Gentrification is a Human Rights Violation?

[JumpyTheFrog]

So today the Atlantic had an article about some group claiming that gentrification is a human rights violation. I am starting to feel that some people just can't be pleased. If people moving in and fixing up a neighborhood is bad and if leaving a neighborhood decrepit is bad, then what is the solution? It seems like a can't win situation, unless somehow all the slumlords magically want to fix up their dumpy properties.

 

The comments had some interesting stories. One person shared how once their neighborhood began to gentrify (people buying and rehabbing properties) the landlords were suddenly motivated to fix problems they had been ignoring for years. The new property owners (residents) pestered the city council to fix the frequent power outages, sewer backups, etc. The police began patrolling the area again and crime went down. From this person's perspective, gentrification was a net gain, even if people's rents went up.

 

Regardless of whether you like gentrification, it is rather extreme to call it a human rights violation. I think that term ought to be saved for true oppression.

[Guest]

 

 

The comments had some interesting stories. One person shared how once their neighborhood began to gentrify (people buying and rehabbing properties) the landlords were suddenly motivated to fix problems they had been ignoring for years. The new property owners (residents) pestered the city council to fix the frequent power outages, sewer backups, etc. The police began patrolling the area again and crime went down. From this person's perspective, gentrification was a net gain, even if people's rents went up.

 

 

 

It bites to be priced out of your home.

It bites to watch the SAME landlord who wouldn't fix things for you, often in clear violation of the lease and the law, fix things for the shiny new people who move in after you.

 

The point is that the poor (er) people are not listened to, because they are poor (er) and often people of color.

 

OF COURSE from that person's perspective gentrification was a "net gain" even though the rent went up. They could still afford their rent. And weren't forced to move into ever-worse neighborhoods/buildings.

 

The landlords should have been on top of upkeep all along.

[Catwoman]

I assume they are talking about long time residents of a community no longer being able to afford to live there once the buildings are fixed up and renovated.

 

It is a very difficult situation and I can see both sides of it.

[LucyStoner]

You know, it really sucks to see that your city and police take action for better off (quite often whiter) residents that they did not bother to take for poorer (quite often browner) residents.

 

I've been on both sides of gentrification and I think that it does raise significant bias and institutionalized racism issues which we are too often very hesitant to address.

[JumpyTheFrog]

I agree that whatever a lease or the law requires should be kept up. If rents are low, the landlord might not have enough cashflow or profit to maintain anything beyond that though. So a non-slumlord may have to choose between fixing the extras and not making a profit or fixing the extras and raising the rent. What is a non-scummy landlord supposed to do?

 

I have never been a landlord or lived in a bad neighborhood, so my idea of how things should work may not line up with reality. I only mention this so people don't think I'm some heartless person out to get poor people.

[Bluegoat]

The area which I used to live in, and where my church is, is undergoing serious gentrification.  When I moved out of that area, it had quite a mix of people, students, low and middle income families, lots of black and immigrant families.  Also - crack-houses and prostitutes, drug addicts etc. 

 

Now, no one was keen on those aspects of things, and complaining about their disappearance isn't really the issue.  Although - the drug addicts are increasingly being forced to move to low-income housing away from their families and support systems, and even good public transport.

 

When I moved back about 5 years ago I could not afford to buy a house there.  There was still low income housing, and very expensive places, but not much in the middle.  Also - rents for businesses are going up, and so only high end places can pay.  laundromats and less expensive places that serve the poor residents are having to move.  Again - to the less desirable suburban areas which require more travel time or cars.

 

Now, it is even affecting the low income people.  The co-op housing across from my church, which has residence that have lived there for 30 years, is being forced to sell the property.  It is likely to be developed for condos or something similar.

 

More rage inducing to the long time residents is all the things the city now does to keep the area nice, which they neglected to do before.

 

Ultimately this is all a result of the fact that land and housing are seen as commodities, not resources that are integral to a community.  And that is what is going on - a longstanding community, which  included extended families, support systems, is being dispersed for people with more money.  It is not dissimilar to First Nations peoples being pushed out again and again as those in power decided the land they were on was desirable.  In our system, money is the ultimate power.  people tend to assume that land being bought and sold on the free market is the only way to do things - that isn't necessarily the case.  We can thing about the integrity of neighbourhoods, or farmland, for example, in all kinds of ways that put priority on preserving them for essential uses - essential to grow food, essential to build strong communities, and so on.

 

It's actually a bit ironic that some of the same people who want individuals to rely on family and community rather than government support also support a market system that undermines the ability of people to do that.

 

[Guest]

I agree that whatever a lease or the law requires should be kept up. If rents are low, the landlord might not have enough cashflow or profit to maintain anything beyond that though. So a non-slumlord may have to choose between fixing the extras and not making a profit or fixing the extras and raising the rent. What is a non-scummy landlord supposed to do?

 

 

 

I snipped the last part of your post because I don't think, and I doubt anyone else thinks, thatyou're "out to stick it to the poors." or condone anyone who is.

 

But

 

We can think of the poor first, or we can turn our minds (and hearts) to the landlords first. So I think other people are just asking different questions.

