What is gentrification? Through the discussion of the many factors that result in and from “gentrification,” the term has become redundant and meaningless. Before any widespread discussion of the public policy needed to combat the negative effects (if there are any) of gentrification, there must be an understanding of what we are up against here. In her TED talk, Stacey Sutton ultimately defines gentrification as the processes by which people of higher socioeconomic class move into lower-income neighborhoods that have been historically disinvested by private and public sectors. Gentrification is NOT revitalization; it is unfair for pro-gentrification writers to substitute the two as neighborhood improvement may result from gentrification, but like displacement, is not the true meaning. Gentrification may lead to revitalization, but may also lead to devitalization. In his article, “Does Gentrification Harm the Poor?” Vigdor states that the term gentrification is loosely defined depending on the context (135). I have found that when brought up, the term “gentrification” always refers to a cluster of effects and symptoms, but never a cohesive universal phenomenon. While some authors might refer to the private investment in neighborhoods, others might define it as the influx of higher socioeconomic residents into a neighborhood of lower social class (Vigdor 125). And unfortunately, this lack of clarity has only fueled the multi-generational debate of the morality of gentrification: good or bad?
The best way to study “gentrification,” as decided by many researchers is to look at the demographic trends around the neighborhoods that are gentrifying. Whether it be the household incomes, education levels, or tracking down displacees, the quantification of the rates of gentrification and displacement has placed a high level of stress on researchers that aim to answer the difficult question presented above. Vigdor, one of these researchers, studied Boston at its peak of gentrification, and found that his evidence showed the opposite of what many might expect: the introduction of higher-status residents to these urban neighborhoods lead to a tripling of college educated individuals in a 20-year period, and a decrease in people of poverty by 20% (168). In their research, Kathy Newman and Elvin K. Wyly, authors of “The Right to Stay Put, Revisited: Gentrification and Resistance to Displacement in New York City,” also found that between 8300 and 11600 households per year were displaced in New York City between 1989 and 2002, numbers lower than the previous estimates conducted by researchers Freeman and Braconi who concluded that “low-income residents in gentrifying neighborhoods had lower mobility rates than similar residents in non-gentrifying areas” (Newman 47).
Why do residents stay in their neighborhoods, despite their fear of displacement? Rather than challenge their landlords who abuse them by overcharging under rent stabilisation and poor housing quality, residents opt out for being happy that they could afford to have a roof above their heads. This is an issue of capitalism. America’s capitalistic system has led to the ultimate goal of profit for developers and to the fear of displacement for residents. As developers and landlords continue to reach for capital, the needs of people diminish in their eyes and the control they have becomes abusive. An example of a study that shows the deep-seated effects of development is Filip Stabrowski’s “New Build Gentrification and the Everyday Displacement of Polish Immigrant Tenants in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.” Stabrowski concludes that gentrification displaces low-income residents in numerous ways. He also stresses the capitalism behind this issue stating that as gentrification increases, “spaces of social reproduction” are placed under the structure of capitalism’s goal of accumulation, a disregarding of the social values of space for their monetary value (813). Similarly, in their article “Class Analysis of Gentrification,” Neil Smith and Michele LeFaivre, in reference to the Irish famine (which displaced a lot of agriculture workers), strongly state that “capitalism was born out of the displacement of peasants from the land, forcing them into the city to form the earliest urban proletariat” (60). Displacement will always occur as long as those who benefit from capitalism have the upper hand. They control what people need (shelter), and what they want (profit) contradicts people’s needs.
Newman, Kathe, and Elvin K. Wyly. “The Right to Stay Put, Revisited: Gentrification and Resistance to Displacement in New York City.” Urban Studies, vol. 43, no. 1, 2006, pp.23–57., doi:10.1080/00420980500388710.
Smith, Neil, and Michele LeFaivre. “A Class Analysis of Gentrification.”
Stabrowski, Filip. “New-Build Gentrification and the Everyday Displacement of Polish Immigrant Tenants in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.” Antipode, vol. 46, no. 3, 2014, pp. 794–815., doi:10.1111/anti.12074.
Vigdor, Jacob L., et al. “Does Gentrification Harm the Poor? [with Comments].”Brookings-Wharton Papers on Urban Affairs, 2002, pp. 133–182. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/25067387.
