Is Gentrification a Bad Thing?

[quote=Seth]

French restaurants and beer gardens take the place of soul food restaurants and bookstores in Harlem. I mean, if you lose a panadería and gain a Panera, is that really a mark of sophistication?

Is that a fair comparison? Is losing a locally owned mexican pastry shop to a boring corporate sandwich shop the same as losing what many consider an obsolete business? I mean isn't a bookstore just a dry beer garden anymore?

[quote]

Bizarre comparison. The French restaurants cater to the high West African population of Harlem that speaks French first and English second. The beer garden (Bier) is great and really the only place to watch soccer, again, catering to the demographics of the neighborhood. As for the soul food places, the better restaurants will always be there.

Jonman wrote:
SixteenBlue wrote:

That's assuming ideas like Tragedy of the Commons, Prisoner's Dilemma, and just the obvious notion that people don't know what they want don't exist.

All of which apply to what DSGamer is saying as much as they do to what I'm saying.

For sure. I like coffee shops and gourmet pizza.

My point is that "the city reflects what the people want and therefore is good" isn't necessarily true. I'd posit (without any real proof, of course) that cities end up reflecting what the people will reject the least, which is quite a different thing.

mindset.threat wrote:
Seth wrote:
French restaurants and beer gardens take the place of soul food restaurants and bookstores in Harlem. I mean, if you lose a panadería and gain a Panera, is that really a mark of sophistication?

Is that a fair comparison? Is losing a locally owned mexican pastry shop to a boring corporate sandwich shop the same as losing what many consider an obsolete business? I mean isn't a bookstore just a dry beer garden anymore?

Bizarre comparison. The French restaurants cater to the high West African population of Harlem that speaks French first and English second. The beer garden (Bier) is great and really the only place to watch soccer, again, catering to the demographics of the neighborhood. As for the soul food places, the better restaurants will always be there.

Agree all around that there were bizarre comparisons going on.

SixteenBlue wrote:
Jonman wrote:
SixteenBlue wrote:

That's assuming ideas like Tragedy of the Commons, Prisoner's Dilemma, and just the obvious notion that people don't know what they want don't exist.

All of which apply to what DSGamer is saying as much as they do to what I'm saying.

For sure. I like coffee shops and gourmet pizza.

My point is that "the city reflects what the people want and therefore is good" isn't necessarily true. I'd posit (without any real proof, of course) that cities end up reflecting what the people will reject the least, which is quite a different thing.

I've seen both happen. My city (which is hugely different than San Francisco, New York, Seattle, Austin, or Portland) has neighborhood groups that govern specific areas of town. Some of those neighborhood groups are notoriously anti business, which means (ironically) only corporate giants with the clout and capital to bully their way into those spaces exist. Hence you get a street with nothing but mcDonald's, Little caesar's, and Tim Horton's. Meanwhile another area is governed by a group actively searching out resident owned businesses. In that area you've got a consignment shop, a high end clothing store, two breweries, a restaurant/bar, and a cigar shop.

Makes a huge difference.

DSGamer wrote:

Well, that's kinda my point. People can totally want every gentrified neighborhood to have its own coffee shop, Whole Foods, and gourmet pizza place, but that doesn't mean the neighborhood actually got "better". Sounds boring to me. We already tried that in the suburbs.

IMAGE(http://mediad.publicbroadcasting.net/p/michigan/files/styles/x_large/public/201306/970915_10151645589383746_1196768740_n.jpg)

WE ARE UNIQUE PEOPLE EXPRESSING OUR INDIVIDUALITY THROUGH OUR PURCHASES

Great article that rips apart a single instance of the "gentrification is by default bad" argument that's going on in my backyard (figuratively - my actual backyard is still in a sorry state).

Amazon is not destroying Seattle

Jonman wrote:

Great article that rips apart a single instance of the "gentrification is by default bad" argument that's going on in my backyard (figuratively - my actual backyard is still in a sorry state).