 

Such as...does profit HAVE to drive all things? (nope). Do people with money deserve to live in cooler places because they have more money? (nope). Does that inevitably lead to the decimation of what made that neighborhood special in the first place? (in almost all cases, yep). So it is, in the end, exceedingly temporary and causes much strife for already put-up demographics? (yep).

 

[LucyStoner]

I agree that whatever a lease or the law requires should be kept up. If rents are low, the landlord might not have enough cashflow or profit to maintain anything beyond that though. So a non-slumlord may have to choose between fixing the extras and not making a profit or fixing the extras and raising the rent. What is a non-scummy landlord supposed to do?

 

I have never been a landlord or lived in a bad neighborhood, so my idea of how things should work may not line up with reality. I only mention this so people don't think I'm some heartless person out to get poor people.

The landlord issue is more gray. Of course higher rent units generate higher end finishes and more cosmetic upgrades. Still, landlords shouldn't be forgoing critically needed maintenance. I've had a landlord tell me that water pouring through my ceiling wasn't a big deal. Um, no. Get your butt down here and fix it. If it ate his profit that month so be it, owning property comes with risks and liabilities, not any guaranteed monthly rate of return.

 

The more troubling issue though is the disparity in civic services and policing. I'm sorry, rich areas shouldn't get more access to public resources like policing and fixing up the public utilities or roads by virtue of being rich. Poor people shouldn't have to wait longer for what the city just does no questions in well off areas.

[Bluegoat]

I agree that whatever a lease or the law requires should be kept up. If rents are low, the landlord might not have enough cashflow or profit to maintain anything beyond that though. So a non-slumlord may have to choose between fixing the extras and not making a profit or fixing the extras and raising the rent. What is a non-scummy landlord supposed to do?

 

I have never been a landlord or lived in a bad neighborhood, so my idea of how things should work may not line up with reality. I only mention this so people don't think I'm some heartless person out to get poor people.

 

It may be the case that with low income housing, landlords cannot charge an affordable rent and also keep the place up.  This is why low-income housing is generally something that needs social support.  But if it doesn't happen, being homeless is not better than having a crappy house.

[Anne in CA]

I have never lived in a bad neighborhood, so I don't have any experience with some of this first hand, but the RURAL community I grew up with has had this issue for the last 20 years. People from big cities selling their homes for big profits and buying in small rural areas and driving up the cost of crummy homes to the point that the people who live in rural areas and are not well paid can not afford to live in their home community. Many people I went to high school with are upset because they cant afford to inherit the family home because the property taxes are too high to pay for people making rural wages/ small farming. Property taxes in Oregon are high and that is where I'm from.

 

The people I personally know who are most affected in rural areas are people with no education and no opportunity for advancement within a union situation, and no real ambition other than to live in the family home, work 20-40 hours a week and drink and hunt for a hobby. All of them are white so no racial problems as far as that goes, but definitely they are people who don't have the mental flexibility to change. I don't think any of them would consider what is happening to them a human rights violation, but they are mostly conservative anyway and would not want some government policy interference even if they are left homeless.

 

I do feel sorry for people who are not able to keep living the life in their own neighborhood/ areas, but change is part of modern living. I wish that we had more options for people in these situations, but  I don't know what would be fair.

[Bluegoat]

The rural issue is common in a lot of places - what were working communities become bedroom or vacation communities.  It often affects the whole feel of the place - people who spend most of their time elsewhere don't have the same attachment to the place.

 

As far as race goes - actually I think that sometimes it gets the blame inappropriately.  In the community I was mentioning, it is often suggested that it is a race issue, but I think that is not only not really the case, it is preventing the real issue from being addressed, and from being addressed by a united community because it has in actuality always been a mixed, poor community.

[LucyStoner]

The ones I see complaining are those who can't stand the fact that the neighborhoods aren't staying all their color. As one lady said here locally, "Pretty soon there'll be a bunch of white people walking around here." She was on the evening news.

 

IMO the only other kind of people asking this a human rights issue are communists at heart who like being able to assign people to "fair" housing. A friend of the family who immigrated from Eastern Europe and was there during the communist years told me that a car drove up to the house next door with a government official and a family with luggage. The official said to the homeowner, "This house is too big for just you. This family is moving in with you, and you will support them."

 

This family friend is so upset by what she's seeing going on here.

I have issues with various outcomes of gentrification.

 

I am not, nor have I ever been (tee hee), a communist.

[Guest]

I have issues with various issues and gentrification.

 

I am not, nor have I ever been (tee hee), a communist.

 

But are you racist?????????????? pp implies it's one or the other. Otherwise who would have a problem with gentrification?!

 

[i absolutely know LS is not racist] {I mean as far as I can know that via a forum]

[JumpyTheFrog]

So are property taxes one of biggest reasons that the poor are driven out? Newer, more expensive buildings go up, raising land values, raising the property taxes, and thus rents. If there were a way to not have the property taxes jacked up, would the rental prices be more stable? Or would the landlords raise the rent anyway?

 

Thanks to whoever mentioned the rural prices going up. Sometimes I read about people who are upset about the "California equity locusts" selling their (very expensive) houses moving to a new state. Since they have a profit from the old house, they can afford a higher end house in the new town and if enough of them do the same, drive up prices there. I understand the anger about that, I just never really connected the idea with gentrification of cities.

