Gentrification and
urban gentrification denote the socio-economic, commercial, and demographic change in an
urban areaAn urban area is characterized by higher population density and vast human features in comparison to areas surrounding it. Urban areas may be cities, towns or conurbations, but the term is not commonly extended to rural settlements such as villages and hamlets.Urban areas are created and further...
resulting from wealthier people buying housing property in a poor community. Consequent to gentrification, the average income increases and average family size decreases in the community, which may result in the informal economic eviction of the lower-income residents, because of increased rents, house prices, and property taxes. This type of population change reduces industrial
land useLand use is the human modification of natural environment or wilderness into built environment such as fields, pastures, and settlements. The major effect of land use on land cover since 1750 has been deforestation of temperate regions. More recent significant effects of land use include urban...
when it is redeveloped for commerce and housing. In addition, new businesses, catering to a more affluent and sophisticated base of consumers, tend to move into formerly blighted areas, further increasing the appeal to more affluent migrants and decreasing the accessibility to less wealthy natives.
Urban gentrification occasionally changes the culturally heterogeneous character of a community to a more economically homogeneous community that some describe as having a suburban character. This process is sometimes made feasible by government-sponsored private real estate investment repairing the local
infrastructureInfrastructure can be defined as the basic physical and organizational structures needed for the operation of a society or enterprise, or the services and facilities necessary for an economy to function....
, via deferred taxes, mortgages for poor and for first-time house buyers, and financial incentives for the owners of decayed rental housing. Once in place, these
economic developmentEconomic development is the increase in the standard of living of a nation's population associated with sustained growth from a simple, low-income economy to a modern, high-income economy...
actions tend to reduce local property crime, increase property values and prices, increase tax revenues, and increase the social acceptance of gay people and racial and ethnic minorities.
Political action, to either promote or oppose the gentrification, is often the community’s response against unintended economic eviction effected with rising rents that make continued residence in their dwellings unfeasible. The rise in property values causes
property taxProperty tax, or millage tax, is an ad valorem tax that an owner is required to pay on the value of the property being taxed. Property tax can be defined as "generally, tax imposed by municipalities upon owners of property within their jurisdiction based on the value of such property."There are...
es based on property values to increase; resident owners unable to pay the taxes are forced to sell their dwellings and move to a cheaper community.
Origin and etymology
Gentrification has happened since ancient times; in Britain large villas were replacing small shops by the third century. The word
gentrification is of much later origin. It derives from
gentryGentry denotes “well-born and well-bred people” occupying the social class of the minor aristocracy, and whose income derives from their large landholdings.- British :...
, which is derived from the Old French word
genterise denoting “of gentle birth” (14th c.) and “people of gentle birth” (16th c.); which in England denoted the highest social class below the
nobilityNobility is a state-privileged status which is generally hereditary, but which may also be personal only. Titles of nobility are usually associated with present or former monarchies. The term originally referred to those who were "known" or "notable" and was applied to the highest social class in...
. In 1964 the British sociologist Ruth Glass coined the term “gentrification” to denote the influx of middle-class people to cities and neighborhoods, displacing the lower-class worker residents; the example was
London[]London is the capital of England and the United Kingdom. It has been a major settlement for two millennia, and the history of London goes back to its founding by the Romans, when it was named Londinium. London's core, the ancient City of London, the 'square mile', retains its medieval boundaries...
, and its working-class districts such as
IslingtonIslington is the central district of the London Borough of Islington. It is an inner-city district in London, spanning from Islington High Street to Highbury Fields, encompassing the area around the busy Upper Street...
:
In the US, the
Centers for Disease Control and PreventionThe Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is a United States federal agency under the Department of Health and Human Services based in Atlanta, Georgia. It works to protect public health and safety by providing information to enhance health decisions, and it promotes health through...
report Health Effects of Gentrification
defines the real estateReal estate is a legal term that encompasses land along with anything permanently affixed to the land, such as buildings, specifically property that is fixed in location.
"Real estate" The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Houghton Mifflin...
concept of gentrification as “the transformation of neighborhoods from low value to high value. This change has the potential to cause displacement of long-time residents and businesses . . . when long-time or original neighborhood residents move from a gentrified area because of higher rents, mortgages, and property taxes. Gentrification is a housing, economic, and health issue that affects a community’s history and culture and reduces
social capitalSocial capital is a sociological concept used in business, economics, organizational behaviour, political science, public health and the social sciences in general to refer to connections within and between social networks...
. It often shifts a neighborhood’s characteristics (e.g. racial–ethnic composition and household income), by adding new stores and resources in previously run-down neighborhoods.”
In the Brookings Institution report Dealing with Neighborhood Change: A Primer on Gentrification and Policy Choices (2001), Maureen Kennedy and Paul Leonard say that "the term 'gentrification' is both imprecise and quite politically charged", suggesting its redefinition as "the process by which higher income households displace lower income residents of a neighborhood, changing the essential character and flavor of that neighborhood", so distinguishing it from the different socio-economic process of “neighborhood (or urban) revitalization”, although the terms are sometimes used interchangeably.
Causes
Two discrete, sociologic theories explain and justify gentrification as an economic process (production-side theory) and as a social process (consumption-side theory) that occurs when the
suburbSuburbs are defined in various different ways around the world. They can be the residential areas of a large city, or separate residential communities within commuting distance of a city. Some suburbs have a degree of political autonomy, and most have lower population density than inner city...
an
gentryGentry denotes “well-born and well-bred people” occupying the social class of the minor aristocracy, and whose income derives from their large landholdings.- British :...
tire of the automobile-dependent
urban sprawlUrban sprawl, also known as suburban sprawl, is the spreading outwards of a city and its suburbs over rural land and to its outskirts. The problem of urban sprawl is that it is costly to initiate the development of new infrastructure adequate enough to support its residents...
style of life; thus, professionals,
empty nestEmpty nest syndrome is a general feeling of loneliness that parents or guardians may feel when one or more of their children leave home, being more common in women...
aged parents, and recent university graduates perceive the attractiveness of the city center—earlier abandoned during
white flightWhite flight is the sociologic and demographic term denoting the trend wherein white people flee desegregated urban communities, and move to other places like commuter towns; although an American coinage, “white flight” denotes like behavior in other countries. In the U.S. the Brown v...
—especially if the poor community possesses a transport hub and its architecture sustains the
pedestrianA pedestrian is a person traveling on foot, whether walking or running. In some communities, those traveling using roller skates, skateboards, and similar devices are also considered to be pedestrians. In modern times, the term mostly refers to someone walking on a road or footpath, but this was...
traffic that allows the proper human relations impeded by (sub)urban sprawl.
Production-side theory
The production-side theory of urban gentrification derives from the work of Professor
Neil SmithNeil Smith, born 1954 in Leith, Scotland, is a Distinguished Professor of Anthropology and Geography, and the Director of the Center for Place, Culture and Politics, at the Graduate Center department of the City University of New York...
, explaining gentrification as an
economicEconomics is the social science that studies the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. The term economics comes from the Ancient Greek from + , hence "rules of the house"...
process consequent to the fluctuating relationships among
capitalIn economics, capital or capital goods or real capital are factors of production used to create goods or services that are not themselves significantly consumed in the production process. Capital goods may be acquired with money or financial capital...
investments and the production of
urbanAn urban area is characterized by higher population density and vast human features in comparison to areas surrounding it. Urban areas may be cities, towns or conurbations, but the term is not commonly extended to rural settlements such as villages and hamlets.Urban areas are created and further...
space. Low rents in the city’s periphery, during the two decades after the
Second World WarWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including all great powers, organized into two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
(1939–45), provoked continuous diversions of city housing capital for the development of
suburbSuburbs are defined in various different ways around the world. They can be the residential areas of a large city, or separate residential communities within commuting distance of a city. Some suburbs have a degree of political autonomy, and most have lower population density than inner city...
s and rural areas. That spending of city money on suburbs then
devaluedDevaluation is a reduction in the value of a currency with respect to other monetary units. In common modern usage, it specifically implies an official lowering of the value of a country's currency within a fixed exchange rate system, by which the monetary authority formally sets a new fixed rate...
inner-city capital property, provoked the economic abandonment of the city in favor of peripheral rural property, consequently, the low price of inner-city land, relative to the high price of rural land. From this derives the Rent-gap Theory describing the disparity between "the actual capitalized ground rent (land price) of a plot of land given its present use, and the potential ground rent that might be gleaned under a 'higher and better' use".
The rent gap is fundamental to explaining gentrification as an economic process. When the gap is sufficiently wide, real estate developers,
landlordLandlord is the owner of a house, apartment, condominium, or real estate which is rented or leased to an individual or business, who is called a tenant . When a juristic person is in this position the term landlord is used. Other terms include lessor and owner...
s, and other people with vested interests in the development of land perceive the potential
profitIn economics, economic profit is the difference between a company's total revenue and its opportunity costs. It is the increase in wealth that an investor has from making an investment, taking into consideration all costs associated with that investment including the opportunity cost of...
to be derived from re-investing in inner-city properties and redeveloping them for new tenants. Such redevelopment effectively closes the rent gap, leading to higher rents, mortgages, and lease rates affordable by the new tenants, but not by the original working-poor tenants.