Amazon is not destroying Seattle

I don't find any of those arguments compelling, to be honest.

SixteenBlue wrote:
Jonman wrote:

Great article that rips apart a single instance of the "gentrification is by default bad" argument that's going on in my backyard (figuratively - my actual backyard is still in a sorry state).

Amazon is not destroying Seattle

I don't find any of those arguments compelling, to be honest.

I find them compelling as counter-arguments.

I read the article this morning and I'm not sure how well it addresses the concerns. To be clear, Jonman, I agreed with nevramont's points but I feel like that was more to do with my confirmation bias and less from the salience of his arguments.

The strongest point was how Amazon spends money to effect change in laws - I would say calling them anti-diversity is a false statement.

(I also liked the part of how a tax exemption and a tax loophole are the same thing, based on whether or not it benefits you. Sort of like how I'm beginning to view gentrification vs urban renewal.)

Now coming to a town near you?

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/rent-a...

Nationwide, rental appreciation is still below its peak - 6.3% hit in September 2012 after the housing bust. According to Zillow, monthly rents have grown at roughly twice the pace of wages in the U.S. since 2000. That means Americans are having to spend a greater share of their income on rent - about 30%, versus 25% in the past. And this problem isn't likely to go away anytime soon. Zillow surveyed a number of economists and real estate experts who all said they expected rental affordability to continue to "deteriorate for the next two years."

Yeah, it's yahoo finance, so take it for what you will.

One of the few times where reading the comments is worthwhile as there are people sharing their experiences from all over.

nel e nel wrote:

when I first moved to Brooklyn, I lived in primarily black or latino neighborhoods. One of my best friends who had been living here for years lived on the Upper East Side. One time when visiting her, I commented on how 'quiet' her neighborhood was compared to mine: in mine, folks hang out on the stoop, kids are running around playing, etc. In her neighborhood the only people out were going to and from wherever they were going, no 'social' activities outside of prescribed venues. She moonlighted in real estate for a bit, and she flat out told me that one of the reasons 'black neighborhoods' are valued less is because of that particular quality of people hanging outside their homes. /anecdote

I'm going to pull this forward and say that, beyond mere personal preference, there is a real vitality and social value (even a security value) in having people socializing outside.

SixteenBlue wrote:
Jonman wrote:
SixteenBlue wrote:

That's assuming ideas like Tragedy of the Commons, Prisoner's Dilemma, and just the obvious notion that people don't know what they want don't exist.

All of which apply to what DSGamer is saying as much as they do to what I'm saying.

For sure. I like coffee shops and gourmet pizza.

My point is that "the city reflects what the people want and therefore is good" isn't necessarily true. I'd posit (without any real proof, of course) that cities end up reflecting what the people will reject the least, which is quite a different thing.

Relatedly, the way a neighborhood changes is going to depend on the views of the landowners (for financial/investment reasons or less explicitly capitalist reasons), but "landowners" is not the same set as "residents".

nel e nel wrote:

WE ARE UNIQUE PEOPLE EXPRESSING OUR INDIVIDUALITY THROUGH OUR PURCHASES

[Insert Zizek on neoliberalism and late capitalism here. ]

This is close, and extra doubleplus pretentious!

wordsmythe wrote:
nel e nel wrote:

when I first moved to Brooklyn, I lived in primarily black or latino neighborhoods. One of my best friends who had been living here for years lived on the Upper East Side. One time when visiting her, I commented on how 'quiet' her neighborhood was compared to mine: in mine, folks hang out on the stoop, kids are running around playing, etc. In her neighborhood the only people out were going to and from wherever they were going, no 'social' activities outside of prescribed venues. She moonlighted in real estate for a bit, and she flat out told me that one of the reasons 'black neighborhoods' are valued less is because of that particular quality of people hanging outside their homes. /anecdote

I'm going to pull this forward and say that, beyond mere personal preference, there is a real vitality and social value (even a security value) in having people socializing outside.

http://www.statesman.com/news/news/c...

