Gentrification in US Cities

[Jimmie Higgins]

Fear white influx will erase West Oakland history (http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Fear-white-influx-will-erase-West-Oakland-history-4874291.php)

I really dislike the SF Chronicle, but this writer summed up contemporary Oakland pretty well with this:



In 1966, Huey Newton (http://www.sfgate.com/?controllerName=search&action=search&channel=bayarea&search=1&inlineLink=1&query=%22Huey+Newton%22) and Bobby Seale drafted the Black Panther manifesto in a two-bedroom bungalow on 57th Street in Oakland.

Last year, that house - refurbished with hardwood floors, drought-tolerant landscaping and quartz countertops - sold for $425,000.

"White Influx" is misleading because while it's true on the surface, it's not the white residents who are driving this gentrification trend (they are leaving S.F. because of housing/rental costs and taking advantage of the situation): the developers and city "revitilization" schemes (and high prices in S.F.) are the driving forces.



In any case, West Oakland looks a lot different than it did a decade ago. New condominiums have proliferated, old Victorians are undergoing renovations, shuttered factories are now artists' studios, and blight has decreased. But gone, too, is a certain pride that sprung from what was once known as "Harlem of the West."

"It hurts. I'm not going to say I'm content with this," said Leander Muhammed (http://www.sfgate.com/?controllerName=search&action=search&channel=bayarea&search=1&inlineLink=1&query=%22Leander+Muhammed%22), 34, a third-generation West Oakland resident who runs after-school and sports programs for kids in the neighborhood. "Suddenly there's nonprofits and community gardens on every corner. Community gardens? I don't get it - my granny was planting collards and tomatoes here for decades. It all seems crazy to me."

[KurtFF8]

"White Influx" is misleading because while it's true on the surface, it's not the white residents who are driving this gentrification trend (they are leaving S.F. because of housing/rental costs and taking advantage of the situation): the developers and city "revitilization" schemes (and high prices in S.F.) are the driving forces.

Exactly, and I feel that even some of us on the Left make this mistake far too often: associating the auxiliary things that come along with gentrification (hip new coffee shops, bars, fashions, etc.) with the actual process itself.

This conflation can lead to some strange political conclusions that aren't helpful in fighting the actual process itself and don't really put forward an alternative (which of course we can all just easily cop out and say "socialism" right? :) )

[bricolage]

Not completely on the subject but there was recently a really good radio show by Novara about gentrification in London, you can listen here: https://soundcloud.com/resonance-fm/13-00-00-novara-256kbps-5

It's about an house long.

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

Seattle's been dealing with gentrification for awhile. I don't even recognize the city I grew up in any more, and it's causing a serious problem of lack of affordable housing in many places.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Seattle's been dealing with gentrification for awhile. I don't even recognize the city I grew up in any more, and it's causing a serious problem of lack of affordable housing in many places.Yeah - maybe similarly (ports) San Francisco was once considered a "working class city" (until the end of the 60s) and there was one neighborhood where the rich people lived and one section where professionals lived and then a big working class area... and warehouses, manufacturing, commerical and the ports. Now there is basically one low-income neighborhood (which in the process of gentrification) and rents are in the thousands for tiny studios. And so you end up with things like:

Someone in S.F. Wants You to Pay $1075 a Month to Sleep on Their Couch (http://jezebel.com/someone-in-s-f-wants-you-to-pay-1075-a-month-to-sleep-1444658167)


There is a person on Craigslist in S.F. who wants you to rent a couch in their 600 square foot studio apartment for $1075 a month. Yes, this (http://sfbay.craigslist.org/sfc/roo/4116019897.html) is really happening.

http://blogs.kqed.org/lowdown/2013/09/19/rents-in-san-francisco-enough-to-make-you-sick-literally/


Due in part to the surge in the region’s tech-fueled jobs market (some “friend” indeed, Zuckerberg!) and the city’s longstanding shortage of affordable housing units, the spike has led to jaw-dropping rents, with the median monthly rate of a mere studio at more than $2,200 a month, according to apartmentlist.com (http://www.apartmentlist.com/).
...
According to the data, it takes earnings from more than five minimum wage jobs to afford the rent in a two-bedroom apartment in neighborhoods like the Mission and Potrero Hill, and more than seven minimum wage jobs to afford a similar unit in SoMa and the Financial District.

[Red Commissar]

Even with the out of control sprawl in the major Texas urban areas gentrification has proceeded, aided with municipal authorities intentionally jacking up certain taxes (like property) to push lower-income citizens out and take advantage of increasingly (and possibly intentional in some cases) vacant lots in attempts to build upscale housing and retail to attract college graduates and other high-income residents. It's really messed up in the sense that a lot of the people moving out of the cities do tend to think that they are moving up the social ladder by entering one of the surrounding suburbs (home ownership...) but iin most cases they end up in much the same place as before or even worse off.

Unfortunate thing is that this is often, as with other cases of gentrification, being pushed as a way to return economic vitality and reduce crime rates so residents outside the city of course rarely sympathize with citizens living in these areas. What's worse is that some of these communities had independently attempted to address these issues before gentrification became more intensified- doing more "grassroots" attempts to improve the neighborhoods which were far cheaper than the overpriced developments that are now moving in.

I also heard of a scheme some cities have been doing under the guise of "affordable housing" where they've been awarding contracts to developers to ostensibly construct such housing, but the law is loose in the sense that only a part of the building has to be set aside for affordable housing. So you could have like 5-10% of the structure that's actually the affordable part while the rest is up-scale housing.