Is Gentrification a Bad Thing?

[Trotsky]

Well that's fucked. As if life weren't bad enough for poor people (of any race) to begin with. Now they have Trotsky advocating for them.

Full disclosure- I'd fucking kill myself if I ever needed a pretend lawyer charging $5 an hour to defend or advocate for me. If you're reading this and you've used Trotsky's legal services it's not OK. #YouToo.

I'd take @panamaican any day, even though he though he's move more left and left everyday.

It's really sad that this post is actually one of the best, most creative, and most topical that I have ever seen from you.

 

[Exception]

It's really sad that this post is actually one of the best, most creative, and most topical that I have ever seen from you.

When I typed the first three sentences I knew you'd have to laugh.

 

[Social Distance Warrior]

I was channel surfing and came across Boyz n the Hood. It's one of those movies I'll usually watch when it happens to be on television. There is the famous scene with Laurence Fishburne breaking down gentrification and while I get what he means a lot of this seems like bullshit.



Isn't this just capitalism? I also don't see what is wrong with taking a run down area and putting money into it to bring it back to life. In the video above he blames the powers that be for putting gun and liquor stores on every corner. I'm not denying the fact that there are some systemic issues, but shouldn't the community share the majority of the responsibility and be happy when a neighborhood starts getting cleaned up?

I can see it being an issue if the rent starts getting too high thus forcing the residents to move, but isn't that just life? Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't see it as a conspiracy, just people with money capitalizing on other peoples fuck ups.

such a phenomenal film by the way....

one of the best films of 90s.

Too bad John Singleton hasn't made anything worth a damn since.

and whoever says Rosewood gets punched in the face.

 

[Headkicktoleg]

No it’s not. Shithole neighborhoods economically improve and become safer to live in. Why do liberals hate this?

Their voters move out

 

[Steve-French]

such a phenomenal film by the way....

one of the best films of 90s.

Too bad John Singleton hasn't made anything worth a damn since.

and whoever says Rosewood gets punched in the face.

I thought Four Brothers and Higher Learning were alright.

 

[Philo-Publius]

I was channel surfing and came across Boyz n the Hood. It's one of those movies I'll usually watch when it happens to be on television. There is the famous scene with Laurence Fishburne breaking down gentrification and while I get what he means a lot of this seems like bullshit.



Isn't this just capitalism? I also don't see what is wrong with taking a run down area and putting money into it to bring it back to life. In the video above he blames the powers that be for putting gun and liquor stores on every corner. I'm not denying the fact that there are some systemic issues, but shouldn't the community share the majority of the responsibility and be happy when a neighborhood starts getting cleaned up?

I can see it being an issue if the rent starts getting too high thus forcing the residents to move, but isn't that just life? Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't see it as a conspiracy, just people with money capitalizing on other peoples fuck ups.

I purposely invested in property that is in run down area of a really wealthy county, knowing that people would eventually put money back into it to build it up. If you're smart, you use gentrification to your advantage.

 

[MadSquabbles500]

I was channel surfing and came across Boyz n the Hood. It's one of those movies I'll usually watch when it happens to be on television. There is the famous scene with Laurence Fishburne breaking down gentrification and while I get what he means a lot of this seems like bullshit.



Isn't this just capitalism? I also don't see what is wrong with taking a run down area and putting money into it to bring it back to life. In the video above he blames the powers that be for putting gun and liquor stores on every corner. I'm not denying the fact that there are some systemic issues, but shouldn't the community share the majority of the responsibility and be happy when a neighborhood starts getting cleaned up?

I can see it being an issue if the rent starts getting too high thus forcing the residents to move, but isn't that just life? Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't see it as a conspiracy, just people with money capitalizing on other peoples fuck ups.

Didnt that movie come out way way before the wave of Gentrification that hit and is currently hitting our three big cities (LA, NYC, Chiraq)?

Anyways, its bad for all the poor people. Its good for rich. But the rich can literally move anywhere and still be rich. So why they gots to push out the poor folk.

