Sir's blog

Wrong on So Many Levels

This term may seem foreign to some but I have been hearing this word alot recently. I’ve not only been hearing it from friends but i have also been hearing it on the news. So i have to find out what it is right?

Well Wikipedia defines gentrification as :”refer[ing] to the changes that result when wealthier people (“gentry”) acquire or rent property in low income and working class communities”. And …

from the other perspective one may wonder why woiuld rich people want to buy property in poor neighborhoods? Don’t they try to avoid them anyways…..

Yes this is true but the way this is set up it is more of a long term strategy to elevate the cost of living in neighborhoods so that the native inhabitants will be virtually forced to move out…

That sounds kind of familiar, I remember natives inhabiting areas around here and being forced out. I also remember them fighting back although unsuccesfully. A few ways inner city communities are fighting back gainst gentrification is starting businesses in the communities so that corporations have a tougher time coming in and dramatically raising the standard of living. This clearly is very hard for the working poor do most of the time these mom and pop stores are displaced because they simply cannot compete with larger corporations who mass produce and outsource everything.

You can’t make a connection simply based on that coincidence. but uh this is my blog so I can do that. I believe so at least. I honestly havent checked if we could or not.

But as a structure, gentrification’s strategy is to slowly displace the poor residents of the community who are unable to pay the ever increasing rent and property taxes. Pretty soon more affluent people start to move in and they have more money which attracts businesses that are suited to the affluent and not the working poor. Pretty soon the prices in these stores will be too high for the natives and it ends up being cheaper to live in suburban areas.

For a specific example of gentrification I went to my favorite friend, the internet. here is what I dug up.

Laws.com gave specific examples of succesful gentrification in certain areas, of New York it said,

New York City strives to maintain a prominent reputation. In order to maintain it, gentrification is necessary. In 2003 alone, 225,000 renters were forced to move out of their neighborhood for financial reasons. Of those 225,000 renters, 96,000 of them were directly displaced either by their landlord or a government official.

I had to read this a couple of times to realize that this was not an anti gentrification website. I realized not everyone thinks it is wrong to make natives leave there home dwellings without treaty. Some say it is even necessary. This is when one has to look at themselves and look at this situation from a different perspective. What if i was the affluent person? What would be good about moving into somewhere I feel is a dangerous place? (from the affluent perspective). I get upset that they would want to live where we are but not among us but then i start to get proud of what is going on. They see beauty and value in the land we live on right now. They like our situation. That situation being close to everyone. Being able to go downtown from anywhere in the city is kind of neat and I think we take that for granted sometimes.

The article then starts to discuss how long this process has been going on and even describes the new inhabitant’s feelings o the natives they displaced.

New York City is an interesting example because its neighborhoods have been experiencing gentrification for over 30 years. Those neighborhoods are now some of the nicest in the city but people are no longer thinking about those that were displaced decades ago.

And again you read this and from my perspective it’s easy to get upset because they weren’t thinking about the people they affected by their curiousity as I guess you should call it.

But again, looking at it from the affluent perspective. Perhaps they were then and are now unaware about the consequences of them wanting to move into low income areas. but certain things are no fault of theirs as well though. Corporations are the ones who follow the money trail and follow affluent people into formerly low income areas. They want to sell to the money not the area. similar to affluent people wanting to live in low income areas but not with low income individuals.

And then the best part of this article is the end of this section it states

Many of the original residents of areas that have become gentrified in New York City have managed to stay. Those residents often seem appreciative of the new environment. They now can raise their family in a nicer, safer neighborhood without having to move. While they may struggle to stay in the area for financial reasons, they feel in the long run their children will benefit from growing up in the gentrified area and will also be able to one day afford living in the gentrified neighborhood.

 

You can look at this from many perspectives obviously but it is just interesting to me that people only recognize the quality people in “bad” neighborhoods once someone lives next to them. It is clear that poverty level and crime are related and it should be expected that people who can afford to live in affluent areas will have less problems with crime. Since now the police will move to low income areas to get arrests.