[LucyStoner]

 

But are you racist?????????????? pp implies it's one or the other. Otherwise who would have a problem with gentrification?!

 

[i absolutely know LS is not racist] {I mean as far as I can know that via a forum]

I am totally a racist. I have a really big bias against the entire human race. We really suck.

 

(Actually no, but I couldn't resist!)

[JumpyTheFrog]

As far as cities offering better services to areas after they gentrify, how much of this is because the city now has more property taxes available to spend?

[Guest]

I don't think someone has a right to their neighborhood. I cannot live where I was raised because I cannot afford it, and it's neither classist nor racist. If I was brown, it still wouldn't be. The broken window effect is worth discussing, and keeping even poor neighborhoods from being ghetto or trashed benefits everyone regardless of price point, but neighborhoods evolve and change and they do it both ways.

 

My grandparents lived on a handsome street in the middle of town full of small, white picket fence homes. By the time they died theirs and only two neighbors in the middle of the street still had handsome, well maintained homes. The rest were trashed, worn, and more likely to be surrounded by wire or tall fences than pickets. Their neighborhood got more expensive than when they purchased but it lost value overall compared to the surrounding area, because a few neighbors didn't care, and the street degraded from there. Now nobody really aspires to live there, regardless of demographics.

 

It can go both ways. Nice areas grow poor or worn, they hit the bottom of the price rung, and efforts to rehab them and profit once again take place. Repeat the cycle every forty or fifty years.

[LucyStoner]

As far as cities offering better services to areas after they gentrify, how much of this is because the city now has more property taxes available to spend?

I don't think the revenue increase explains all of the disparities found, which are well documented. Especially when changes happen so quickly on the heels of new development and often, at least in my area, developers are getting big tax breaks for certain projects tied to gentrification. Civic services often tick up before any increased revenue has been generated.

 

One big issue here and many places is the replacement of aging public housing. I used to work in a public housing location that is being redeveloped. The families had two story units which looked and felt more like duplexes than big apartments, all with a yard. The original plan for redevelopment was quite bad. It took land which has long been a public asset and all but but gifted it to developers. The final plan is more of a middle ground approach. It took a lot to change that plan though and there are definitely many people not happy with the end result.

 

This same story plays out many places. Clearly many housing developments need to be rehabbed. There are better and worse ways to do that. I'm not opposed to building mixed income or giving tax breaks for developers investing in workforce housing. I would just like to see it done in ways that helps rather than hurts low income families.

[mommaduck]

I'll have to see if I can find the article (written by a hardcore capitalist) about what Sanders did irt balancing gentrification and keeping affordability for the working poor when he was mayor of a city. It was a very good article.

[Guest]

I'll have to see if I can find the article (written by a hardcore capitalist) about what Sanders did irt balancing gentrification and keeping affordability for the working poor when he was mayor of a city. It was a very good article.

 

Bernie Sanders?

 

That's funny because when we were in Burlington we specifically noticed how ungentrified it was.....development had occurred hand in hand with neighborhood-preservation. This was before we knew anything about it or had any opinions about it, but I remember because it was something we said out loud in the car literally as we drove into the city for the first time.

 

Granted, he was on hand for some re-development that was criticized, too (the waterfront) for different reasons....amounting to different visions that got smooshed together via compromise. But the overall effect is nice, noticeable, and comforting irt neighborhoods.

[poppy]

 

 

My grandparents lived on a handsome street in the middle of town full of small, white picket fence homes. By the time they died theirs and only two neighbors in the middle of the street still had handsome, well maintained homes. The rest were trashed, worn, and more likely to be surrounded by wire or tall fences than pickets. Their neighborhood got more expensive than when they purchased but it lost value overall compared to the surrounding area, because a few neighbors didn't care, and the street degraded from there. Now nobody really aspires to live there, regardless of demographics.

 

I'm going to guess that the "few neighbors who didn't care" were landlords who did not live in the neighborhood.

[mommaduck]

Bernie Sanders?

 

That's funny because when we were in Burlington we specifically noticed how ungentrified it was.....development had occurred hand in hand with neighborhood-preservation. This was before we knew anything about it or had any opinions about it, but I remember because it was something we said out loud in the car literally as we drove into the city for the first time.

 

Granted, he was on hand for some re-development that was criticized, too (the waterfront) for different reasons....amounting to different visions that got smooshed together via compromise. But the overall effect is nice, noticeable, and comforting irt neighborhoods.

This is what I meant. Development with neighbourhood preservation. Fixing up without running off the residents and making things unaffordable. Not quite sure how that is phrased or what it's called, but it seemed like a nice balance of making things nice and yet not "gentrifying" things.

[Guest]

This is what I meant. Development with neighbourhood preservation. Fixing up without running off the residents and making things unaffordable. Not quite sure how that is phrased or what it's called, but it seemed like a nice balance of making things nice and yet not "gentrifying" things.