Furthermore, the de-industrialization of a city reduces the number of blue-collar jobs available to the urban
working classWorking class is a term used in academic sociology and in ordinary conversation to describe, depending on context and speaker, those employed in lower tier jobs as measured by skill, education, and compensation....
—lost investment capital needed to physically maintain the houses and buildings of the city. De-industrialization is often integral to the growth of a divided
white collarWhite collar could refer to:* White-collar worker refers to a salaried professional or an educated worker who performs semi-professional office, administrative, and sales coordination tasks, as opposed to a blue-collar worker, whose job requires manual labor....
employmentEmployment is a contract between two parties, one being the employer and the other being the employee. An employee may be defined as: "A person in the service of another under any contract of hire, express or implied, oral or written, where the employer has the power or right to control and direct...
tertiary sector of industryThe tertiary sector of economy is one of the three economic sectors, the others being the secondary sector and the primary sector...
, some of whom take the
professionalA professional is a member of a vocation founded upon specialised educational training.The word professional traditionally means a person who has obtained a degree in a professional field...
and
managementManagement in all business and human organization activity is simply the act of getting people together to accomplish desired goals and objectives. Management comprises planning, organizing, staffing, leading, directing, facilitating and controlling or manipulating an organization or effort for...
jobs that follow the spatial centralization of capital—i.e.
corporationA corporation is a legal entity separate from the shareholders and employees. In British tradition it is the term designating a body corporate, where it can be either a corporation sole or a corporation aggregate...
s’ requiring that employees live near their workplace to reduce corporate decision-making time.
Consumption-side theory
The consumption-side
theory of urban gentrification posits that the “socio-cultural characteristics and motives” of the gentrifiers are most important to understanding the gentrification of the post-industrial city —characterised by an "employment profile focused on advanced services ... [a] profile that is materialized in a downtown skyline of office towers, arts and leisure sites, and political institutions. Its middle-class ambiance may be reflected in a distinctive politics, charged with a responsible social ethos ... the demand for more amenities, for greater beauty and a better quality of life in the arrangement of our cities".
As such, David Ley posits a rehabilitated post-industrial city influenced by a "new
middle classThe middle class are any class in the middle of a social schema. In Weberian socio-economic terms they are the broad group of people in contemporary society who fall socioeconomically between the working class and upper class. In Marxist terms, middle class commonly refers to either the...
" containing a cultural sub-class denominated as a
creative classThe Creative Class is a socioeconomic class that economist and social scientist Dr. Richard Florida, a professor and head of the Martin Prosperity Institute at the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto, identifies as a key driving force for economic development of post-industrial...
of artists, teachers, and cultural administrators. They are the first-stage gentrifiers economically preparing the inner city for gentrification—by introducing to the city the rich
bourgeoisHistorically, the bourgeoisie were a social class of people, characterized by their ownership of capital and the related culture. They were a part of the middle or merchant classes of European feudalism, where their power came from employment, education, and wealth, as distinguished from those...
politics characterised by diminished public funding for housing affordable to middle- and low-income residents, draconian residency laws against the homeless and the poor displaced when "artists move into otherwise undesirable buildings, [and] usually make significant improvements to their spaces, and their surrounding areas. Everyone benefits from these tenuous and uneasy ... arrangements. Then, landlords becoming aware that they are sitting on gold mines, rush to cash in".
To wit, sociologist
Sharon ZukinSharon Zukin is a professor of sociology at Brooklyn College and the Graduate Center, City University of New York. She is the author of several works that study the culture and economy, shopping and spaces of consumption, urban development and art, real estate and racial ghettos.- Selected works...
reports the economic realities of the “artist loft” real estate business in Manhattan, when the owners of the building where she resided converted it to a
"co-op"A cooperative is defined by the International Co-operative Alliance's Statement on the Co-operative Identity as an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social, and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly-owned and...
administration in 1979, and she "bade good-bye to the manufacturers, an artist, and several residents who could not afford the market prices at which our lofts were sold". In the event, rich lawyers and accountants, retail business people and investment bankers replaced the suburban “starving artist”
bohemianBohemianism is the practice of an unconventional lifestyle, often in the company of like-minded people, involving musical, artistic or literary pursuits, with few permanent ties...
“first-stage gentrifiers” who initiated the gentrification of Hell's Kitchen, in mid-town New York City,
HarlemHarlem is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Manhattan, long known as a major African-American residential, cultural, and business center. Originally a Dutch village, formally organized in 1658, it is named after the city of Haarlem in the Netherlands.Harlem has been defined by a series...
,
Washington HeightsWashington Heights is a New York City neighborhood in the northern reaches of the borough of Manhattan. It is named for Fort Washington, a fortification constructed at the highest point on Manhattan island by Continental Army troops during the American Revolutionary War, to defend the area from the...
,
AstoriaAstoria is a neighborhood in the northwestern corner of the borough of Queens in New York City. Located in Community Board 1, Astoria is bounded by the East River and is adjacent to three other Queens neighborhoods: Long Island City, Sunnyside , and Woodside...
, and areas of
BrooklynBrooklyn is one of the five boroughs of New York City, located southwest of Queens on the western tip of Long Island. An independent city until its consolidation with New York in 1898, Brooklyn is New York City's most populous borough, with 2.5 million residents, and second largest in area...
.
Professor Smith and Marxist sociologists explain gentrification as a
structuralStructuralism is an approach to the human sciences that attempts to analyze a specific field as a complex system of interrelated parts. It began in linguistics with the work of Ferdinand de Saussure...
economic process; Ley explains gentrification as a natural outgrowth of increased professional employment in the
central business districtA central business district is the commercial and often geographic heart of a city...
(CBD), and the creative sub-class’s predilection for city living. "Liberal Ideology and the Post-Industrial City" (1980) describes and deconstructs the TEAM committee’s effort to rendering Vancouver, BC, Canada, a "livable city". The investigators Rose, Beauregard, Mullins, Moore et al., who base themselves upon Ley’s ideas, posit that "gentrifiers and their social and cultural characteristics [are] of crucial importance for an understanding of gentrification"—theoretical work Chris Hamnet criticized as insufficiently comprehensive, for not incorporating the "supply of dwellings and the role of developers [and] speculators in the process".
Economic globalization
Gentrification is integral to the
new economyThe New Economy was an evolution of developed countries from an industrial/manufacturing-based wealth producing economy into a service sector asset-based economy, brought about by globalization and currency manipulation by governments and their central banks, following strategic changes influenced...
of centralized, high-level services work—the "new urban economic core of banking and service activities that come to replace the older, typically
manufacturingManufacturing is the use of machines, tools and labor to make things for use or sale. The term may refer to a range of human activity, from handicraft to high tech, but is most commonly applied to industrial production, in which raw materials are transformed into finished goods on a large scale...
-oriented, core" that displaces middle-class retail businesses so they might be "replaced by upmarket boutiques and restaurants catering to new high-income urban élites". In the context of
globalizationGlobalization describes an ongoing process by which regional economies, societies, and cultures have become integrated through a globe-spanning network of communication and exchange....
, the city’s importance is determined by its ability to function as a discrete socio-economic entity, given the lesser import of national borders, resulting in de-industrialized global cities and
economic restructuringEconomic restructuring refers to the phenomenon of Western urban areas shifting from a manufacturing to a service sector economic base. This transformation has affected demographics including income distribution, employment, and social hierarchy; institutional arrangements including the growth of...
.
To wit, the American urban theorist
John FriedmanJohn Friedman is one of the pioneering urban theorists of the late twentieth century. He founded the Graduate School of Architecture and Planning at UCLA in the late 1960...
’s seven-part theory posits a bifurcated service industry in
world citiesA global city is a city deemed to be an important node point in the global economic system. The concept comes from geography and urban studies and rests on the idea that globalization can be understood as largely created, facilitated and enacted in strategic geographic locales according to a...
, composed of "a high percentage of professionals specialized in control functions and ... a vast army of low-skilled workers engaged in ... personal services ... [that] cater to the privileged classes, for those whose sake the world city primarily exists". The final three hypotheses detail (i) the increased
immigrationImmigration is the arrival of new individuals into a habitat or population. It is a biological concept and is important in population ecology, differentiated from emigration and migration.-As a political term:...
of low-skill labourers needed to support the privileged classes, (ii) the class and caste conflict consequent to the city’s inability to support the poor people who are the service class, and (iii) the
world cityA global city is a city deemed to be an important node point in the global economic system. The concept comes from geography and urban studies and rests on the idea that globalization can be understood as largely created, facilitated and enacted in strategic geographic locales according to a...
as a function of
social classSocial classes are the hierarchical arrangements of people in society as economic or cultural groups. Class is an essential object of analysis for sociologists, political economists and social historians...
struggle—matters expanded by
Saskia SassenSaskia Sassen is an American sociologist noted for her analyses of globalization and international human migration. She is currently a professor of sociology at Columbia University and at the London School of Economics. Sassen coined the term global city...
et al. The world city’s inherent socio-economic inequality illustrates the causes of gentrification, reported in "Where Did They Go? The Decline of Middle-Income Neighborhoods in Metropolitan America" (2006) demonstrating
geographical segregationGeographical segregation exists whenever the proportions of population rates of two or more populations are not homogenous throughout a defined space...
by income in US cities, wherein middle-income (middle class) neighborhoods decline, while poor neighborhoods and rich neighborhoods remain stable.