Now dont get me wrong. I work in property mgmt/landlord in NYC, and gentrification has done wonders for my employer. But as someone who is right on the front lines, I do feel for the poor people.

 

[MadSquabbles500]

If it is a shithole it is because of evil white flight. If money is put into the area to make it nice and safe it is because of evil white people gentrifying it.

I mean, if black people were investing in ghettos nobody would care.

The white may have left, but at least in NYC, whites still owned most of RE. The poor minorities just became renters. White people probably only wanted to sell to other whites, or better, or wanted much much more money than poor minorities can afford.

 

[Trotsky]

Props to @Lionel Mandrake on bringing up a difficult topic, positing completely reasonable normative reactions to stances on it, and then not feeling the need to reflexively respond to subsequent posts defending or doubling down his initial reaction.

Gentrification is definitely a very complex issue, and one that is not wholly answerable through any one perspective, and should be treated with some level of nonpartisan regard.

That is, unless you have just been away from your computer and are on your way to do exactly what I said. In that case, fuck off. But I'll give you the benefit of the doubt.

 

[MadSquabbles500]

Also you can see gentrification as just a symptom of other problems in society. Most of these rich kids just living off mommie and daddy, who are too living off their family name, or money creation blah blah blah

 

[Trotsky]

Also, an issue that really only panamaican has touched upon is the fact that, by virtue of minority populations relative size, gentrification can irreversibly break up tight-knit communities that preserve some level of distinct culture and system of transactions to an extent that they cannot concertedly relocate together. In that way, there is an appropriative aspect to the topic that is most profound for black communities (as opposed to more recent immigrant communities like Chinese, Bosnians, Syrians, etc.) who do not have actual home countries/areas to which they can resolve to revisit or otherwise retain that cultural dynamic.

This is wholly distinct from the purely economic aspects that I mentioned earlier.

 

[sangreporsangre]

I noticed an interesting gentrification dynamic where my sister lives. She's in this old low-rise building in an old neighbourhood in Scarborough (east side of Toronto) where it's a bunch of these buildings and they're filled with lower-income white people. A lot of people on disability, old people, people with addiction and mental health issues, etc. Well these corporations buy up these old buildings (my sister's is owned by an infamous company from Sweden), they do up the units throw stainless steel appliances and charge like fuckin $1500 for a 1 bedroom. They can't just jack up the old white people's rent more than the legal annual amount, of course they try (sometimes successfully) to take advantage of loopholes to charge more if you did renovations even if the people didn't want it. So the units are being filled up with "racialized" people as my kid's teachers would call them. My sister is white but her boyfriend is Asian, the people across the hall from them is a young family from El Salvador, there's a young lesbian couple like 21 year old girls, the black one is HOT and the other one is Asian and dressed like a thugged out guy with tats and cornrows. There's a Brazilian family and this business looking black chick who has a little dog. And probably more and the neighbourhood is getting filled with younger upscale "marginalized" people and new shops are opening where it used to be dive bars and shit. The same old gentrification game, cycle, whatever you want to call it, just this time the racial roles are reversed in a way.

The housing market and rental market has been fuckin nuts in Toronto for a while and a huge problem is these corporations, especially foreign ones, buying up properties and causing the market to go way up. Situations like this are obvious side effects of capitalism, trade and foreign investment agreements etc I guess but we need to be able to figure out a way to put the needs of the people before moneyed interests. But governments never really do that because they only need your vote once every few years but they need money all year round.

 

[Lord Commander Palis]

It's a complicated topic which will, of course, yield simplistic, uninformed, classist, and racist responses.

In reality, economic gentrification is itself a non-evil aspect of capitalism and represents renewal, investment, and diversification of both wealth and culture.

However, when one community of people is renting and another is making money renting to them, the process of increasing property values enriches the affluent and displaces the poor. Creating common law contracts for accrued property interest in rented properties, combined with rent control on how steeply residential rental costs may be increased, should be required to temper the effects of gentrification.

Oh no he's using the R WORD!!