Employees at two East Austin businesses arrived to work on Wednesday morning to find stickers plastered on the buildings that declared they were “exclusively for white people.”

A photo of one of the stickers affixed to the front window of the Sugar Mama’s Bakeshop on Manor Road appeared on the bakery’s Instagram account.
“Maximum of 5 colored customers/colored BOH staff accepted,” the stickers stated, referring to the “back of house” operations at a restaurant.

The stickers also feature a City of Austin logo and state that the message is “sponsored by the City of Austin Contemporary Partition and Restoration Program.”

My first interpretation of that was saying "This business is racist, they only cater to/hire white people." But it's not that, is it? They are saying that's how it should be, aren't they?

I'ts hard to say accurately what the intention is, but given the backlash against gentrification in the city and the places where these showed up, I'm just assuming it's a commentary on the gentrification itself. The idea being that the city is sponsoring/creating it.

OK yeah that makes sense. And I think this being in the gentrification thread is why my first thought was my first thought, but wow, what a terrible way of expressing that thought.

Hasn't El Chile been there forever? Or at least before the big east side gentrification boom? My memory is a little hazy but I know El Chilito was there when I moved there and I have to assume El Chile was first.

Discussing the above with some local friends brought this out -

http://www.latina.com/lifestyle/our-...

The morning of February 12, 2015, Austinite Sergio Lejarazu was driving past his small business, a piñata and bouncy house store called Jumpolin at 1401 E. Cesar Chavez Street, on his way to drop his daughter off at school. That’s when he noticed something strange. Jumpolin wasn’t there anymore. He pulled over and quickly learned that his new landlords, Jordan French and Darius Fisher, two 2007 Vanderbilt University grads operating as F&F Real Estate Ventures, had demolished the building that Jumpolin occupied for eight years. The building still had all the inventory, cash registers and some personal property inside. Sergio and his wife Monica say they were given no prior warning and were up-to-date on their rent with a lease good until 2017.

Turns out, F&F were in such a hurry to demolish the building, because they had rented out an adjacent building that shared a lot with Jumpolin for a tech entrepreneur party scheduled to coincide with SXSW on the night of March 14. But F&F couldn’t get a variance from the city allowing them to skip the parking for their guests, so F&F’s agent ACI Design Build Contractors withdrew the request for a variance and applied, instead, for a permit to demolish the building in which Jumpolin was housed. I guess that’s one way to make room for a parking lot. No one from the city verified the building was vacant because, apparently, that’s not part of the protocol.

I might think we could have a whole thread for Austin gentrification.

That is an unbelievable story and I hope a serious law suit followed.

I posted that here back when it happened. The new details appear to be about what I imagined at the time: landlords attempting to do an end-around their obligations to their tenants in order to get something they want. (With bonus racism!)

I'm glad to hear that the party that was being organized relocated and that the judge in the civil court case has issued an injunction against construction on the site. It's not enough, but at least they're less likely to reap major benefits from their underhanded actions. And hopefully with all the attention this case is getting, the law will be changed to explicitly require notification of tenants before demolition.

Hypatian wrote:

I posted that here back when it happened.

Okay. I thought this sounded familiar.

The new details appear to be about what I imagined at the time: landlords attempting to do an end-around their obligations to their tenants in order to get something they want. (With bonus racism!)

I'm glad to hear that the party that was being organized relocated and that the judge in the civil court case has issued an injunction against construction on the site. It's not enough, but at least they're less likely to reap major benefits from their underhanded actions. And hopefully with all the attention this case is getting, the law will be changed to explicitly require notification of tenants before demolition.

This entire reality is difficult for me to understand. Either the insurance company for F&F just put the Lejarazu family into the 1% (along with a few well placed lawyers), or we're missing a huge part of the story. I've worked with some idiotic commercial real estate people, but. . . this is beyond "greedy" into "stupid" territory.

