Tag: gentrification

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“There’s No Place Like Home”

This Buzzfeed video features Kai, a local native of the Mission District in San Francisco, California, who speaks about the change in his neighborhood as a result of a wave of gentrification. Although this video does focus heavily on the idea of displacement and native residents being priced out, what I liked about this video was the discussion of space, and who has a right to it. The end of this video specifically references a video taken earlier that features Kai.

This video entitled “Mission Playground is Not For Sale”, shows the conflict between native residents and gentrifiers over a public, local soccer field that was “rented out” for an hour. Outraged by the idea of “booking” a field that for his whole life was always open to the public, Kai confronts the gentrifiers, standing his ground in his right (and the children’s right) to enjoy their field.

This reminded me of Filip Stabrowski’s idea of “everyday displacement”. Although residents were forced out of their neighborhood, those who did stay felt a disconnect with their community as a result of the battles over space. The conflict over who could play in the soccer field was just an example how “place is security, space is freedom”.

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Gentrification in Williamsburg

Since some of this week’s readings talk about Williamsburg, I decided to choose an article about that neighborhood as well.

AM New York published an article last May discussing a report from NYU’s Furman Center that shows Williamsburg leads NYC in gentrification. The report showed that Williamsburg had a 78.7 percent surge in average rents between 1990 and 2014, while citywide, average rents had only increased by 22.1 percent in the same timeframe. Ivan Pereira also points out that “this isn’t new news,” but just looking at the numbers is astounding. Similarly in sports writing, you can gauge change by consistently watching game after game, but statistics can back up your claims of how and why a certain team or player has improved or regressed.

I’m really not all too familiar with Williamsburg, aside from the fact that the neighborhood is used as a running joke for “hipster town,” or just as the most heavily gentrified neighborhood in general. For the most part, I think of Williamsburg as an odd food haven, simply because I see Facebook videos and Instagram photos all the time of delicious-looking food at restaurants in Williamsburg. Of course, the fact they’re in Williamsburg already means I won’t be going, but it makes me wonder if I’d get more of an “Eeeeats” vibe from Williamsburg (similar to Greenwich Village), or if I’d get more of a “foreign land” kind of vibe (like where am I even?).

If Williamsburg is anything like Bushwick, I’d probably get more of a “foreign land” vibe. For some reason, I pair neighborhoods like Williamsburg and Bushwick together. I suppose it’s because they’re both on the L line and I would hate if I had to go to either one, plus they’re two common neighborhoods people refer to as gentrified ones.

I have actually been to Bushwick once. Never. Again. I had the absolutely worst hipster macchiato (or cappuccino or something, I can’t recall) for $3 or $4, and it wasn’t even lukewarm. Well, I can already tell things in Williamsburg are overpriced, so on top of hipsters and commute time, these are the reasons you’ll never find me there.

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Understanding Gentrification as a Social Justice Issue

Gentrification is a term that has been used so much that it has lost true meaning. Across all major cities in the United States, gentrification has become a colloquial and normalized term. In her Ted Talk, Stacey Sutton offers a more nuanced definition of gentrification and urges the audience to think more critically about gentrification and its implications. Sutton also draws an important distinction between neighborhood revitalization and gentrification – in movements of revitalization, the neighborhood remains affordable for low-income residents and does not result in their displacement and, in reference to affordable housing, alienation. She asserts the importance of understanding gentrification as a social justice problem and as a “manifestation of inequality.” I think such a perspective is essential to understanding the spatial layout of and the evolution of neighborhoods and ethnic enclaves in New York City. Furthermore, this talk is important for understanding Freeman and Braconi’s research in their article regarding gentrification and displacement. Their research suggests that disadvantaged households would value the improvements of gentrifying neighborhoods. To echo Sutton’s point – do academic statistics really matter if it costs vulnerable communities their social networks and disregards their identities and lived experiences?