Demographic shifts
In US cities, the suburban gentrifiers often resemble the populace who earlier abandoned the city in their
white flightWhite flight is the sociologic and demographic term denoting the trend wherein white people flee desegregated urban communities, and move to other places like commuter towns; although an American coinage, “white flight” denotes like behavior in other countries. In the U.S. the Brown v...
, thus gentrification is merely reverse white flight from culturally barren suburbia to the culturally fertile city. The consumption-side theory of gentrification requires the existence of a service sector economic class of university-educated adults (aged 25–45) with much disposable income who live near their jobs in the city. This economic class was realised when most Western economies metamorphosed from
manufacturingManufacturing is the use of machines, tools and labor to make things for use or sale. The term may refer to a range of human activity, from handicraft to high tech, but is most commonly applied to industrial production, in which raw materials are transformed into finished goods on a large scale...
to
post-industrialA post-industrial society is a society in which an economic transition has occurred from a manufacturing based economy to a service based economy, a diffusion of national and global capital, and mass privatization. The prerequisites to this economic shift are the processes of industrialization and...
service economiesService economy can refer to one or both of two recent economic developments. One is the increased importance of the service sector in industrialized economies. Services account for a higher percentage of US GDP than 20 years ago...
, which, analogously, created many low-wage, low-skill service jobs (retail sales clerks, waitresses, janitors, et al.) replacing the factory jobs exported via urban de-industrialization.
In turn, that depletes the supply of affordable housing for the original, low-wage (working poor) residents, thus, the
ghettoOriginally used in Venice to describe the area where Jews were compelled to live, a ghetto is now described as a "portion of a city in which members of a minority group live; especially because of social, legal, or economic pressure." - Etymology :...
and
slumA slum, as defined by the United Nations agency UN-HABITAT, is a run-down area of a city characterized by substandard housing and squalor and lacking in tenure security. According to the United Nations, the proportion of urban dwellers living in slums decreased from 47 percent to 37 percent in the...
conditions of generations of a poor family residing in the same house or apartment, because the young—who might have become economically emancipated upon graduating from high school—cannot be independent because “the market” offers only luxury
condominiaA condominium, or condo, is the form of housing tenure and other real property where a specified part of a piece of real estate is individually owned while use of and access to common facilities in the piece such as hallways, heating system, elevators, exterior areas is executed under legal rights...
, not apartments, (cf. the Freeter phenomenon).
Gentrification-increased property values are a positive economic development for cities when tax revenues increase consequent to increased property values; yet property owners experience that as increased
property taxProperty tax, or millage tax, is an ad valorem tax that an owner is required to pay on the value of the property being taxed. Property tax can be defined as "generally, tax imposed by municipalities upon owners of property within their jurisdiction based on the value of such property."There are...
es. In turn, increased taxes force the original long-term property owners to either pay and stay (via higher rents for their tenants) or to sell and leave the gentry’s community. Like-wise, the rises hurt the original working poor residents, usually renters, who, in due course, are economically evicted via increased rents. In gentrified communities without strong rent-control laws, the working poor are informally evicted when they cannot afford gentry rents. Resultantly, such economically-limited people usually oppose gentrification, because it destroys “the community” that first attracted the gentrifiers to the city—despite the
gentry’sGentry denotes “well-born and well-bred people” occupying the social class of the minor aristocracy, and whose income derives from their large landholdings.- British :...
claims of “improving the city” via gentrification. Recent research demonstrates gentrification’s negative consequences upon voting (democratic political participation), wherein fewer people vote in gentrified communities in US and Canadian cities.
Gentrifier types
The suburban middle-class typically do not occupy a “new” city neighborhood en masse—but (usually) begin
urban gentrification via “first-stage gentrifiers”, economically- and socially-marginal “trend setters” (aka "urban pioneers", a term of racist connotation). Sociologically, these people usually are young, have low incomes, despite possessing the
cultural capitalThe term Cultural capital refers to non-financial assets that involve educational, social, and intellectual knowledge provided to children who grow up in non-wealthy but highly-educated and intellectually-sophisticated families...
(education and a job), characteristic of the suburban
bourgeoisHistorically, the bourgeoisie were a social class of people, characterized by their ownership of capital and the related culture. They were a part of the middle or merchant classes of European feudalism, where their power came from employment, education, and wealth, as distinguished from those...
. They often reside in communal (room-mate) households, and so are more tolerant of the suburban-perceived evils of the city—crime, poor schools, insufficient public services, few shops, and the presence of non-white people—that dissuade suburban middle-class families from living in the city.
The gentrification of a city community proceeds when the number of trend-setters multiplies to the degree that business re-investment reappears as the social amenities the bourgeoisie values—bars, restaurants, and commercial art galleries. The renewed business attracts other people of like socio-economic outlook, and investment capital follows, thus increasing local property values. Once the pioneer business entrepreneurs haven taken the financial risk out of the gentrified city community, timid investors and residents flow (invest) to the “new” city neighborhood.
Upon full gentrification, the “first-stage gentrifiers” are (informally) economically evicted from their old, but “now-fashionable” urban neighborhood, via higher rents, mortgages, et cetera. In due cultural course, as “urban pioneers” they move on to the appropriately poor, adjacent community now ready for their first-stage gentrification. This
sector modelThe sector model also known as the Hoyt model is a model of urban land use proposed in 1939 by economist Homer Hoyt. It is a modification of the concentric zone model of city development. The benefits of the application of this model include the fact it allows for an outward progression of growth...
of urban residential succession—neighborhoods trickling from the first to the next socio-economic class, from the wealthiest residents who are linearly moving out from the
central business districtA central business district is the commercial and often geographic heart of a city...
—works in reverse, but the "invasion–succession" process of urban residential succession proceeds in like fashion.
Urban gentrification does not require these intermediary steps, but urban residential succession greatly facilitates it, as in the London Docklands, and other
CBDA central business district is the commercial and often geographic heart of a city...
-adjacent urban renewal projects, and the comprehensive public-housing redevelopment of the
Cabrini-GreenCabrini-Green is a Chicago Housing Authority 12 public housing development on Chicago's North Side, bordered by Evergreen Avenue on the north, Sedgwick Street on the east, Chicago Ave on the south, and Halsted Street on the west. At its peak, Cabrini-Green was home to 15,000 people, living in mid-...
ghettoOriginally used in Venice to describe the area where Jews were compelled to live, a ghetto is now described as a "portion of a city in which members of a minority group live; especially because of social, legal, or economic pressure." - Etymology :...
in Chicago, Illinois, in the US, wherein government and large private developers invested in poor communities with capital sufficient to forgo the intermediate stages of gentrification; thus a
Community Development CorporationCommunity Development Corporation is a broad term referring to not-for-profit organizations incorporated to provide programs, offer services and engage in other activities that promote and support a community. CDCs usually serve a geographic location such as a neighborhood or a town. They often...
successfully stabilised an urban neighborhood so that the middle class desired to live there. Some examples are
Roxbury, MassachusettsRoxbury is a neighborhood within Boston, Massachusetts USA. It was one of the first towns founded in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1630, and became a city in 1846 until annexed to Boston on January 5, 1868. The original town of Roxbury once included the current Boston neighborhoods of Jamaica...
; the
Near South Side, ChicagoThe Near South Side is a community area of Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, United States. It is located just south of the downtown central business district, the Loop, which is itself a community area...
; and
HarlemHarlem is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Manhattan, long known as a major African-American residential, cultural, and business center. Originally a Dutch village, formally organized in 1658, it is named after the city of Haarlem in the Netherlands.Harlem has been defined by a series...
,
New York CityNew York is the most populous city in the United States, and the center of the New York metropolitan area, which is among the most populous urban areas in the world. A leading global city, New York exerts a powerful influence over worldwide commerce, finance, culture, fashion and entertainment...
, and, in Europe
Prenzlauer BergPrenzlauer Berg is a locality of Berlin, in the borough of Pankow.Until 2001, Prenzlauer Berg was a borough of Berlin; in that year it was included in the borough of Pankow....
, Berlin;
AltonaAltona is the westernmost urban borough of the German city state of Hamburg, on the right bank of the Elbe river. From 1640 to 1864 Altona was under the administration of the Danish monarchy. Altona was an independent city until 1937. In 2006 the population was 243,972.- History :It was founded...