Well, you know, nobody ever cares what you do to the "roaches". /s

Super shady all around. Sadly, I suspect the Lejarazus would have a much harder time getting compensation if they hadn't taken video of paying their February rent check, since F&F had started claiming they weren't receiving rent since they became landlords (and indeed claimed that non-payment of the February rent was why they demolished the building, despite having filed for the permit in January.) I imagine their assumption that they could push the current tenants out was probably part of their decision to buy the land.

It's ugh all around.

You can't assume that just because something bad happened to marginalized people like the Lejarazus that they will sue and win. That's an assumption made on what people with resources do, i.e. white privilege. It gets even more complicated if you're not in the country legally as the victims oftens choose to do nothing with the hope it goes away to not draw unwanted attention to themselves and risk getting deported.

So just looking at this article and saying "F&F is clearly in the wrong and the victims will probably sue and win, case closed." is usually wrong, because it rarely happens.

Yeah Austin has a really odd dichotomy going on with this sort of stuff. Zoning and building projects are consistently getting by on a "ask forgiveness, not permission" plan in most of the east side areas. As was pointed out when Hyp linked it earlier, the reality is that the profit that stands to be made from using that land for something else will likely far, far outweigh any penalties they end up actually paying (if any). I'm of the mind that F&F will lose the court battle just because of what's happened, but it'll be done from a "well, the damage is done" angle. The victims will get some sort of recompense and whatever generic modern-looking office or condo gets put up on the spot will be allowed anyway.

Edwin wrote:

You can't assume that just because something bad happened to marginalized people like the Lejarazus that they will sue and win. That's an assumption made on what people with resources do, i.e. white privilege. It gets even more complicated if you're not in the country legally as the victims oftens choose to do nothing with the hope it goes away to not draw unwanted attention to themselves and risk getting deported.

So just looking at this article and saying "F&F is clearly in the wrong and the victims will probably sue and win, case closed." is usually wrong, because it rarely happens.

*nod* In this case, I think the situation with the video and the way the judge has reacted are good signs. Not guarantees, but good signs. Their circumstances don't, of course, negate the huge institutional forces arrayed against them and others like them.

For every case like this that we hear about, there are surely thousands that we don't, but that have no less severe impact on peoples' lives.

Three Cheers for Gentrification [PDF warning]

It's a great read -- specifically the difference between induced and spontaneous gentrification, the difficulty of retaining affordable housing contrasted with creating it, and a really insightful look as to why the market cannot provide low income housing.

Also, the same guy has some great comments on the status of Charleston, SC.

Edwin wrote:
wordsmythe wrote:
nel e nel wrote:

when I first moved to Brooklyn, I lived in primarily black or latino neighborhoods. One of my best friends who had been living here for years lived on the Upper East Side. One time when visiting her, I commented on how 'quiet' her neighborhood was compared to mine: in mine, folks hang out on the stoop, kids are running around playing, etc. In her neighborhood the only people out were going to and from wherever they were going, no 'social' activities outside of prescribed venues. She moonlighted in real estate for a bit, and she flat out told me that one of the reasons 'black neighborhoods' are valued less is because of that particular quality of people hanging outside their homes. /anecdote

I'm going to pull this forward and say that, beyond mere personal preference, there is a real vitality and social value (even a security value) in having people socializing outside.

Favorited.

Also, I think that gave me an even stronger appreciation for my neighborhood, which has a lot of weird (for Chicago, at least) features like property owners who inherited their homes and couldn't afford anything close to what they live in on the rental market.

I hadn't thought about it before, but what if the money they were spending on those private buses was just put towards improving the cities infrastructure.

NathanialG wrote:

I hadn't thought about it before, but what if the money they were spending on those private buses was just put towards improving the cities infrastructure.

The other problem are the strict zoning laws that regulate the construction of new residential properties, which puts a hamper on a city with a high demand for said residential properties.

Off the top, I don't know if the money going towards the buses would really even put a small dent in the funding required to improve traffic.