This past weekend, I met up with a friend who is studying abroad in New York City as an undergraduate student from NYU Abu Dhabi (her home institution). She told me all about her exciting city experiences – doing the typical touristy things but also the craziness of living in one of the most diverse and most populated cities in the United States. She talked about her newfound love for Brooklyn, specifically the “hipster” parts (i.e. the only part of Brooklyn she visited). When tourists visit New York City (and all of its gentrified neighborhoods), they experience a place that is aesthetically pleasing and what seems like a great community to be a part of. What they miss, however, is how those neighborhoods arrived at their current state and who was affected in the process. I thought about this a lot when I was talking to my friend and also when I watched Sutton’s Ted Talk.

Unrelated: Checkout this article in the NY Times about Governor Cuomo’s plans to demolish Robert Moses’ notorious Sheridan Expressway and replace it with a tree-lined boulevard!

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Does Gentrification Actually Help the Poor?

Since this week’s readings are centered around possible positive outcomes of gentrification, I thought I’d look for an article that focuses on that as well.

A Business Insider article states that there is little evidence that actually points to gentrification being responsible for displacing the poor and minorities. It also talks about how gentrifiers make life better since “they put pressure on schools, the police and the city to improve.” Here’s my favorite line towards the end: “However annoying they may be, hipsters help the poor.”

We’ve talked about it in class through Alexis’ demos of Social Explorer, but there’s no single statistic that can measure the impact of gentrification. There are the more obvious ones–income breakdown and racial demographics for instance–but more factors may be in play that lead to changes in those statistics. This is why people can argue that there is little to no evidence that indicates gentrification is detrimental to low income citizens and minorities. It’s difficult to claim that gentrification is the sole source of displacing these groups of people.

Additionally, after a conversation with a group of people yesterday, the “positive” results of gentrification may end up overshadowing the negative effects of people getting displaced. One acquaintance who lives in Long Island said he doesn’t want to hear anymore about people saying that gentrification is a bad thing, because it’s brought all these Starbucks to his neighborhood and helped reform in his community (and thus, less crime). “And what’s so bad about that?” There were two other people in the group who immediately chimed in, “hello, people lose their homes?” In this case, I could see for myself that this was an attitude of, “if it (gentrification) doesn’t directly affect me in a negative way, then it’s a good thing.”

Source: Economist, The. “Gentrification Is Good for the Poor.” Business Insider. Business Insider, 21 Feb. 2015. Web. 22 Mar. 2017.

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“Shameless” on Gentrification

Shameless is a comedy/drama TV series about the Gallaghers, an Irish American family, who lives in the South Side projects of Chicago. The show is known for touching upon various “real-life” topics such as the effects of being part of the LQBTQ community to the effects of being out of “the hood”.

The video shown above is a small clip from the second episode of season five in which the father of the Gallaghers, Frank, recognizes the typical and straightforward signs of gentrification in their neighborhood. He is currently in The Alibi, a local bar of the neighborhood. As the show progresses throughout the season, The Alibi becomes “overrun” with hipsters who love the “authenticity” (which in the comedy shows references to the “crazy” Russian bartender and the overall “hood” vibe) of the bar. The Alibi, making more money off of the newcomers, then starts to cater to the new customers leaving the locals without their favorite spot. The show also introduces a lesbian couple, who being the symbol of gentrification, often has conflicts with the surrounding neighbors .

Although the show is a comedy, it manages to condense into a one minute scene how gentrification is perceived in mass society and the negative connotations that it has to those who have seen it for themselves and fear its effects. This fear and understanding is amplified in the show because these words come from the mouth of Frank, who in the show is one the least responsible and most reprehensible characters. Even a character such as this, however, still recognizes the negative effects of gentrification.

I chose this video because it reminds me of the articles Gentrification and Displacement written by Lance Freeman and Frank Braconi and Does Gentrification Harm the Poor? written by Jacob L. Vigdor. These two articles faced and challenged the “typical” perception of gentrification which includes migration of more affluent residents into lower-income neighborhoods thereby displacing the lower-income residents of that area. Although their articles argue and provide evidence that displacement of lower-income residents is not necessary to show the negative effects of gentrification, public perception and understanding of gentrification still might resonate with the typical model.