, Hamburg;
Ferencváros----Ferencváros is the 9th district of Budapest , Hungary.- Name :The southern suburb of Pest was named after King Francis I on 4 December 1792 when he was crowned king of Hungary.- History :...
, Budapest; and
IslingtonIslington is the central district of the London Borough of Islington. It is an inner-city district in London, spanning from Islington High Street to Highbury Fields, encompassing the area around the busy Upper Street...
, London.
Sub-culture aficionados
In the course of gentrification, an
artist colonyAn art colony or artists' colony is a place where creative practitioners live and interact with one another. Artists are often invited or selected through a formal process, for a residency from a few weeks to over a year...
in the city is transformed from a poor to a rich neighborhood when artists and sub-culture aficionados (e.g.
hipsterHipster is a slang term that first appeared in the 1940s, and was revived in the 1990s and 2000s often to describe types of young, recently-settled urban middle class adults and older teenagers with interests in non-mainstream fashion and culture, particularly alternative music, independent rock,...
s,
hippieThe hippie subculture was originally a youth movement that began in the United States during the early 1960s and spread around the world. The word hippie derives from hipster, and was initially used to describe beatniks who had moved into San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury district...
s, et al.) live in poor neighborhoods of devalued
real estateReal estate is a legal term that encompasses land along with anything permanently affixed to the land, such as buildings, specifically property that is fixed in location.
"Real estate" The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Houghton Mifflin...
, because of the low rents, central locale in the city proper, and "gritty" cultural “sense of authenticity”, of being true to life. As the
bohemianBohemianism is the practice of an unconventional lifestyle, often in the company of like-minded people, involving musical, artistic or literary pursuits, with few permanent ties...
character of the community grows, it appeals "not only to committed participants, but also to sporadic consumers" who eventually economically push out the earlier arrival sub-culture aficionados. Hence gentrification’s economic eviction of hippies from the
East Village, ManhattanThe East Village is a neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It lies east of Greenwich Village, south of Gramercy and Stuyvesant Town, and north of the Lower East Side...
, New York City, in the 1960s:
Throughout the 1960s and 1970s,
Manhattan loftA Manhattan loft is a one room residence in a formerly commercial building. As such, they must abide by the New York Loft Law. There are special which the city has limited to working artists....
s in
SoHoSoHo is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Manhattan. Originally associated with the arts, it has since become famous for both destination shopping and its downtown scene...
were converted en masse into housing for artists and hippies, and then their sub-culture followers. As the price of living—and consequent social status—in those neighborhoods rose, the artists moved to
Park Slope, BrooklynPark Slope is a neighborhood in the western section of Brooklyn, New York City's most populous borough. Park Slope is roughly bounded by Prospect Park West to the east, Fourth Avenue to the west, Flatbush Avenue to the north, and the Prospect Expressway to the south, though other definitions are...
and
Hoboken, New JerseyHoboken is a city in Hudson County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2000 United States Census, the city's population was 38,577. The city is part of the New York metropolitan area and contains Hoboken Terminal, a major transportation hub for the region...
, and
Williamsburg, BrooklynWilliamsburg is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Brooklyn, bordering Greenpoint, Bedford-Stuyvesant, and Bushwick. The neighborhood is part of Brooklyn Community Board 1. The neighborhood is served by the NYPD's 90th Precinct....
. The areas from where gentrification is evicting hipsters run the
BMT Canarsie LineThe Canarsie Line is a rapid transit line of the BMT Division of the New York City Subway system, named after its terminus in the Canarsie neighborhood of Brooklyn...
and
IND Crosstown LineThe Crosstown Line or Brooklyn–Queens Crosstown Line is a rapid transit line of the B Division of the New York City Subway in Brooklyn and Queens, New York City, United States...
of the
New York City SubwayThe New York City Subway is a rapid transit system owned by the City of New York and leased to the New York City Transit Authority, a subsidiary agency of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and also known as MTA New York City Transit...
system, for being near Williamsburg. Adjacent hipster enclaves include neighboring Bushwick and Flatbush although these neighborhoods are also seeing higher rents. Like gentrification occurred throughout the 1990s and 2000s in the East Village and the Lower East Side of New York City, economically pushing out theatres and performance-art spaces such as Collective:Unconscious,
Surf RealitySurf Reality's House of Urban Savages, also known as Surf Reality, was a 65 seat performance venue on Manhattan's Lower East Side from 1993-2003...
, House of Candles, Piano's (Theater), and
The Present CompanyThe Present Company is a theater company in New York City and the producing organization of the New York International Fringe Festival....
.
Gay men
Manuel CastellsManuel Castells is a sociologist especially associated with information society and communications research. The 2000–06 research survey of the Social Sciences Citation Index, ranks him as the world’s fifth most-cited social sciences scholar, and the foremost-cited communications scholar...
's seminal work about
gayThe term gay was originally used, until well into the mid-20th century, primarily to refer to feelings of being "carefree", "happy", or "bright and showy"; it had also come to acquire some connotations of "immorality" as early as 1637....
men as "gentrifiers" in San Francisco, California, shows that "many gays were single men, did not have to raise a family, were young, and connected to a relatively prosperous service economy" is a pattern replicated in other North American cities. An illustration of this sociologic phenomenon is the film
QuinceañeraQuinceañera is a 2006 American independent film written and directed by Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland. It was released as Echo Park, LA in the UK...
(2006), directed by Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland, containing a thematic sub-plot about the gentrification of the protagonists’ inner-city neighborhood.
The documentary Flag WarsFlag Wars is a 2003 American documentary film about the conflict between two communities during the gentrification of a Columbus, Ohio neighborhood. Filmed in a cinéma vérité style, the film is an account of the tension between the two historically oppressed communities of African-Americans and...
(2003), directed by Linda Goode Bryant, shows the social, class, and gender tensions in the Silk Stocking neighborhood in Columbus, Ohio, between an urban African-American community and the mostly white gays and lesbians moving in to the neighborhood, whom the original residents accused of gentrification and racism. In turn, the new residents accused the community of
homophobiaHomophobia is defined as an "irrational fear of, aversion to, or discrimination against homosexuality or homosexuals", or individuals perceived to be homosexual; it is also defined as "unreasoning fear of or antipathy toward homosexuals and homosexuality", "fear of or contempt for lesbians and gay...
. In 2006, a Washington, D.C., a religious congregation in the black
ShawShaw is a neighborhood located in the Northwest quadrant of Washington, D.C. It is roughly bounded by N Street, NW to the south; New Jersey Avenue, NW to the east; Florida Avenue, NW to the north; and 11th Street, NW to the west--although there is a westward panhandle that extends to 16th Street...
neighborhood opposed the granting of a
liquor license-Alberta:In Alberta, liquor licences are issued by the Alberta Gaming and Liquor Commission.-Ontario:In Ontario, liquor licences are issued by the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario.-United States:...
to a
gay barA gay bar is a drinking establishment that caters to an exclusively gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender clientele; the term gay is used as a broadly inclusive concept for LGBT and queer communities...
that was to open across the street from the church. The bar was successfully opened and has since been replaced by another gay bar at the same location.
Gay people are not always the gentrifiers: real estate valuation trends can push out poor gay people, as in the Polk District in San Francisco; radical
queerQueer has traditionally meant odd or unusual, though modern use often pertains to LGBT people....
activists saw the value of a poor neighborhood as refuge for the economically, sexually, and socially marginal.
Community organizing
To counter the gentrification of their mixed-populace communities, residents formally
organizedCommunity organizing is a process by which people living in proximity to each other are brought together in an organization to act in their shared self-interest. Unlike other forms of more consensual "community building," community organizers generally assume that social change necessarily...
themselves to develop the necessary socio-political strategies required to retain local affordable housing; many such organizations arose in the 1960s, and used the
pragmaticPragmatism is a philosophical movement that includes those who claim that an ideology or proposition is true if it works satisfactorily, that the meaning of a proposition is to be found in the practical consequences of accepting it, and that unpractical ideas are to be rejected. Pragmatism began in...
tactics advocated by the late
Saul AlinskySaul Alinsky was a well-known community organizer and writer. He is generally considered to be the founder of modern community organizing and has been compared to Thomas Paine as "one of the great American leaders of the nonsocialist left."In the course of nearly four decades of organizing the...
(1909–72). In the late 1960s, the
Young LordsThe Young Lords, later Young Lords Organization and in New York , Young Lords Party, was a Puerto Rican nationalist group in several United States cities, notably New York City and Chicago.-Founding:...
Chicago street gang — who were politically active in the then-Puerto Rican neighborhood of Lincoln Park — practiced the direct-action techniques of sit-in protests and occupying vacant community lands. In
Miami, FloridaMiami is a major coastal city in southeastern Florida, in the United States. Miami is the county seat of Miami-Dade County, the most populous county in Florida. With an estimated population of 424,662 in 2007, Miami is the largest city within the Miami metropolitan area, which is the...