 

Which brings up a good point. Sometimes people don't really understand the complete annihilation of communities that accompanies what we are talking about when we are talking about gentrification to the point of driving *most* residents out in favor of new, more monied residents with different priorities. Most folks move to a new place are middle of the road folks, and they move to a middle of the road place...if it's upwardly mobile as a community, most people move in in the middle of that. So things sort of happening under the surface, behind the scenes.

[mommaduck]

I got to see a bit of this balance in Lancaster, PA. You had well to do houses on the same block or even a block over from housing of working poor. It was mixed in. In poor neighbourhoods, you still had some middle-classed homeowners. Nicer neighbourhoods weren't completely blocked off from everyone. The entire city was walkable and most things were open equally. A nice restaurant had items that were both expensive and affordable. My husband and I enjoyed being able to walk a few blocks from our not so nice neighbourhood to the Lancaster Brewing Company. I miss it. I actually forgot what it was like to live where people were pushed to either extreme. Ugh. 

[LucyStoner]

This was an interesting listen on racial and class issues in a very liberal, white city.

 

http://stateofthereunion.com/portland-or-a-tale-of-two-cities/

[Guest]

I'll share some experience from a LL's POV. We have one rental with a cranky well. I can drop $40,000 into redigging it, but if I do, the folks that live there can't afford the rent I will have to charge. AND if I do, we'll be into bad water--very acidic that will eat out the pipes in a few years, not to mention that no one would want to drink it! The house just down the hill is in the yucky aquifer. I don't want to be. So, the renter (who has been there for over 20 years) lives with doing her laundry in town, along with spacing out showers and such. It's not always a matter of "why didn't the LL fix this problem?" Sometimes, the LL and the tenant working together can come up with a solution that all can live with--she gets a place to live that she can afford and I don't drop the big bucks that I'd have to pass on to her. You know, not all LLs are out to get people. 

 

Right but we're not really talking about landlords with a one-off problem. We're talking about whole neighborhoods getting run out of their homes, which were often (not always) substandard when they lived there, and fixed up specifically for newcomers who don't have roots there.

 

The bolded: You know no one said nor implied that.

[mommaduck]

Margaret, I can understand certain issues with homes in rural locations. Gentrification is generally an issue in cities where there are city water lines, etc. The working poor need to live where there are jobs, public transit, community colleges and trade schools, etc. We are dealing with this in Charleston. I have to live way out in the boons to afford a place. Right now, I'm in a town, but I was in the boons. Either way, there is no community college here. There is no public transit. There are no walk-in clinics. All the jobs are towards Charleston...oh, and if you don't have a car, you're screwed. No car, no access. But all those rich and fancy people are throwing fits over anyone poor living near them, walking in a park near them, etc. Yep, Mt. Pleasant and Charleston are getting quite the reputation and it's a really bad case of haves and have nots. Some just don't want "poor people" apartments around them.

[mommaduck]

Gentrification is not specifically an issue with landlords though.

[JumpyTheFrog]

Gentrification is not specifically an issue with landlords though.

I thought the main complaint is that it results in landlords raising the rent, making it unaffordable for long-time residents to renew their leases.

[mommaduck]

So are property taxes one of biggest reasons that the poor are driven out? Newer, more expensive buildings go up, raising land values, raising the property taxes, and thus rents. If there were a way to not have the property taxes jacked up, would the rental prices be more stable? Or would the landlords raise the rent anyway?

 

Thanks to whoever mentioned the rural prices going up. Sometimes I read about people who are upset about the "California equity locusts" selling their (very expensive) houses moving to a new state. Since they have a profit from the old house, they can afford a higher end house in the new town and if enough of them do the same, drive up prices there. I understand the anger about that, I just never really connected the idea with gentrification of cities.

 

That is exactly what happened in the midwest around St. Louis. Also, there were areas in Southern Illinois and Western Missouri where land prices rose drastically because a lot of Mennonites came out from PA, IN, OH, and Canada all at once. They would automatically offer ABOVE asking price just so they could be sure to snatch up land. Given that most people in those areas were rural poor without the generational money the Mennonites have, it really hurt people and caused bad feelings.

[mommaduck]

I thought the main complaint is that it results in landlords raising the rent, making it unaffordable for long-time residents to renew their leases?

 

Not just that though. Whole apartment complexes torn down to build condos. We have an issue in Charleston where a subdivision has "claimed" or blocked off a park from public access. It is and always has been a public park. It belongs to the public. But it was just taken. The city is attempting to open it back up again (it was all underhanded back room deals before). The public has been upset and apparently people loved that park. The people that paid huge money for the houses that it was a private park that "belonged" to them. It's more the big land buying companies and contractors. Public transit is an issue. Charleston has a huge issue with public transit. We need it and we need what there is upgraded. They really need a train. 

[Farrar]

I thought the main complaint is that it results in landlords raising the rent, making it unaffordable for long-time residents to renew their leases?

 

Sometimes, but property taxes can be the issue as well - if you own your home, as the value of the property goes up, your property tax can become something you simple cannot pay. And then that can cause the owners of buildings - even condos - to have to turn over as well. And it's not just about housing costs - it's about services and who has access, about the character of neighborhoods, about how policing is done... Rising rents is probably the biggest issue, but it's really just one among many.