Where are the racist responses?

You slugs are going to be called out on this shit every time.

 

[HIMBOB]

Examples of negative consequences for home owners?
I'll give one. I live in an area that's rapidly becoming gentrified. I got in early, so overall this will be a big benefit for me. For older people on fixed incomes, they have seen their home values go up and thus their property taxes and insurance premiums go up as well. If they can't afford to pay those taxes on top of their mortgage, they have to sell. Luckily, they will make a killing when they sell, but they have friends or family in the neighborhood that they will have to say good bye to.
The same thing happens with businesses. Your favorite hole in the wall Mexican takeout restaurant gets pushed out when the yuppies start moving in and gets replaces with some vegan cupcake bakery or some other bullshit. Little things that gave your neighborhood color and character get diluted.

All in all, its a tradeoff. Some people will benefit, some will not. Overall it's probably a good thing, but I feel for people that get pushed out. No good answer for how to prevent it or if it even should. It's a supply and demand issue.

Increasing insurance and property taxes will eat away at some of the growth but it's a very small factor. It's a timing issue really.

As to the mexican if it was good it will survive. That's really just progress.

The only real examples I can think of are in entertainment areas. We have an area called king's Cross, it' was dirty full of druggies, clubs and strippers. If you wanted to drink/dance till dawn it was the place.

It became gentrified and all the people who bought into an area known for that shit started complaining about it. Thus it was basically killed as an entertainment hub.

 

[nhbbear]

Here is my issue with it-all of the houses are owned by white slum lords that live either in another part of town, or a completely different state. They are renting to anyone, so long as they get their money. Hud housing make great tenants, but so do drug dealers if they are not on hud already. As long as that bill is paid, they don’t care what is being done there. And they buy this cheap, shitty property with the plan to get the money for rent, more than enough to pay the mortgage, and the rest is profit. But they are really just hoping that the area gets “revitalized” or some company or the city wants to buy it for a project, and they can sell a $40,000 house for $80,000.

 

[Andy Capp]

I was channel surfing and came across Boyz n the Hood. It's one of those movies I'll usually watch when it happens to be on television. There is the famous scene with Laurence Fishburne breaking down gentrification and while I get what he means a lot of this seems like bullshit.



Isn't this just capitalism? I also don't see what is wrong with taking a run down area and putting money into it to bring it back to life. In the video above he blames the powers that be for putting gun and liquor stores on every corner. I'm not denying the fact that there are some systemic issues, but shouldn't the community share the majority of the responsibility and be happy when a neighborhood starts getting cleaned up?

I can see it being an issue if the rent starts getting too high thus forcing the residents to move, but isn't that just life? Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't see it as a conspiracy, just people with money capitalizing on other peoples fuck ups.

Just because it's systematic, it doesn't necessarily make it a conspiracy, but it's still occurring. The issue isn't with taking a run down area and putting money into it. The problem is taking several buildings (or entire blocks around here) that currently have people in them who can barely afford the rent already, and replacing these buildings with condos so that large numbers of people are forced out of the area completely for lack of affordable housing [EDIT: not to mention letting them become run down in the first place so you have the excuse to kick everyone out). It's all the supermarkets moving out so you can only afford to live in the area if you have a car. And on and on. It's a real problem.

The thing is, I'm not sure I disagree with you about it being capitalism as well. I would be happy if there were legislation to require these capitalists to build a certain amount of affordable housing for every building full of condos they create as a result of tearing down existing structures. There needs to be something vaguely along those lines imo.