, the Liberty City community organization “Take Back the Land” seized empty lands and built the
Umoja VillageThe Umoja Village Shantytown was founded on October 23, 2006 in the Liberty CIty section of Miami, Florida in response to gentrification and a lack of low-income housing in Miami. The name "Umoja" is Swahili for "unity", hence "Unity Village"....
shantytown for the community’s homeless people in October 2006. Like-wise, other communities established
community development corporationCommunity Development Corporation is a broad term referring to not-for-profit organizations incorporated to provide programs, offer services and engage in other activities that promote and support a community. CDCs usually serve a geographic location such as a neighborhood or a town. They often...
s that include the residents in actively developing their neighborhoods.
Direct action and sabotage
When wealthy people move into low-income, working class neighborhoods, class conflict results—sometimes manifested as “direct action and sabotage”, ranging from
vandalismVandalism is the behaviour attributed to the Vandals, by the Romans, in respect of culture: ruthless destruction or spoiling of anything beautiful or venerable...
of and
arsonArson is the crime of deliberately and maliciously setting fire to structures or wildland areas. It may be distinguished from other causes such as spontaneous combustion and natural wildfires caused by lightning for example. The study of the causes is the subject of fire investigation...
against the properties of the gentrifiers. In the late 1990s, during the dot-com boom, the gentrification of the working class
Mission District, San Francisco, CaliforniaThe Mission District, also commonly called "The Mission", is a neighborhood in San Francisco, California, USA, named after the sixth Alta California mission, Mission San Francisco de Asis...
, provoked the community’s establishing of the “Mission Yuppie Eradication Project” political action group who (allegedly) destroyed property as part of their strategy against local gentrification; their destructive politics drew hostile responses from the
San Francisco Police DepartmentThe San Francisco Police Department, also known as the SFPD and San Francisco Department Of Police is the police department of the City and County of San Francisco, California...
, local real estate interests, and from “work-within-the-system” affordable housing activists.
Inclusionary zoning
The gentrification of a mixed-income community raises
housing affordabilityAffordable housing is a term used to describe dwelling units whose total housing costs are deemed "affordable" to those that have a median income. Although the term is often applied to rental housing that is within the financial means of those in the lower income ranges of a geographical area, the...
to the fore of the community’s politics. Cities, municipalities, and counties have countered gentrification with
inclusionary zoningInclusionary zoning, also known as inclusionary housing, refers to municipal and county planning ordinances that require a given share of new construction to be affordable by people with low to moderate incomes...
(inclusionary housing)
ordinanceOrdinance may refer to:* A law made by a colony, or a municipality or other local authority, see also Local ordinance* A law or decree made by any authority or authoritative body:...
s requiring the apportionment of some new housing for the community’s original low- and moderate-income residents. Because
inclusionary zoningInclusionary zoning, also known as inclusionary housing, refers to municipal and county planning ordinances that require a given share of new construction to be affordable by people with low to moderate incomes...
is a new
socialSociology is the scientific or systematic study of human societies. It is a branch of social science that uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop and refine a body of knowledge about human social structure and activity, often with the goal of applying such...
concept, there are few reports qualifying its effective or ineffective limitation of gentrification. In Los Angeles, California, inclusionary zoning apparently accelerated gentrification, as older, unprofitable buildings were razed and replaced with mostly high-rent housing, and a small percentage of affordable housing; the net result was less affordable housing.
Zoning ordinances
Besides the informal, economic
evictionEviction is the removal of a tenant from rental property by the landlord.Depending on the laws of the jurisdiction, eviction may also be known as unlawful detainer, summary possession, summary dispossess, forcible detainer, ejectment, and repossession, among other terms...
of the community’s poorer residents, another detrimental aspect of gentrification is its negative economic impact upon the community’s commerce. Often, a neighborhood in mid-gentrification has marketable artist colony cachet that renders it popular, because of its nightlife, light industry, and arts-and-crafts businesses. In the event, the (ex-suburban) new-resident
gentryGentry denotes “well-born and well-bred people” occupying the social class of the minor aristocracy, and whose income derives from their large landholdings.- British :...
complain to local government about the artist-colony “noise”, pressuring the authorities to impose financially-onerous noise-limitation requirements that eventually (and informally) evict said urban pioneer businesses. In
New ZealandNew Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses , and numerous smaller islands, most notably Stewart Island/Rakiura and the Chatham Islands. The indigenous Māori named New Zealand Aotearoa, commonly translated as The Land of the Long White Cloud...
, this practice is called
reverse sensitivityReverse sensitivity is a term from the New Zealand planning system. It describes the impacts of newer uses on prior activities occurring in mixed-use areas. Some activities tend to have the effect of limiting the ability of established ones to continue...
, a novel approach whereby the local
gentryGentry denotes “well-born and well-bred people” occupying the social class of the minor aristocracy, and whose income derives from their large landholdings.- British :...
use land-use zones to identify feasible “reverse sensitivity” matters, i.e. “noisy neighbors” who then must meet zoning requirements mitigating their noise, or leave.
Community land trusts
Because land
speculationIn finance, speculation is a financial action that does not promise safety of the initial investment along with the return on the principal sum...
tends to raise property values, removing real estate (houses, buildings, land) from the open market stabilises property values, and thereby prevents the economic eviction of the community’s poorer residents. The most common, formal
legalLaw is a system of rules, usually enforced through a set of institutions. It shapes politics, economics and society in numerous ways and serves as a primary social mediator of relations between people. Contract law regulates everything from buying a bus ticket to trading on derivatives markets...
mechanism for such stability is the
community land trustA community land trust is a property trust which aims to benefit the surrounding community by ensuring the long-term availability of affordable housing.-Key Features of the Community Land Trust:...
; moreover, many
inclusionary zoningInclusionary zoning, also known as inclusionary housing, refers to municipal and county planning ordinances that require a given share of new construction to be affordable by people with low to moderate incomes...
ordinances formally place the "inclusionary" housing units in a
land trustThere are two distinct definitions of a land trust: 1) a private, nonprofit organization that, as all or part of its mission, actively works to conserve land by undertaking or assisting in land or conservation easement acquisition, or by its stewardship of such land or easements , and 2) an...
.
Rent control
In jurisdictions where local or national government has these powers, there may be
rent controlRent control refers to laws or ordinances that set price controls on the renting of residential housing. It functions as a price ceiling.-Rent controls around the world:Rent control exists in approximately 40 countries around the world...
regulations. Rent control restricts the rent that can be charged, so that incumbent tenants are not forced out by rising rents. If applicable to private landlords it is a disincentive to speculating with property values and reduces the incidence of dwellings left empty (and limiting availability of housing for new residents). If the law does not restrict the rent charged for dwellings that come onto the rental market (formerly owner-occupied or new build), rents in an area can still increase. The cities of southwestern
Santa MonicaSanta Monica is a city in western Los Angeles County, California, USA. Situated on Santa Monica Bay, it is surrounded on three sides by the city of Los Angeles — Pacific Palisades on the northwest, Brentwood on the north, West Los Angeles on the northeast, Mar Vista on the east, and Venice on the...
and eastern
West HollywoodWest Hollywood, a city in Los Angeles County, California, was incorporated on November 29, 1984. The latest residential population estimate was 34,675. The city is well-known for its nightlife, celebrity culture, and diverse atmosphere. The city has large gay, Jewish and eastern European populations...
in
CaliforniaCalifornia is the most populous state in the United States, and the third largest by area. California is the second most populous sub-national entity in the Americas, behind only São Paulo, Brazil...
, USA gentrified despite rent control.
Occasionally, a housing black market develops, wherein landlords withdraw houses and apartments from the market, making them available only upon payment of additional
key moneyThe term "key money" is used differently in different parts of the world. It sometimes means money paid to an existing tenant who assigns a lease to a new tenant where the rent is below market. It sometimes means a bribe to a landlord...
, fees, or bribes—thus undermining the rent control law. Many such laws allow "vacancy decontrol", releasing a dwelling from rent control upon the tenant’s leaving—resulting in steady losses of rent-controlled housing, ultimately rendering rent control laws ineffective in communities with a high rate of resident turnover. In other cases social housing owned by local authorities may be
sold to tenantsThe Right to buy scheme is a policy in the United Kingdom which gives tenants of council housing the right to buy the home they are living in. Currently there is also a right to acquire for the tenants of housing associations...
and then sold on. Vacancy decontrol encourages landlords to find ways of shortening their residents' tenure, most aggressively through
landlord harassmentLandlord harassment is the willing creation, by a landlord or their agents, of conditions that are uncomfortable for one or more tenants in order to induce willing abandonment of a rental contract. Such a strategy is often sought because it avoids costly legal expenses and potential problems with...
. To strengthen the rent control laws of New York City, USA, housing advocates active in
rent control in New YorkRent control in New York refers to rent control and rent stabilization programs in New York State, USA. Each city may choose whether to participate or not, and , 51 municipalities participated in the program, including Albany, Buffalo and most famously, New York City, where one million apartments...
are attempting to repeal the vacancy decontrol clauses of rent control laws.
MassachusettsThe Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. Most of its population of...
, USA abolished rent control in 1994; afterwards, rents rose, accelerating the pace of
BostonBoston is the capital and largest city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is considered the economic and cultural center of the region and is sometimes regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England"...
city’s gentrification; however, the laws protected few apartments, and confounding factors, such as a strong economy, had already been raising housing and rental prices.
Promoting gentrification
In Loft Living (1989),
sociologistSociology is the scientific or systematic study of human societies. It is a branch of social science that uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop and refine a body of knowledge about human social structure and activity, often with the goal of applying such...
Sharon ZukinSharon Zukin is a professor of sociology at Brooklyn College and the Graduate Center, City University of New York. She is the author of several works that study the culture and economy, shopping and spaces of consumption, urban development and art, real estate and racial ghettos.- Selected works...
reports an apparently contradictory "Artistic Mode of Production", wherein patrician capitalists seek to increase the property values (i.e. gentrify) city communities by economically recruiting and retaining artists to reside in, and commercially occupy, the
industrialLand use is the human modification of natural environment or wilderness into built environment such as fields, pastures, and settlements. The major effect of land use on land cover since 1750 has been deforestation of temperate regions. More recent significant effects of land use include urban...
buildings (usually) converted into an “artist’s loft complex”. First renting to urban pioneer “poor artists” develops the
marketableMarketing is an integrated communications-based process through which individuals and communities are informed or persuaded that existing and newly-identified needs and wants may be satisfied by the products and services of others....
artist colony cachet that appeals to suburban
gentryGentry denotes “well-born and well-bred people” occupying the social class of the minor aristocracy, and whose income derives from their large landholdings.- British :...
seeking to buy a city dwelling; the gentrification imparts a
commerciallyCommerce is a division of trade or production which deals with the exchange of goods and services from producer to final consumer. It comprises the trading of something of economic value such as goods, services, information, or money between two or more entities...
“hip” ambience to the surrounding community; in the event, property values rise.
Worldwide, cities with blighted communities effected
public policyPublic policy can be generally defined as the course of action or inaction taken by governmental entities with regard to a particular issue or set of issues...
using this
economic developmentEconomic development is the increase in the standard of living of a nation's population associated with sustained growth from a simple, low-income economy to a modern, high-income economy...
model in poor neighborhoods; in the UK, the governments of Newcastle-upon-Tyne and
LiverpoolLiverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...
, via their
regional development agenciesA regional development agency is a non-departmental public body established for the purpose of development, primarily economic, of one of England's Government Office regions. There is one RDA for each of the NUTS level 1 regions of England...
, and in partnerships with private real estate
speculatorsIn finance, speculation is a financial action that does not promise safety of the initial investment along with the return on the principal sum...
, attempted to artificially stimulate gentrification as
urban renewalUrban renewal is a program of land redevelopment in areas of moderate to high density urban land use. Its modern incarnation began in the late 19th century in developed nations and experienced an intense phase in the late 1940s – under the rubric of reconstruction...
. In the US, the
Jackson City, MichiganJackson is a city located along Interstate 94 in the south central area of the U.S. state of Michigan, about west of Ann Arbor. It is the county seat of Jackson County. As of the 2000 census, the city population was 36,316...
, city council re-developed a closed nineteenth-century state prison building-complex with
affordable housingAffordable housing is a term used to describe dwelling units whose total housing costs are deemed "affordable" to those that have a median income. Although the term is often applied to rental housing that is within the financial means of those in the lower income ranges of a geographical area, the...
in the jail-house proper, and artist-loft spaces in the other buildings of the complex.
Economically, US municipal governments use
tax increment financingTax Increment Financing, or TIF, is a public financing method which has been used for redevelopment and community improvement projects in many countries including the United States for more than 50 years. With federal and state sources for redevelopment generally less available, TIF has become an...
(TIF) to rehabilitate decayed city communities with real estate development partnerships, between the municipal governments and
public-private partnershipPublic-private partnership describes a government service or private business venture which is funded and operated through a partnership of government and one or more private sector companies...
s and non-profit organizations, and so offer
subsidizedA subsidy is a form of financial assistance paid to a business or economic sector. Most subsidies are made by the government to producers or distributors in an industry to prevent the decline of that industry or an increase in the prices of its products or simply to encourage it to hire more...
, discounted-interest-rate
mortgageA mortgage is the transfer of an interest in property to a lender as a security for a debt - usually a loan of money. While a mortgage in itself is not a debt, it is the lender's security for a debt...
s to artists who buy property and reside in neighborhoods being gentrified, e.g. the Paducah Artist Relocation Program of
PaducahPaducah is the name of multiple places in the United States of America:* Paducah, Kentucky, a city on the Ohio River* Paducah, Texas, a small town named after the city in Kentucky...
,
KentuckyThe Commonwealth of Kentucky is a state located in the East Central United States of America. Kentucky is a Southern state situated in the Upland South, although the state is infrequently placed, geographically and culturally, in the Midwest. Kentucky is one of four U.S. states constituted as a...
. Per the TIF
economic developmentEconomic development is the increase in the standard of living of a nation's population associated with sustained growth from a simple, low-income economy to a modern, high-income economy...
model, the infrastructure improvements, public subsidies to private business, and consequent high property values, should encourage additional private real estate investment to the once-blighted urban community. The government re-activates the economy of the poor community with a TIF program that rehabilitates the
infrastructureInfrastructure can be defined as the basic physical and organizational structures needed for the operation of a society or enterprise, or the services and facilities necessary for an economy to function....
of the neighborhoods being gentrified; resultantly, property values and property tax revenues would rise. Moreover, for a fixed number of years, all of the TIF program-generated increased tax-revenues are paid to the TIF program-administration agency; to be spent only for improving the gentrified TIF district, and usually paid to the private real estate developer (a TIF program partner) responsible for improvements.
Consequences of gentrification
- The original owners of property in the community, but not tenants, profit from rising housing prices.
- Owners, not renters, stabilise the community, reducing the frequency of residents leaving.
- Fewer vacant and abandoned houses and apartments.
- Less crime when vacant properties are unavailable to drug dealers and homeless people.
- Increased rent and property value make maintenance cost-effective.
- Unless legally controlled, the increase in rents and concomitant reduction of stock of affordable housing
Affordable housing is a term used to describe dwelling units whose total housing costs are deemed "affordable" to those that have a median income. Although the term is often applied to rental housing that is within the financial means of those in the lower income ranges of a geographical area, the...
causes residents to leave the community or become homeless
- Increased rents reduce the community’s stock of affordable housing
Affordable housing is a term used to describe dwelling units whose total housing costs are deemed "affordable" to those that have a median income. Although the term is often applied to rental housing that is within the financial means of those in the lower income ranges of a geographical area, the...
, so displacing the original residents.
- Local businesses supplying low-price goods to the original populace close as their clientèle leaves.
- There may be social class
Social classes are the hierarchical arrangements of people in society as economic or cultural groups. Class is an essential object of analysis for sociologists, political economists and social historians...
tensions and conflict between the original residents and the gentrifiers.
Trastevere, Rome, Italy
TrastevereTrastevere is rione XIII of Rome, on the west bank of the Tiber, south of Vatican City. Its name comes from the Latin trans Tiberim, meaning literally "beyond the Tiber". The correct pronunciation is "tras-TEH-ve-ray", with the accent on the second syllable. Its logo is a golden head of a lion on a...
is rione
XIII of Rome, on the west bank of the River TiberThe Tiber is the third-longest river in Italy, rising in the Apennine mountains in Emilia-Romagna and flowing through Umbria and Lazio to the Tyrrhenian Sea. It drains a basin estimated at...
, south of Vatican CityVatican City , officially the State of the Vatican City , is a landlocked sovereign city-state whose territory consists of a walled enclave within the city of Rome, the capital city of Italy...
; the Trastevere
name derives from the Latin expression trans Tiberim
(“beyond the Tiber"). Thanks to its partial isolation "beyond the Tiber" and to its multi-cultural populace, the Trasteverini developed a discrete culture since the Roman eraThe Roman era is a period in Western history, when Ancient Rome was the centre of power of the world around the Mediterranean Sea, where Latin was the lingua franca. The era precedes the Middle Ages....
. In 1744, Pope Benedict XIV (1740–58), recast the rioniRione is the name given to a ward in several Italian cities, the best-known of which is Rome. Unlike a quartiere, a rione is usually an official administrative subdivision...
(districts), thus demarcating Trastevere’s modern borders.
Contemporary Trastevere retains its character with its narrow cobblestone streets lined with mediæval houses, attracting tourists, artists, expatriates, and celebrities. In the 1960s and the 1970s, the American composers Frederic Rzewski and Richard Teitelbaum, of the group
Musica Elettronica VivaMusica Elettronica Viva is a live acoustic/electronic improvisational group formed in Rome, Italy, in 1966. Over the years, its members have included Alvin Curran, Richard Teitelbaum, Frederic Rzewski, Allan Bryant, Carol Plantamura, Ivan Vandor, Steve Lacy, and Jon Phetteplace.They were early...