[foxbridgeacademy]

The area which I used to live in, and where my church is, is undergoing serious gentrification.  When I moved out of that area, it had quite a mix of people, students, low and middle income families, lots of black and immigrant families.  Also - crack-houses and prostitutes, drug addicts etc. 

 

Now, no one was keen on those aspects of things, and complaining about their disappearance isn't really the issue.  Although - the drug addicts are increasingly being forced to move to low-income housing away from their families and support systems, and even good public transport.

 

When I moved back about 5 years ago I could not afford to buy a house there.  There was still low income housing, and very expensive places, but not much in the middle.  Also - rents for businesses are going up, and so only high end places can pay.  laundromats and less expensive places that serve the poor residents are having to move.  Again - to the less desirable suburban areas which require more travel time or cars.

 

Now, it is even affecting the low income people.  The co-op housing across from my church, which has residence that have lived there for 30 years, is being forced to sell the property.  It is likely to be developed for condos or something similar.

 

More rage inducing to the long time residents is all the things the city now does to keep the area nice, which they neglected to do before.

 

Ultimately this is all a result of the fact that land and housing are seen as commodities, not resources that are integral to a community.  And that is what is going on - a longstanding community, which  included extended families, support systems, is being dispersed for people with more money.  It is not dissimilar to First Nations peoples being pushed out again and again as those in power decided the land they were on was desirable.  In our system, money is the ultimate power.  people tend to assume that land being bought and sold on the free market is the only way to do things - that isn't necessarily the case.  We can thing about the integrity of neighbourhoods, or farmland, for example, in all kinds of ways that put priority on preserving them for essential uses - essential to grow food, essential to build strong communities, and so on.

 

It's actually a bit ironic that some of the same people who want individuals to rely on family and community rather than government support also support a market system that undermines the ability of people to do that.

:iagree:  :iagree:  :iagree: You said that so well I thought it ought to be posted another time, especially the last sentence. :hurray:  :hurray:  :hurray:

[Farrar]

I have deeply mixed feelings about gentrification. We were among a very early wave of gentrification in our neighborhood. It has changed a LOT in the last fifteen years and is one of a couple of neighborhoods that are really the poster children of gentrification around here. To give you an idea of the scope of things, while we've not made super big changes to our home, it's likely we could sell it for nearly three times what we paid.

 

It has been interesting to be on the early end of it too. To the newer gentrifiers, we're definitely trashy poor people. And it has meant we're completely out of sync with the birth rate. My children are too old to have a built in playgroup among the gentrifiers, but many of the older residents are gone or leaving so there's not much of a friend group for them their age at all. In general, we picked the wrong neighborhood at the wrong moment to have a family... but I guess that's another story.

 

When we moved in, our neighbor on one side was a drug dealer. A man was shot in front of our house a couple months after we bought it. A corner store up the street was infamous as the place where you could buy crack baggies.

 

Now, there's major retail, a farmer's market, a strip of chic upscale restaurants and pubs that we can literally see from the front yard, a play fountain for kids, two redone parks, some of the best charter schools in the city, multiple yoga studios, bike lanes, a dog park... any symbol of gentrification you can imagine, we've got. On the other hand, the last corner store just closed. And the neighborhood has turned over so many times that it feels completely transient to me at this point. And there are real issues where I see homeless people moved out, apartment buildings turned into condos... and I know that those people are being shuffled away to places that are potentially less safe and/or have less access to public transit and centralized services.

 

I don't know... just to say... it's been an interesting ride. 

[lailasmum]

There are some similar issues in London in the East End and other parts. Huge areas are being torn down and replaced with luxury apartments in what would have been traditionally family/small business areas. Locals can't dream to afford these properties so they're pushed out. Yes they were pretty run down in some areas but they've got strong communities. There are also some other things going like underfunded local councils selling land that would have had affordable housing on it to developers for the money. It's heartbreaking for the residents of these areas to lose their homes and have no hope of even staying locally and it changes the feel of an area a lot.

[athomeontheprairie]

I have never lived in a bad neighborhood, so I don't have any experience with some of this first hand, but the RURAL community I grew up with has had this issue for the last 20 years. People from big cities selling their homes for big profits and buying in small rural areas and driving up the cost of crummy homes to the point that the people who live in rural areas and are not well paid can not afford to live in their home community. Many people I went to high school with are upset because they cant afford to inherit the family home because the property taxes are too high to pay for people making rural wages/ small farming. Property taxes in Oregon are high and that is where I'm from.

 

The people I personally know who are most affected in rural areas are people with no education and no opportunity for advancement within a union situation, and no real ambition other than to live in the family home, work 20-40 hours a week and drink and hunt for a hobby. All of them are white so no racial problems as far as that goes, but definitely they are people who don't have the mental flexibility to change. I don't think any of them would consider what is happening to them a human rights violation, but they are mostly conservative anyway and would not want some government policy interference even if they are left homeless.

 

I do feel sorry for people who are not able to keep living the life in their own neighborhood/ areas, but change is part of modern living. I wish that we had more options for people in these situations, but I don't know what would be fair.

