Statement Of Purpose: Gentrification In Harlem, New York

The purpose for writing this essay is to demonstrate how gentrification is shaping the Culture and identity for Halrmites from the socio-economic perspective. Harlem has changed dramatically over the last two decades due to improvement in housing stock and outside investments into the community. However, in my essay, I articulated my ideas toward the economic aspect of gentrification because gentrification is driven by class, not race. My audience would be the lower income Harlem residents who have been displaced or on the verge of displacement because their wealth is not contributing to the economy. The people who have been preserving the cultural identity of Harlem for decades now forced to leave the community. I tried my best to connect a broader audience by explaining the deteriorated housing condition of Harlem and how it led to gentrification. This will help reader

Despite increased diversity across the country, America’s neighborhoods remain highly segregated along racial and ethnic lines. Residential segregation, particularly between African-Americans and whites, persists in metropolitan areas where minorities make up a large share of the population. This paper will examine residential segregation imposed upon African-Americans and the enormous costs it bears. Furthermore, the role of government will be discussed as having an important role in carrying out efforts towards residential desegregation. By developing an understanding of residential segregation and its destructive effects, parallels may be drawn between efforts aimed at combating

East Harlem is usually known for being a poor neighborhood. “In much social science literature on the neighborhood, Spanish Harlem is defined primarily by its poverty.” (Martinez).

There has been a tremendous change in East Harlem between class warfare and gentrification. East Harlem is one more economic factor to the city’s wealth per capita since the attack of September 11, 2000. It is Manhattan’s last remaining development and it is on the agenda of the tax revenue of our government. East Harlem has become a profit driven capitalism. Gentrification enforces capitalism, it does not separate people, it does not go against race, poor and the working class, it wages war on the poor and the working-class.

Gilbert Osofsky’s Harlem: The Making of a Ghetto paints a grim picture of inevitability for the once-exclusive neighborhood of Harlem, New York. Ososfky’s timeframe is set in 1890-1930 and his study is split up into three parts. His analysis is convincing in explaining the social and economic reasons why Harlem became the slum that it is widely infamous for today, but he fails to highlight many of the positive aspects of the enduring neighborhood, and the lack of political analysis in the book is troubling.

The New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) is the “largest public housing authority in the nation” (Developments, 2015). In existence since 1934 (About NYCHA: NYCHA at 70, 2015), NYCHA is a low to moderate income public housing initiative consisting of 328 developments throughout all five boroughs of New York City. More than 400,000 residents benefit from these developments through the receipt of not only apartments but additional services provided by each development and New York City overall. Over recent years the NYCHA developments have been experiencing a reduction in government funding, forcing the organization to re-evaluate strategies addressing maintenance of old buildings (About NYCHA, 2015).

The authors, researcher at the Columbia and Rutgers University, explores the gentrification of Harlem as it has started taking effects on the indigenous residents. The causes of gentrification ranging from changing of lifestyles, participation of women in white collar sectors to rent gap conditions of housing stock,where potential value is perceived to be greater, explain how Harlem is gradually losing to the power of almighty dollars. The authors indicate that decline in housing quality due to tenant abuse, domestic violence and tax delinquency left Harlem in situation where intervention of outsiders was necessary. However, the outside influence and private investments gradually taking a significant tolls on the long term Harlem residents,

Gentrification is a major reason for the increase in rent prices throughout New York City. Harlem rent prices have gone up over the past years because of new condominiums and businesses that are being built in neighborhoods. The displacement of residents leads to an increase of people becoming homeless in the city. According to the author, Ivan Pereira, “Harlem saw a 9.4 % average rent price increase during that same period from $2,191 last year to $ 2,397 in January” (Pereira 1). The change causes longtime residents to move out because of a variety of factors including unaffordability, pressure from property owners, diminishing or lack of stores that cater to them and many more. The more condominiums and business’s being built makes living

When one thinks of Harlem, he or she typically associates the city with the Harlem Renaissance of the early 20th century, which celebrated the achievements of African American arts, and its correlation with the Great Migration of these individuals moving from the South to the North. According to sociologist Sharon Zukin in her article “Why Harlem Is Not a Ghetto,” “The first Harlem Renaissance was the period of extraordinary creativity in the 1920s and 1930s when African American and Caribbean writers, painters, and intellectuals joined with white literary critics to create a ‘capital of Black culture.’” (Zukin, 65). The city of Harlem highlights the strides African Americans have made, and today with the inclusion of chains such as Whole

For far too long, African Americans have been neglected the rights to decent and fair housing. In “In Darkness and Confusion,” William Jones expresses his discontentment with the almost cruel living conditions of the ghettos in Harlem as he stated, “It ain’t a fit place to live, though” (Petry 261). William was especially motivated to move to a better home to protect his wife, Pink’s, ailing health. William and Pink searched high and low for more decent places to live – however, they simply could not afford decent. Though marketed to those with lower than average incomes, the ‘better’ housing for blacks were still deficient and extremely pricy. In

What if I told you that the main reason, people are moving out of Washington, D.C is due to the lack of affordable housing. To be more specific, residents are moving out of D.C due to the Gentrification that is occurring throughout the city. Gentrification is a “term” that was invented in 1964 by a sociologist, named Ruth Glass. Glass “coined” the term, Gentrification when she was observing how some inner parts of London were being refined by those of higher social status when they began living there. Furthermore, she noticed that said parts of London became very expensive to live in, which in turn left those who belonged to the lower social status who lived there no choice but to move out and find somewhere else to live. Gentrification,

In respect to the fourth question firstly i will like to state thst most of the population in east harlem from different ethnic groups such ass german jews puertorican.

According to the article Gentrification by Ajay Panicker, gentrification is the process in which urban communities “experience a reversal, reinvestment, and the in-migration of a relatively well-off middle- and upper middle-class population” (Hwang and Sampson, 2014, pg. 727). With this definition in mind, gentrification has affected my life. In recent years, New York City has been stricken down by gentrification, specifically in certain areas of Brooklyn and Manhattan. As viewed in the text, African-American and Latino communities are comparatively poorer and marginalized due to gentrification. The neighborhoods in Brooklyn and Manhattan were once predominately African-American and Latino. Presently, these neighborhoods have been overtaken

In order to understand why developers targeted Harlem for gentrification, it is crucial to discuss the causes of gentrification. As the time has progressed people’s preference have changed. The inclination toward fewer children, higher divorce rate, women in the workforce and the postponement of marriage have encouraged people to settle in urban neighborhoods. Young women’s participation in the professional

The purpose of this speech is to provide information and encourage city residents to invest in gardens in their neighborhoods by showing that community gardens increase property value as well as improve the emotional and physical well-being of their citizens who participate in the project. Additionally, community fruit and vegetable gardens can help provide fresh produce for residents on fixed incomes for little to no cost outside of volunteer time.