(1966), lived in Via della Luce; and film director Sergio Leone is from Viale Glorioso. The institutional residents include the
John Cabot UniversityJohn Cabot University is a private American liberal arts university located in Rome, Italy. Founded in 1972, it was named after the Italian explorer Giovanni Caboto.-Location:...
, the
Pratt Institute School of ArchitectureThe Pratt Institute School of Architecture is one of the largest in the country, and is located in historic Higgins Hall, a block from the Main Brooklyn Campus.The school offers the following degrees:Undergraduate* Bachelor of Architecture...
, the
American AcademyAmerican Academy can refer to:*American Academy in Berlin*Dubai American Academy*American Academy of Larnaca*American Academy in Rome*Üsküdar American Academy...
, the
Thomas More College of Liberal ArtsThe Thomas More College of Liberal Arts is located in Merrimack, New Hampshire. The college emphasizes classical education in the Roman Catholic intellectual tradition and is named after Thomas More.-Academics:...
, and the
University of Waterloo School of ArchitectureThe School of Architecture is one of the professional schools of the University of Waterloo. It is part of the Faculty of Engineering and is located on a satellite campus in Cambridge, Ontario, Canada...
.
Inner London, England, United Kingdom
Gentrification is not a new phenomenon in Britain; in
ancient RomeAncient Rome was a civilization that grew out of a small agricultural community founded on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 10th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea, it became one of the largest empires in the ancient world....
the shop-free forum was developed during the
Roman RepublicThe Roman Republic was the phase of the ancient Roman civilization characterized by a republican form of government. It began with the overthrow of the Roman monarchy, c...
an period, and in second- and third-century cities in
Roman BritainRoman Britain was those parts of the island of Great Britain controlled by the Roman Empire between AD 43 and about 410. The Romans referred to their province as Britannia...
there is evidence of small shops being replaced by large
villasA Roman villa is a villa that was built or lived in during the Roman republic and the Roman Empire. A villa was originally a Roman country house built for the upper class...
.
King’s College London academic Loretta Lees reported that much of inner-city
London[]London is the capital of England and the United Kingdom. It has been a major settlement for two millennia, and the history of London goes back to its founding by the Romans, when it was named Londinium. London's core, the ancient City of London, the 'square mile', retains its medieval boundaries...
was undergoing “super-gentrification”, where “a new group of super-wealthy professionals, working in the
City of LondonThe City of London is a small area within Greater London, England. It is the historic core of London around which the modern conurbation grew and has held city status since time immemorial. The City’s boundaries have remained almost unchanged since the Middle Ages, and it is now only a tiny part of...
, is slowly imposing its mark on this Inner London housing market, in a way that differentiates it, and them, from traditional gentrifiers, and from the traditional urban upper classes ... Super-gentrification is quite different from the classical version of gentrification. It’s of a higher economic order; you need a much higher salary and bonuses to live in
BarnsburyBarnsbury is an area of north London in the London Borough of Islington, in the N1 postal districts.The name is a corruption of villa de Iseldon Berners , being so called after the Berners family, who gained ownership of the lands after the Norman Conquest and were powerful medieval manorial lords,...
" (some two miles north of central London).
Barnsbury was built around 1820, as a middle-class
suburbSuburbs are defined in various different ways around the world. They can be the residential areas of a large city, or separate residential communities within commuting distance of a city. Some suburbs have a degree of political autonomy, and most have lower population density than inner city...
, but after the
Second World WarWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including all great powers, organized into two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
(1939–45), people moved to the suburbs. The upper and middle classes were fleeing from the
working classWorking class is a term used in academic sociology and in ordinary conversation to describe, depending on context and speaker, those employed in lower tier jobs as measured by skill, education, and compensation....
residents of London; the modern railroad allowed it. At war’s end, the great housing demand rendered Barnsbury the place of cheap housing, where most people shared
accommodationAccommodation may refer to:*Accommodation or accommodations , lodging in a dwelling or similar living quarters afforded to travellers in hotels or on cruise ships, or prisoners, etc....
. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, people moving into the area had to finance house renovations with their money, because banks rarely financed loans for Barnsbury. Moreover, the rehabilitating spark was The 1959 Housing Purchase and Housing Act, investing £100 million to rehabilitating old properties and
infrastructureInfrastructure can be defined as the basic physical and organizational structures needed for the operation of a society or enterprise, or the services and facilities necessary for an economy to function....
. Resultantly, the principal population influx occurred between 1961 and 1975; the UK Census reports that "between the years of 1961 and 1981, owner-occupation increased from 7 to 19 per cent, furnished rentals declined from 14 to 7 per cent, and unfurnished rentals declined from 61 to 6 per cent"; another example of urban gentrification is the super-gentrification, in the 1990s, of the neighbouring working-class
London BoroughThe administrative area of Greater London contains thirty-two London boroughs. Inner London comprises twelve of these boroughs plus the City of London. Outer London comprises the twenty remaining boroughs of Greater London.-Functions:...
of
IslingtonIslington is the central district of the London Borough of Islington. It is an inner-city district in London, spanning from Islington High Street to Highbury Fields, encompassing the area around the busy Upper Street...
, where
Prime ministerA prime minister is the most senior minister of cabinet in the executive branch of government in a parliamentary system. The position is usually held by, but need not always be held by, a politician. In many systems, the prime minister selects and can dismiss other members of the cabinet, and...
Tony BlairAnthony Charles Lynton "Tony" Blair is a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2 May 1997 to 27 June 2007. He was the Member of Parliament for Sedgefield from 1983 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007...
moved upon his election in 1997.
Park Slope, New York City, United States
The
Park SlopePark Slope is a neighborhood in the western section of Brooklyn, New York City's most populous borough. Park Slope is roughly bounded by Prospect Park West to the east, Fourth Avenue to the west, Flatbush Avenue to the north, and the Prospect Expressway to the south, though other definitions are...
, Brooklyn neighborhood, located between Sunset Park and Downtown Brooklyn, was built at the end of the nineteenth century, for the
wealthyIn sociology an upper class is the group of people at the top of a social hierarchy. Members of an upper class may have great power over the allocation of resources and governmental policy in their area, but only to the extent that the power of the state can intervene in free exchange or distort...
, who commuted to work over the (then-newly built)
Brooklyn BridgeThe Brooklyn Bridge is one of the oldest suspension bridges in the United States, stretching 5,989 feet over the East River, connecting the New York City boroughs of Manhattan and Brooklyn...
. In the first decades of the twentieth century, the wealthy moved farther from the city, and working class people began to move in to reside. When the
Great DepressionThe Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
(1929) occurred, the Park Slope neighborhood became a residential community for the extremely poor; most landlords allowed their housing properties progress from disrepair to decrepitude.
In the 1950s and the 1960s, the US middle and upper classes moved yet farther from
New York CityNew York is the most populous city in the United States, and the center of the New York metropolitan area, which is among the most populous urban areas in the world. A leading global city, New York exerts a powerful influence over worldwide commerce, finance, culture, fashion and entertainment...
, because of the suburbanisation the federal government made feasible with new roadways and
mortgageA mortgage is the transfer of an interest in property to a lender as a security for a debt - usually a loan of money. While a mortgage in itself is not a debt, it is the lender's security for a debt...
programs, restricted to white people (cf.
white flightWhite flight is the sociologic and demographic term denoting the trend wherein white people flee desegregated urban communities, and move to other places like commuter towns; although an American coinage, “white flight” denotes like behavior in other countries. In the U.S. the Brown v...
). In 1966, the “Park Slope Betterment Committee” formed, and began buying and advertising houses to people whom they thought would be interested. In the mid-1970s, the middle class began returning to Park Slope, via gentrification; by the mid-1980s, most of the housing had been rehabilitated beyond the means of the original residents, by the mid-1990s the adjacent communities had been gentrified.
Darien Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States
Gentrification Amid Urban Decline: Strategies for America's Older Cities, by Michael Lang, reports the process and impact (social, economic, cultural) of gentrification upon the “Darien Street” community of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, an alley in the populous
Bella VistaBella Vista, Italian for "beautiful sight", is a neighborhood in the South Philadelphia section of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It is bounded approximately by South Street to the north, Washington Avenue to the south, 6th Street to the east, and 11th Street to the west...
neighborhood. Darien Street was a “back street”, because it did not (and does not) connect to any of the city’s main arteries, and it was unpaved for most of its existence.
In its early days, Darien Street housed only Italian families, however, after the
Second World WarWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including all great powers, organized into two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
(1939–45), when the municipal government spoke of building a cross-town highway, the families moved out. In Darien Street, most of the houses date from 1885 (built for the artisans and craftsmen who worked and lived in the area), but, when the Italian Americans moved out, the community’s low-rent houses went to poor Black American families. Moreover, by the early 1970s, blighted Darien Street was at its lowest point as a community, because the houses held little property value, many were abandoned, having broken heaters and collapsed roofs, et cetera. Furthermore, the houses were very small—approximately wide and deep, each had three one-room stories, and the largest yard was deep. Despite the decay, Darien Street remained charmed with European echoes, each house was
architecturallyFor a topical guide to this subject, see Outline of architecture. Architecture is the art and science of designing and constructing buildings and other physical structures for human shelter or use....
different, contributing to the street’s community character; children were safe, there was no car traffic. The closeness of the houses generated a closely-knit community located just to the south of the city center, an inexpensive residential neighborhood a short distance from the city-life amenities of Philadelphia; the city government did not hesitate to
rehabilitateUrban renewal is a program of land redevelopment in areas of moderate to high density urban land use. Its modern incarnation began in the late 19th century in developed nations and experienced an intense phase in the late 1940s – under the rubric of reconstruction...
it.
The gentrification began in 1977, the first house rehabilitated was a corner property that a school teacher re-modelled and occupied. The next years featured (mostly) white middle-class men moving into the abandoned houses; the first displacement of original Darien Street residents occurred in 1979. Two years later, five of seven families had been economically evicted with inflated housing prices; the two remaining families were renters, expecting eventual displacement. In five years, from 1977 to 1982, the gentrification of Darien Street reduced the original population from seven Black American households and one white household, to two Black households and eleven white households. The average rent increased 488 per cent—from $85 to $500 a month; by 1981, a house bought for $5,000 sold for $35,000. Of the five Black households displaced, three found better houses within two blocks of their original residence, one family left Pennsylvania, and one family moved into a
public housingPublic housing is a form of housing tenure in which the property is owned by a government authority, which may be central or local. Social housing is an umbrella term referring to rental housing which may be owned and managed by the state, by not-for-profit organizations, or by a combination of...
apartment building five blocks from Darien Street. The benefits of the Darien Street gentrification included increased property tax revenues and better-quality housing. The principal detriment was residential displacement via higher priced housing.
Finland
The phenomenon called syrjäytyneiden akanvirta
(stream of the marginalized) in
FinnishFinnish is the language spoken by the majority of the population in Finland and by ethnic Finns outside of Finland. It is one of the official languages of Finland and an official minority language in Sweden. In Sweden, both standard Finnish and Meänkieli, a Finnish dialect, are spoken...
, has begun at wider range in the beginning of 2000s, when living costs in larger growth center cities have grown. The social support isn't large enough to live in bigger cities when housing costs rise because housing situation is hard in the cities. Marginalized people have also many problems in living, so there is a constant fear of eviction from municipality-owned
public housingPublic housing is a form of housing tenure in which the property is owned by a government authority, which may be central or local. Social housing is an umbrella term referring to rental housing which may be owned and managed by the state, by not-for-profit organizations, or by a combination of...
. People who are poor and suffer from many problems of controlling their lives, move out to cheap private-owned housing very far away, where living is cheap. There are a number of businessmen, who buy old school buildings and renovate them to housing. The businessmen then offer these apartments as "a place of last resort" for "difficult" cases, that municipalities are reluctant to take into public housing apartments. Even the most marginalized people are welcomed to this kind of housing.
The following municipalities have acknowledged the migration:
IlomantsiIlomantsi is municipality and a village of Finland.It is located in the province of Eastern Finland and is part of the North Karelia region. The municipality has a population of and covers an area of of which is water. The population density is...
,
LuhankaLuhanka is a municipality of Finland.It is located in the province of Western Finland and is part of the Central Finland region. The municipality has a population of and covers an area of of which is water. The population density is ....
,
PuolankaPuolanka is a municipality in Finland and is located in the province of Oulu and is part of the Kainuu region. The municipality has a population of and covers an area of ofwhich is water. The population density is....
and
RääkkyläRääkkylä is a municipality of Finland.It is located in the province of Eastern Finland and is part of the North Karelia region. The municipality has a population of and covers an area of of which is water. The population density is ....
.
Gentrification in fiction
Gentrification is dramatised in the 2006 film
QuinceañeraQuinceañera is a 2006 American independent film written and directed by Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland. It was released as Echo Park, LA in the UK...
(called Echo Park, LA in the UK) about Echo Park, Los Angeles, California, United States.
See also
- Black flight
Black flight is a term applied to the movement of African Americans from predominately black or mixed inner-city areas to suburbs and outlying edge cities of newer home construction. While more attention has been paid recently, the movement of blacks to the suburbs has been underway for some time,...
- Cingapura project
The Cingapura project is a low-cost housing initiative in São Paulo, Brazil. It is designed to try and move the poor population from favelas , where one quarter of people in São Paulo now live, into more permanent structures. These structures are often called 'Superblocks'...They were intended to...
- Migration of the disadvantaged
Migration of the disadvantaged is a phenomenon, where the marginalized populations move out from cities to depopulated suburban or rural areas...
- Planned shrinkage
Planned shrinkage is a United States policy of withdrawing essential city services from neighborhoods suffering from urban decay, crime and poverty so that neighborhoods may be claimed by outside interests for new development...
- Population mobility
Population mobility, geographic mobility or more simply mobility is a statistic that measures migration within a population. It is most commonly used in demography and human geography, it may also be used to describe the movement of animals between populations.Mobility estimates in the Current...
- Principles of Intelligent Urbanism
Principles of Intelligent Urbanism is a theory of urban planning composed of a set of ten axioms intended to guide the formulation of city plans and urban designs. They are intended to reconcile and integrate diverse urban planning and management concerns...
- Redlining
Redlining is the practice of denying, or increasing the cost of, services such as banking, insurance, access to jobs, access to health care, or even supermarkets to residents in certain, often racially determined, areas. The term "redlining" was coined in the late 1960s by community activists in...
- Reverse sensitivity
Reverse sensitivity is a term from the New Zealand planning system. It describes the impacts of newer uses on prior activities occurring in mixed-use areas. Some activities tend to have the effect of limiting the ability of established ones to continue...
- Squatting
Squatting is the act of occupying an abandoned or unoccupied space or building, usually residential, that the squatter does not own, rent or otherwise have permission to use. Squatting is significantly more common in urban areas than rural areas, especially when urban decay occurs...
- Terrace house
- Urban renewal
Urban renewal is a program of land redevelopment in areas of moderate to high density urban land use. Its modern incarnation began in the late 19th century in developed nations and experienced an intense phase in the late 1940s – under the rubric of reconstruction...
- Yuppie
Yuppie is a 1980s and early 1990s term for financially secure, upper-middle class young people in their 20s and early 30s...
External links
- Neighbors Project
- Urban Geographer Tom Slater, PhD
- Understanding Gentrification from the City of Port Phillip
The City of Port Phillip is a Local Government Area in Victoria, Australia. It is located on the northern shores of Port Phillip, south of Melbourne's central business district. It has an area of 20.62 km². At the 2006 census, it had a population of 85,096.Port Phillip contains a number of...
(Victoria, Australia) website
- Flag Wars - documentary about Ohio gentrification in Columbus
Columbus is the capital and the largest city in the U.S. state of Ohio. It is the county seat of Franklin County, although parts of the city also extend into Delaware and Fairfield counties...
, detailing conflicts of race and homophobia
- Selling the Lower East Side – official site for Christopher Mele's book, includes full text of Chapters 2–9.
- South African shack dwellers' movement
- The Cleansing of San Francisco, San Francisco Bay Guardian
The San Francisco Bay Guardian is a free alternative newspaper published weekly in San Francisco, California. The paper is owned mostly by its publisher, Bruce B...
, October 7, 1998. - Series of articles on the gentrification of San Francisco during the dot com boom.
- "I'm the enemy!" by Carol Lloyd, Salon.com
Salon.com, part of Salon Media Group , often just called Salon, is an online magazine, with content updated each weekday. American liberal politics is its major focus, but it covers a range of issues. Reviews and articles about music, books and films are also a prominent feature of the site....
, October 29, 1999.
- "Defending the barrio" by Cassi Feldman, San Francisco Bay Guardian, October 18, 2000.
- "Warning: Gentrification in Progress" by J.A. Lobbia, Village Voice, July 4, 2001.
- "Gentrification: Artists and Yuppies Working Together" by Dan Knauss, Riverwest Currents
The Riverwest Currents is a monthly newspaper published in Milwaukee, Wisconsin since 2001 by owner/publisher Vince Bushell. It has sometimes used the slogan "The Community Voice of Milwaukee's Left Bank," which was coined in 2001 by Dan Knauss as a reference to the generally liberal or leftist...
, July 2002.
- "The New Harlem" by Rivka Gewirtz Little, Village Voice, September 18, 2002.
- "Loft Living" by Chanel Lee, Village Voice, November 13, 2002.
- "Hipsters Defend Brooklyn" by Sarah Ferguson, Village Voice, April 3, 2005.
- "After the Murmur" by Tim Kingston, San Francisco Bay Guardian, August 18, 2006.
- "Hipster Invasion" by David Downs, East Bay Express
The East Bay Express is an Oakland-based weekly newspaper serving the Berkeley, Oakland, and East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area...
, August 30, 2006.
- "Interview with Neil Smith about gentrification in Berlin and state revanchism in Germany" October 20, 2007