I live rural. We have been trying to move into another house for 7 years. Granted we want something VERY specific, but every time we look at a potential house they sell almost immediately to one of two types of people: hunters/or those turning it into a lodge for Hunters/those catering to hunters OR those from out of state ( mainly those from the east and west coasts). all of these people have more money than the locals. a nice house that is on the market for 70,000, isn't going to sell to our family, when they can sell to someone from North Carolina or California for 150,000. in those houses drive up the taxes on our farmland.

in the community that I work at , houses stay on the market typically less than one month. People from out-of-state, normally Nebraska, come down and purchase weekend homes. But again because they have enough money to buy a second house , it drives up the prices for those of us who live in the community.

it has nothing to do with people only working 20 hours a week, wanting to go out and drink and hunt. Opportunities in the rural community are limited, and at least here everything is tied to agriculture ( I would even say the medical jobs and technology jobs are in someway tied to agriculture. When all the farmers are driven off their land and move away, the doctors will to as they have no patients to treat). because everything is tied at culture, and the market , there's only so much advancement that is even possible. and as far as hunting as a hobby , every family that I know that Hungs is doing it to feed their family through the winter. if the families don't take down one or two deer, affording meat for the winter is difficult. it's not a hobby, it's survival.

[weddell]

My husband and I both attended grad school in Philadelphia. The university of Pennsylvania is in a bad part of Philly . The living areas closest to campus (outside of student housing) were at the time poorly maintained, lots of vacant houses, and lots of crime. Penn set out to gentrify the area so that staff could live there. After grad school, I worked for the university and one of our benefits was that Penn would help staff buy a house within a certain area near campus. They gave us money and paid our mortgage insurance, among other things. Their plan was working last I knew (we moved out of the area about 9 years ago). The housing prices were going up in the area which meant that demand for houses was going up. Most of the long time residents owned their houses outright. Some were well maintained, but a ton weren't. It wasn't landlords, it was the homeowners that weren't maintaining their properties. It was a mix of people who just didn't care and people who really didn't have the money to properly maintain a house. While I sympathize that some people were forced out of their communities, if they couldn't afford basic maintenance on their house, they couldn't afford to live there whether or not the area was undergoing gentrification. Houses just cost a certain amount of money to keep up (roof work, electrical, heating, etc). Property taxes on our street were under $2000 a year at the time.  Having people with enough money to fix up vacant and poorly kept up properties was a good thing for the neighborhood as a whole. We aren't talking about rich people buying these places for summer homes, it was people who made $40,000 a year and held steady jobs nearby. 

 

We bought our house there from a older lady whose kids had grown up and moved out and whose husband had died years before. She used the money from the sale to move into an apartment close to one of her kids. The way things were in that area before Penn started gentrifying it, she would not have been able to sell her house for much, if she was able to sell at all. She wanted to move because the house was too big for just her and I'm guessing she would have had trouble over time maintaining it. The other houses on our street that were well maintained all belonged to older women/couples whose children were now adults, and they were mostly sad to see how their neighborhood had deteriorated. 

[happi duck]

I know a letter carrier who works in an area that underwent gentrification. The stories of her customers were heartbreaking.

 

In this case the elderly who lived there *wanted* to stay and had worked hard to own their homes so that they could live out their lives with some security.

 

Taxes drove some out and some lost homes to eminent domain.

[JumpyTheFrog]

So if there were some way to reform property taxes, would this reduce the problems of gentrification? Of course, I don't know how you could reform property taxes. From what I hear, in California they are based on the price of the property at purchase. This means that someone who just moved in pays much more than someone with an identical house who has lived there a long time. If my understanding is correct, that sounds not only very unfair, but like it traps people in their homes because they couldn't afford the taxes if they moved closer to work or downsized after 20-30 years. So I'm thinking that that system wouldn't solve more problems than it creates.

 

Maybe school taxes could be funded at the state level through income taxes? Then property taxes could be used just for the fire dept, police, etc that are needed to protect the properties themselves. I used to think property taxes should be abolished, but now I realize that people that reside in another state and own a second home in a different state should have to pay something toward the local services that help protect their vacation home.

[JumpyTheFrog]

some lost homes to eminent domain.

 

I am opposed to taking property and giving it to private developers. Eminent domain should only be used for public goods like roads, not to get rid of undesirable properties that aren't able to legitimately be condemned as a health or safety hazard.

[Anne in CA]

Don't get me started on Eminent Domain. It really can be unfair.

[Anne in CA]

I live rural. We have been trying to move into another house for 7 years. Granted we want something VERY specific, but every time we look at a potential house they sell almost immediately to one of two types of people: hunters/or those turning it into a lodge for Hunters/those catering to hunters OR those from out of state ( mainly those from the east and west coasts). all of these people have more money than the locals. a nice house that is on the market for 70,000, isn't going to sell to our family, when they can sell to someone from North Carolina or California for 150,000. in those houses drive up the taxes on our farmland.

in the community that I work at , houses stay on the market typically less than one month. People from out-of-state, normally Nebraska, come down and purchase weekend homes. But again because they have enough money to buy a second house , it drives up the prices for those of us who live in the community.

it has nothing to do with people only working 20 hours a week, wanting to go out and drink and hunt. Opportunities in the rural community are limited, and at least here everything is tied to agriculture ( I would even say the medical jobs and technology jobs are in someway tied to agriculture. When all the farmers are driven off their land and move away, the doctors will to as they have no patients to treat). because everything is tied at culture, and the market , there's only so much advancement that is even possible. and as far as hunting as a hobby , every family that I know that Hungs is doing it to feed their family through the winter. if the families don't take down one or two deer, affording meat for the winter is difficult. it's not a hobby, it's survival.

