Urban Gentrification and Urban Morphology

In “New Axioms for Reading the Landscape: Paying Attention to Political Economy and Social Justice,” Don Mitchell incorporates old ideas from Peirce F. Lewis’s original “Axioms for Reading the Landscape.” At the same time, Mitchell includes new ideas into his axioms. In Axiom 1, he explains that “the landscape is not produced through ‘our unwitting autobiography’ (as Lewis describes it), but as an act of (social, not individual) will” (2007, 34). He also stresses the idea that landscape should be produced as a commodity. In contrast, Neil Smith explains the main causes behind gentrification. Smith explains how gentrification happens through a process which he calls “rent gap” (1979, 545). In gentrification, the landscape is a commodity because it loses and gains monetary value through disinvestment and investment.

The Philadelphia Coalition for Affordable Communities defines Gentrification as “The transformation of low-income and working class neighborhoods, driving up housing and other real estate prices and causing the displacement of long-term residents, businesses, and institutions.”

“Words are not passive; indeed, they help to share and create our perceptions of the world around us. The terms we choose to label or describe events must, therefore, convey appropriate connotations or images of the phenomenon under consideration in order to avoid serious misunderstandings. The existence of different terms to describe gentrification is not an accident, neither is the plethora of definitions for it” (Palen & London, 1984, p. 6). SAY SOMETHING Peter Marcuse (1999) argues that, “how gentrification is evaluated depends a great deal on how it is defined” (p. 789). Defining gentrification properly is necessary for anchoring an analysis of neighborhood change, particularly in light of recent scholarly efforts to replace the term (to describe the process) with less critical names like: ‘urban renaissance’,

The gentrification process can be seen through the demographic and physical changes of the South Parkdale neighborhood. Gentrification is “the invasion of working-class areas by the upper- and middle-classes, who upgrade shabby, modest housing into elegant residences, resulting in the displacement of all, or most of the original working-class occupiers”. (Lyons, 1996) South Parkdale is a neighborhood in downtown Toronto that faces problems of gentrification. This problem has been ongoing since the nineteen fifty’s’.

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.

Is gentrification causing segregation in urban cities? The majority of modern day cities are in a state of steady gentrification. Many people believe that gentrification is making the city more modern, safe, and appealing to other people. However, these people in their naivety fail to comprehend the hidden consequences and impact of gentrification on various ethnic groups and low-income families. Gentrification is a master of disguise that hides itself with assumed correlations to everyday people. One such assumption is that gentrification will increase the socioeconomic diversity of a neighborhood.

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.

Urbanization is inevitable, whether we want it or not. Opposers are constantly bickering about the political and moral consequences of gentrification. This topic is indeed mind boggling and complex. However, there is a need to observe this multi-faceted phenomenon in a different angle. Change is the force of diversity, safety and

The term Gentrification was coined by a British Sociologist Ruth Glass to describe the movement of middle class families in urban areas causing the property value to increase and displacing the older settlers. Over the past decades, gentrification has been refined depending on the neighborhood 's economic, social and political context. According to Davidson and Less’ definition, a gentrified area should include investment in capital, social upgrading, displacement of older settlers and change in the landscape (Davidson and Lees, 2005).Gentrification was perceived to be a residential process, however in the recent years, it has become a broader topic, involving the restructuring of inner cities, commercial development and improvement of facilities in the inner city neighborhoods. Many urban cities like Chicago, Michigan and Boston have experienced gentrification, however, it is affecting the Harlem residents more profoundly, uprooting the people who have been living there for decades, thus destroying the cultural identity of the historic neighborhood.

Beginning in the 1960s, middle and upper class populations began moving out of the suburbs and back into urban areas. At first, this revitalization of urban areas was "treated as a ‘back to the city' movement of suburbanites, but recent research has shown it to be a much more complicated phenomenon" (Schwirian 96). This phenomenon was coined "gentrification" by researcher Ruth Glass in 1964 to describe the residential movement of middle-class people into low-income areas of London (Zukin 131). More specifically, gentrification is the renovation of previously poor urban dwellings, typically into condominiums, aimed at upper and middle class professionals. Since the 1960s, gentrification has appeared in

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.

These are some of the alternative solution to posed gentrification at the city of Boyle Heights in East Los Angeles. So, have in mind that gentrification is controversial process. It’s clear enough that it only affect the urban development of the cities. But the problem of gentrification needs to be research more for feather results.

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.

The correlation in the study is due to job opportunities with higher wages rising with the revival of the city or a community. Gentrification can also be seen in San Francisco, where currently one of the most popular social media, Snapchat, is located. The author of the article expresses how Snapchat bought many neighborhoods to gentrify, which also caused many of diverse and talented workers and artist to rise throughout the city (Schruers). Even the author implies, “surveying the room and admiring the diversity of the crowd” (Schruers). Cities that refused gentrification or the government refused the city to go through the process. One example such as Detroit refused gentrification which caused the decline of the city where it was one of the most popular cities in the United States. Today Detroit is in a dying state where many moved away due to lack of jobs and now turned into a “ghost city” (Bayley). The author states how Liverpool is known as the “New York of England.” He uses that comparison to show how Liverpool become part of the experience of England when it was gentrified and has up to date technology.

Since the early 2000s, gentrification accelerated in various New York City neighborhoods. Data shown that about 29.8 percent of New York City has been affected by gentrification in low-income communities (Governing Data 1). This is over a 20 percent increased from the previous decade in New York City alone. Gentrification is a term used to describe displacement or renewal in urban neighborhoods as a result of increasing property values and rent prices. Gentrification has existed since the 1960s but has rapidly increased since then . Gentrification has now become a common and global controversial topic in many low-income neighborhood. Although, gentrification hasn’t always been bad from increasing job opportunities to lowering crime rates. Gentrification has impacted and transformed underprivileged districts in New York City. However, at the advantage of who ? Thus, gentrification has only increased average rates of poverty and infused neighborhoods with “white privilege”.