to live elsewhere. Support mechanisms must be in place for the current community to be able to reside and blend into the newly redeveloped community.

Gentrification is the process of buying and renovating houses and store the housing in urban neighborhoods, which results in increase property values and replacing the lower income and small businesses. Once gentrification happens, rental units are often change to a more luxury housing or condominiums that are available to be purchased. As real estate changes, land use is also altered. Before the gentrification happens, the area usually consist of low-income family housing and sometimes light industries. But after the gentrification, it shifts the housing in an urban community lifestyle, along with businesses, office, restaurants, retails, and other form of entertainment. Because of this gentrification, it significantly affects the area’s character and

Viewing the complex matter of gentrification succinctly, it helps to uncover how multifaceted it is; in that gentrification involves the oppression, marginalization, displacement of vulnerable populations, particularly, the poor, and the black who are often already negatively impacted by the effects of classism, and racism. Gentrification threatens to erode the communities and livelihood maintained by these set of people because their displacement becomes a precondition for the total transformation of the area.

Gentrification has been a controversial issue both in urban planning and politics primarily due to the displacement of poor people by the rich folks (Shaw & Hagemans, 2015). Many individuals have viewed gentrification as an illegal act that should be avoided at all costs. On the other hand, another group of people believe that gentrification is the way forward to promoting growth and development. With such contrasting ideas, this paper is going to take a look at gentrification from a positive and negative perspective, its effects, and how it can be prevented or contained. Apart from this, the paper will also address the following questions.

Neil Smith’s argument of gentrification as a global strategy looks at two different arguments based on the shift from an urban scale defined according to the conditions of social reproduction to one in which the investment of productive capital holds definitive precedence. Richard Florida’s arguement is based on the concept of a new “Creative Class” that has developed and is continuing to develop due to powerful and significant shifts in values, norms and attitudes, of which he catagorizes along three basic lines, that of individuality, meritocracy, and diversity. On a basic level, both believe that theories of neo-urbanism have to shift to adapt to new models based on changes they have seen. Smith’s first argument deals with this observation. In the argument, he challenges the assumption that global cities should be defined according to command functions rather than by their participation in the global production of surplus value due to his belief that this latent viewpoint stems from Eurocentrism. His defending argument to his theory is that contrary to this Eurocentric belief, his observations have shown that as the neoliberal state develops it moves from a position of regulation within the market to a masterful agent of the market. With this shift, Smith hypotisizes that liberal urban policy in cities are replaced with a new model of revanchist urbanism; this, in turn, expresses the vagarious shift to capitalist production rather than social reproduction. In a similarly

In today’s society, it may seem that gentrification can eliminate poverty and increase neighborhood opportunities. Low-income residents and property owners will be the first to be altered by gentrification. In an email to the editor at the Atlantic, Freeman, the director of the Urban Planning program at Columbia states “ Gentrification brings new amenities and services that benefit not only the newcomers but long term residents too. Full service