I truly was trying to say I was only speaking of people I know personally, I am not aware of all the bigger issues with rural decline. I do understand that there are almost no opportunities in some rural area. However, the rural area I live in has a real issue with people who don't want to work too much, they work just enough to get unemployment and then they go play, and it causes employers big headaches. They also never develop serious skills for good paying jobs that way. The cycle is part of what is causing the bad economy here.

[athomeontheprairie]

I truly was trying to say I was only speaking of people I know personally, I am not aware of all the bigger issues with rural decline. I do understand that there are almost no opportunities in some rural area. However, the rural area I live in has a real issue with people who don't want to work too much, they work just enough to get unemployment and then they go play, and it causes employers big headaches. They also never develop serious skills for good paying jobs that way. The cycle is part of what is causing the bad economy here.

Absolutely. I get what you're saying, and I absolutely believe their communities like this out there. especially when you say this is what I see personally. I just wanted to offer another view for those who don't live rural.

we certainly have people who abuse the system , use drugs, have no life skills and don't want any, but that isn't the norm. But that isn't to imply it isn't that way elsewhere.

 

Sent from my LG-AS990 using Tapatalk

[SporkUK]

I find the comparisons to communism laughable - mainly because it ignores how often governments and corporations in capitalist countries force buy and worse people out of their homes. I mean, what is now Central Park was once a thriving village, there is a long history of it. We had a large corporation push the council into force buying a row of homes and business, despite the people who lived and worked there's wishes, so they could be a new uber green flagship store and facilities that supposedly would bring jobs to the area. It was going to be the start of new life into that area. They boarded the whole area up, said they'd be done by last Christmas, and the row still sits empty. They officially pulled out a few months back. We lost a shop that refurbished and sold furniture at discount to help fund a local homeless youth hostel, a freezer shop, and other local amenities and jobs  and dozens of people were forced out of their communities - more than one was forced to live with friends and family and one old man shoved into care home as he'd been living in the home he'd paid to adapt was taken from him - because of a corporation's wishes convinced the council and none of us benefited or likely would have benefited from the posh shop but people are forced to deal with it. 

 

The corporation is still holding on to the land in hopes of turning a profit. Personally, I think there should be more protection for communities than the whims of corporations or the dreams of the rich wanting to turn our areas into their projects when we get no support from anyone for our own projects to uplift the area that people spend their lives on. We have decades and more of evidence of how damaging and destructive forced moves and community destruction are, it is a violation. I think wanting everyone to have their right to shelter and fair say in their own community that they live in compared to here today and gone tomorrow investors to me is an important part of a democratic process that hears everyone rather than a totalitarian regime that can leave you on the street because it likes where your house it, but not you being there. There are plenty of ways to uplift an area and protect the community if we put people at the heart of projects rather than just letting those with the cash walk all over us. 

[I talk to the trees]

I don't think someone has a right to their neighborhood. I cannot live where I was raised because I cannot afford it, and it's neither classist nor racist. If I was brown, it still wouldn't be. The broken window effect is worth discussing, and keeping even poor neighborhoods from being ghetto or trashed benefits everyone regardless of price point, but neighborhoods evolve and change and they do it both ways.

 

My grandparents lived on a handsome street in the middle of town full of small, white picket fence homes. By the time they died theirs and only two neighbors in the middle of the street still had handsome, well maintained homes. The rest were trashed, worn, and more likely to be surrounded by wire or tall fences than pickets. Their neighborhood got more expensive than when they purchased but it lost value overall compared to the surrounding area, because a few neighbors didn't care, and the street degraded from there. Now nobody really aspires to live there, regardless of demographics.

 

It can go both ways. Nice areas grow poor or worn, they hit the bottom of the price rung, and efforts to rehab them and profit once again take place. Repeat the cycle every forty or fifty years.

When we moved back to VA two years ago, my mother got all excited because there was a house on their street for sale. Sadly, we had to remind my parents that there was no way we could afford it. (Not that I actually wanted to move in 7 doors down from my parents.) I never dreamed that I would be unable to afford a house on the street where I grew up. Crazy!

[Bluegoat]

I think what people sometimes fail to notice is that it isn't actually very good for the overall welfare of cities when the kinds of gentrification we are seeing happen.

 

It often means that people have to live far from work - typically the people who can't afford it.  Even a very upscale area has coffee shops, homes with nannies, and so on.  Those people need to live somewhere.  Long commutes not only affect their ability to have a good family life, they are bad for the environment, and the cost the city money in roads, public transport, and so on.  It really does make the most sense to have, if not always mixed communities, smaller neighbourhoods with different levels of housing close together.

