As she reminisces, she points to various new construction sites and buildings and talks about how each place was a laundromat, restaurant, post office, pharmacy etc. She also talks about how much the local community has lost out on services like a 24-hour laundromat and how it doesn’t seem like the neighborhood serves the locals as much purpose. As she keeps walking, she takes note of how many new tall luxury apartments are being built or have been built. She goes on to talk about how expensive it’s gotten and how most people in the area are of average economic status, and that the rent is going up as richer people are coming in from outside. She also brings up a great discussion question, about whether developers are “thinking about people, or about money”. She also talks about a loss of a sense of community and a loss of affordability, saying that everything has become more expensive and out of price range.
I chose this video to talk about, because it is interesting to see gentrification from the point of view of someone who felt the loss of community and experienced people being pushed out, and new people coming in. A lot of the time, we read about gentrification and see people discuss from an outside point of view about how people who were already parts of communities that got gentrified got affected, but it’s nice to see someone visually talk about it and take us on a little tour.
This week’s readings were a lot more straightforward and straight to the point about gentrification and gave examples of areas that have been gentrified like Williamsburg in Brooklyn and Harlem in Manhattan. It also discusses ghettoes and byproducts of gentrification and their cultural impact. We can note that it is almost a cycle as well, in that gentrification almost keeps going, and even some areas that were originally places that were fled to, are being gentrified. What was interesting to see though, was how gentrification worked out. For many areas, namely Williamsburg, the upscale feeling came after a bit of struggle and loss of activity. According to the Zukin reading, “it’s the absence of investment by either private sector developers or government that created an opportunity for new culture to thrive”. Zukin also mentions that Jane Jacobs was right when talking about low priced old buildings helping communities thrive, but not in the way she necessarily foresaw. What changed things up, was the creative people that moved into Brooklyn after other residents had left. This was after city officials “let Brooklyn industries die”. It was like Brooklyn took a little dip in activity, before coming back bigger. There were some pros and cons to gentrification in Brooklyn at that time, because certain parts of the borough started to thrive again, and gain momentum. “New residents created a different image for these three neighborhoods” and “Brooklyn was no longer the butt of ethnic jokes made by Jewish comedians”. At the same time, hip-hop gained cult following and became a huge movement in music and business. Unfortunately, a lot of this was at the expense of local residents who couldn’t keep up with increasing costs of living, which is explained more later on. “Unlike Williamsburg, black Brooklyn neighborhoods do not benefit from the growth machine of cultural production”. This ties back to the video about Mrs. Loretta and how for the local community, it was just new people coming in and no benefit. It’s sad to see how many people’s lives were negatively affected and makes me wonder whether there can be some kind of perfect balance or solution in which everyone benefits. Fortunately, people are much more aware of the situation these days, and that’s a great step to achieving a balance. Hopefully we’ll see a fix in the near future.
Link to video:
