Could we find some nuance between "poor people are going to be wiped out by invasive rich/middle class people," and "there are no losers to gentrification, ever"?
It seems clear that when a neighborhood gentrifies, some of incumbent residents will find their lives improved (perhaps because: a job is created that they get, they own property which is now more valuable, the neighborhood is safer, schools are better), while others will find their lives worsened (because they are renters who can no longer afford their home or neighborhood).
Whenever we have these kinds of discussions, I want to know what the alternatives are. Granted that gentrification is a mixed bag, is there a plausible alternative which helps anyone in these neighborhoods?
I think the reality that needs to be confronted is that many, many neighborhoods were harmed significantly by a large range of occurrences over a good chunk of history. Redlining, first and foremost, if we're discussing neighborhoods. White flight from urban school districts is a closely related issue.
These happened. Redlining was in no small part due to direct federal policy. These have had impact on our neighborhoods, impact that can't be downplayed, and communities adjusted to survive. Gentrification in a lot of ways looks like the undoing of these policies, which would be fine, but look closer and you see that the neighborhood ecosystems are being strained yet again. Whatever equilibriums were obtained (many via struggle and sweat equity by families with ties to the area/no other options) are now being threatened.
I think reparations to neighborhoods, communities, and people directly affected by redlining is necessary, and would serve to lessen the power differential between communities and neighborhoods. Doing so would ease the problems created by population transfer.
I think this handily solves the problem - rents can't go up too much, otherwise the possible employees leave and the business shutters. Locals are employed, business runs, things improve in the neighbourhood and lift all boats.
The "lift all boats" outcome is exactly what activists are afraid of, because if that actually happens it makes the neighborhood "more desirable", and new people will start getting interested in moving in. Those people provide upward pressure on rents.
And once new people move in, they would now be "locals" and eligible for the jobs, too.
There's no logical way to satisfy these anti-gentrification groups because what they're afraid of is quite literally "the neighborhood getting nicer".
Instead of making their cause "keep the rent low by keeping the town crappy", they should make their cause "raise wages so we can afford a nicer town".
The business has to charge more in order to pay the newly increased wages that are necessary in order to hire the wealthier people who now desire to live in the improved neighbourhood.
I don't think they're afraid of "the neighbourhood getting nicer". I think they're afraid of people who don't know the local situation "helping" them out - "for their own good" of course. It is the same problems that countries face who work with the IMF/World Bank. Who wouldn't want free money?
It seems likely to me that this policy would polarize, not mitigate, the effects.
That is, if a neighborhood is kind of on the line between okay and bad, this policy might help push it up into okay -- businesses would say, "Okay, there is enough going on in this neighborhood that we can deal with moving into it even if we have these hiring restrictions," and then the hiring restrictions may in fact improve the neighborhood.
But if the neighborhood is solidly bad, the business says, "Let me get this straight: you want us to move into a part of the city where it's by no means clear that we can prosper anyway, AND you want to make it really hard for us to hire people, AND you want to slow down any improvement that our presence may make to the neighborhood by meaning that it all has to be organic rather than imported? HELL NO." And so then nobody takes a chance on really poor neighborhoods and they get worse and worse.
On the gripping hand, I don't think it's a plausible policy in America. It seems outside of the type of business regulations which can actually get enacted.
Ideally a growing city would build enough new housing to accommodate all it's citizens. If there isn't enough built, developers will spend their square footage on the highest paying people first. And generally the rich are better at effective NIMBYism than poor people, meaning that new development aimed at rich people gets pushed into poor neighborhoods, which does actually suck for poor people. The best solution is not to panic about the second order effects, but to try to get to the root of the problem and build more housing, and do it everywhere.
Comments
Could we find some nuance between "poor people are going to be wiped out by invasive rich/middle class people," and "there are no losers to gentrification, ever"?
It seems clear that when a neighborhood gentrifies, some of incumbent residents will find their lives improved (perhaps because: a job is created that they get, they own property which is now more valuable, the neighborhood is safer, schools are better), while others will find their lives worsened (because they are renters who can no longer afford their home or neighborhood).
Whenever we have these kinds of discussions, I want to know what the alternatives are. Granted that gentrification is a mixed bag, is there a plausible alternative which helps anyone in these neighborhoods?
I think the reality that needs to be confronted is that many, many neighborhoods were harmed significantly by a large range of occurrences over a good chunk of history. Redlining, first and foremost, if we're discussing neighborhoods. White flight from urban school districts is a closely related issue.
These happened. Redlining was in no small part due to direct federal policy. These have had impact on our neighborhoods, impact that can't be downplayed, and communities adjusted to survive. Gentrification in a lot of ways looks like the undoing of these policies, which would be fine, but look closer and you see that the neighborhood ecosystems are being strained yet again. Whatever equilibriums were obtained (many via struggle and sweat equity by families with ties to the area/no other options) are now being threatened.
I think reparations to neighborhoods, communities, and people directly affected by redlining is necessary, and would serve to lessen the power differential between communities and neighborhoods. Doing so would ease the problems created by population transfer.
Mandate that the new businesses hire only locals.
I think this handily solves the problem - rents can't go up too much, otherwise the possible employees leave and the business shutters. Locals are employed, business runs, things improve in the neighbourhood and lift all boats.
That doesn't solve the problem at all.
The "lift all boats" outcome is exactly what activists are afraid of, because if that actually happens it makes the neighborhood "more desirable", and new people will start getting interested in moving in. Those people provide upward pressure on rents.
And once new people move in, they would now be "locals" and eligible for the jobs, too.
There's no logical way to satisfy these anti-gentrification groups because what they're afraid of is quite literally "the neighborhood getting nicer".
Instead of making their cause "keep the rent low by keeping the town crappy", they should make their cause "raise wages so we can afford a nicer town".
The business has to charge more in order to pay the newly increased wages that are necessary in order to hire the wealthier people who now desire to live in the improved neighbourhood.
I don't think they're afraid of "the neighbourhood getting nicer". I think they're afraid of people who don't know the local situation "helping" them out - "for their own good" of course. It is the same problems that countries face who work with the IMF/World Bank. Who wouldn't want free money?
It seems likely to me that this policy would polarize, not mitigate, the effects.
That is, if a neighborhood is kind of on the line between okay and bad, this policy might help push it up into okay -- businesses would say, "Okay, there is enough going on in this neighborhood that we can deal with moving into it even if we have these hiring restrictions," and then the hiring restrictions may in fact improve the neighborhood.
But if the neighborhood is solidly bad, the business says, "Let me get this straight: you want us to move into a part of the city where it's by no means clear that we can prosper anyway, AND you want to make it really hard for us to hire people, AND you want to slow down any improvement that our presence may make to the neighborhood by meaning that it all has to be organic rather than imported? HELL NO." And so then nobody takes a chance on really poor neighborhoods and they get worse and worse.
On the gripping hand, I don't think it's a plausible policy in America. It seems outside of the type of business regulations which can actually get enacted.
Ideally a growing city would build enough new housing to accommodate all it's citizens. If there isn't enough built, developers will spend their square footage on the highest paying people first. And generally the rich are better at effective NIMBYism than poor people, meaning that new development aimed at rich people gets pushed into poor neighborhoods, which does actually suck for poor people. The best solution is not to panic about the second order effects, but to try to get to the root of the problem and build more housing, and do it everywhere.