 

Also - when communities see a lot of turn-over, it is much harder to have a robust community life.  people who know each other, family connections, the chance to meet people and maintain friendships for many years.  In a community like that there is far more possibility for parents to have access to childcare among those they know, seniors to have family help out, the sick to be helped when required, job networking, and so on.  That becomes a stable community which has a lot of capacity to take care of people at a low level.  Communities like that are healthier, people in them are significantly less likely to suffer from depression.  And all of these things are even more vital for the poor who will have to get by in many cases without spending money on such things.

 

When we make communities more transient, all of a sudden there is a need to start dealing with these issues through government, because they never have a chance to develop organically.  But that never works quite as well, because it is less grass-roots, and it costs a lot more too.

 

I also find it interesting that while people want to argue that this is just the nature of things, no one has a right to live in a place, we don't always say that in analogous situations.  When the enclosure of common lands happened in the English system, it was another version of the same thing really - pushing off those with less power for the benefit of the wealthy, even though historically they had the right to use those lands. 

 

We don't tend to accept it as natural when foreign businesses or individuals buy up so much land that citizens cannot buy homes - we seem somehow to think that citizenship gives us some moral claim over a place to live in our own country.  But why does that only apply at a national level - our connection is to land and community in a much more direct way than it is to citizenship, which is a sort of abstraction of it.

[Bluegoat]

I thought the main complaint is that it results in landlords raising the rent, making it unaffordable for long-time residents to renew their leases.

 

Also, property taxes.  Or the owner sells the property. 

 

It also happens that people who own their homes may sell because it gives them a chance to make a profit.  That will be good for them, but it is not usually as good for the community as a whole, because it is normally outsiders that will be moving in. (And in many cases the people who come from outside never have the same investment in the community - they do not spend as much time there because they pursue recreation and work elsewhere, they tend to work longer hours and have less need for free community resources, they are less likely to need help from neighbours. )  In any case, less and less housing stock is available for the long-time residents.

 

It's common for public properties to be sold or even given to developers.

 

Public services that less well off people need may become scarce (laundromats, say) while the new businesses will tend to be things they cannot afford to use and would feel out of place in anyway (like a craft brewery.)

 

In some cases people report a very uncomfortable environment being created for the less well off.  Sometimes the building schemes can make that worse - it is not uncommon in new developments for cities to insist on a % of affordable housing units.  But building designs will often not give the people in those apartments access to the nicer features of the building, or even allow them to use the same entrance.

 

One of the things that is totally illogical that people say is that when this happens, people are better off because a neighbourhood with problems becomes nicer.  That might be true if the same people were there.  But actually most of the time those people are now somewhere else that is not nice.  So - there is still a not-nice neighbourhood, just in a different place, and probably with a less cohesive community.

 

A lot of the areas that are now becoming the low-income areas or even slums are actually suburbs.  THe move back to cities has become so extreme that the poor are being forced out into suburbs.  Which tends to isolate them from jobs even more, so it is a stupid way to do things for the economic health of the city too.

[SKL]

In the low-income neighborhoods near me, this happens, but many/most people own their own homes.  So it is considered a benefit to see the neighborhoods cleaned up and attractive to more moderate / upper income families, businesses, etc.

[Farrar]

The suburbs are great places to live, and the urban areas can be great places to live. Some want newer homes, and some want older homes. Some like things a bit more spread out, and some like  crowded and dense.

 

Everybody commutes to a job. All over the city. Buses, trains, cars, bikes, etc.

 

You find a job, and you go there.

 

I'm white, and I've used the bus for years and years and years to get to jobs here, there and everywhere, all the while living in the suburbs. Many times the jobs were down in the urban area. I never complained nor felt like a victim.

 

This attitude seems very ill informed. Some suburbs are great places to live. Others are not. Some urban areas are great places to live and others are not. The way you have stated it here implies that suburbs are universally good and urban areas are not. In reality, if you're poor, some suburbs are a terrible place to live. Less public transit, less centralized services. Plus, there can be the added burdens of more discrimination toward the poor or, alternately, the suburb itself can be poorer and more rundown than the urban area, but without the benefit of services like nearby police.

 

People making choices about where they live may not be deciding based on the age of the home/building or the population density - that's a benefit of gentrifiers and people who are middle class - those are the people who can pick where they live based on those issues. Poor people may have to choose to live somewhere that is the opposite of what they want because they have to choose based solely on price.

 

I often use public transit to get around so I definitely don't think using public transit makes one a victim. However, when the only places a person can afford to live mean they have many hours of commute including walking, changing buses, etc. to get to the only place with jobs, then that is a problem for communities in my opinion.

[Farrar]

When we make communities more transient, all of a sudden there is a need to start dealing with these issues through government, because they never have a chance to develop organically.  But that never works quite as well, because it is less grass-roots, and it costs a lot more too.

 

This issue of transience is one of the biggest effects I have seen of gentrification. At an upscale burger place up the street that used to be the lobby of a movie theater before the 68 riots, we met an older woman who remembered going to movies there as a teen and we thought that was pretty cool. But, seriously, we've been here a scant 15 years and people treat US like we treated her sometimes. Wow, you were here before the Target! I mean, I get it, it's changed a lot, but there's so little sense of connection within the community anymore.