 

[Andy Capp]

I noticed an interesting gentrification dynamic where my sister lives. She's in this old low-rise building in an old neighbourhood in Scarborough (east side of Toronto) where it's a bunch of these buildings and they're filled with lower-income white people. A lot of people on disability, old people, people with addiction and mental health issues, etc. Well these corporations buy up these old buildings (my sister's is owned by an infamous company from Sweden), they do up the units throw stainless steel appliances and charge like fuckin $1500 for a 1 bedroom. They can't just jack up the old white people's rent more than the legal annual amount, of course they try (sometimes successfully) to take advantage of loopholes to charge more if you did renovations even if the people didn't want it. So the units are being filled up with "racialized" people as my kid's teachers would call them. My sister is white but her boyfriend is Asian, the people across the hall from them is a young family from El Salvador, there's a young lesbian couple like 21 year old girls, the black one is HOT and the other one is Asian and dressed like a thugged out guy with tats and cornrows. There's a Brazilian family and this business looking black chick who has a little dog. And probably more and the neighbourhood is getting filled with younger upscale "marginalized" people and new shops are opening where it used to be dive bars and shit. The same old gentrification game, cycle, whatever you want to call it, just this time the racial roles are reversed in a way.

The housing market and rental market has been fuckin nuts in Toronto for a while and a huge problem is these corporations, especially foreign ones, buying up properties and causing the market to go way up. Situations like this are obvious side effects of capitalism, trade and foreign investment agreements etc I guess but we need to be able to figure out a way to put the needs of the people before moneyed interests. But governments never really do that because they only need your vote once every few years but they need money all year round.

In Canada there do appear to be some steps being taken. They just don't seem to be adequate or giving results quickly enough for many.

My wife pointed out to me there was a story about Toronto where there are 450 sq. ft. (Only about 40 sq. m) condos going for $500,000.

And I agree. Another large part of the big increases comes from theses large property owners like you mentioned selling the properties among themselves, raising rents every time they do, of course.

 

[machidafan99]

First there's white flight and black flight. Then at the other end of the cycle is gentrification.

Capitalism can be cruel but it has nothing to do with race, that's just a superficial interpretation of what's going on.

I predict a new black americans will rise and create their own Wakundas/Black Wall Streets fairly soon.

 

[faustian]

Does gentrification promote the greater social good? I'd have to study it more in depth but my assumption is that it does. In which case I'm in favor of it

I also don't lose sleep over renters forced to rent elsewhere. I witnessed my mother lose her life savings during the housing meltdown through no fault of her own (she's a realtor who went from making ~$250k annually to less than $40k once the market was eviscerated). In the end she had to walk away from the home she'd spent her entire life working and saving for. So no, I'm not really moved by the idea of a renter who's invested nothing being asked to invest nothing somewhere else.

 

[sub_thug]

Also, an issue that really only panamaican has touched upon is the fact that, by virtue of minority populations relative size, gentrification can irreversibly break up tight-knit communities that preserve some level of distinct culture and system of transactions to an extent that they cannot concertedly relocate together. In that way, there is an appropriative aspect to the topic that is most profound for black communities (as opposed to more recent immigrant communities like Chinese, Bosnians, Syrians, etc.) who do not have actual home countries/areas to which they can resolve to revisit or otherwise retain that cultural dynamic.

This is wholly distinct from the purely economic aspects that I mentioned earlier.

Understood. And while I would concede that this can potentially be a painful process that dissolves those types of tight-knit communities, particularly in the short term, would it not at the same time be a process of cultural integration that facilitates the long-term success of those same populations? From a cultural perspective, it's not to say that all of their culture will be lost. We experience the influence of Latin American culture virtually every day in music, food, and through some of the sharing of customs. It's currently Black History Month, and the effects of black American culture are omnipresent in our system, as evidenced by how often the 14th Amendment is cited in Supreme Court rulings and shapes our national laws and rights. Asian culture, to include the cultures of the Indian subcontinent, has become synonymous with the thought leaders that are driving scientific and medical advancement in the United States. One could easily argue that this is the beauty of the melting pot in America: breaking up those communities is not the destruction of those cultures, but the proliferation of their best components into the larger American collective.

On the much more individual level, the integration process is helpful as those kids apply to universities and get jobs in a largely English-speaking work force, creating opportunities for those immigrants and their progeny to be successful. Successful people create avenues for their ideas and the ideas that they champion to enter the public consciousness, and that is invariably a good thing when we talk about accepting new practices and ideas.