Everyday Displacement An Overlooked Aspect of Gentrification

I define “everyday displacement” as the lived experience of ongoing loss—of the security, agency, and freedom to “make place”

                                                          – Filip Stabrowski

      New York City, for the past several decades, has had a number of its neighborhoods shaped by the process of gentrification. And where gentrification occurs, displacement seems to very often be an inevitable and unfortunate consequence following close behind. While displacement has come to be more commonly known as being forced out of one’s home, it has also been defined as a loss of freedom and a sense of place in a community.

     This definition was proposed by Filip Stabrowski in his research titled “New-Build Gentrification and the Everyday Displacement of Polish Immigrant Tenants in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.” In this paper, he focuses, as the title suggests, on Polish immigrants and how gentrification has impacted them. In the early 80s and again in the 90s, Polish immigrants came to Greenpoint where they ended up forming an immigrant enclave. Coming to a new country is very difficult, but it was here that the Polish immigrated to so that they could still retain that sense of home and belonging. One immigrant even recalled her experiences saying she was told to not fear coming to America because  “you’ll feel as if you’re in Poland”(801) due to the amount of people speaking Polish in the streets of Greenpoint. However, this all changed in 2005 when the city council voted on rezoning the waterfront areas of Greenpoint and Williamsburg. These Polish tenants who have come to depend on this neighborhood of their creation had to undergo what Stabrowski calls a “double displacement” – displacement not just from the home, but from the community as well.

     As the market value of houses rose, it became increasingly difficult for tenants to remain in the areas they have come to call home for so long. The ShelterForce Staff came together to discuss gentrification and its implications and in this conversation, it was brought up that cities have gone through a period of intense separation. Mindy Fullilove brings up this point of how we are constantly dividing up mixed-income neighborhoods over and over again until we find neighborhoods “where a very ethnically mixed, economically mixed city has become basically a really wealthy city of young white people.” This unfortunate reality of the old being pushed out by the new is what occurred to the Polish immigrant enclave of Greenpoint. As landlords raised the rent, many tenants were forced to relocate to another neighborhood. Those that were able to stay faced immense difficulties at having to provide for their families while paying much higher rents. Additionally, they had to deal with landlord harassment due to the fact that landlords wanted to force their current tenants out in the hopes of renting to people with much higher incomes. Stabrowski argues that another aspect of gentrification was everyday displacement which he refers to the working-class people that were still physically a part of the neighborhood even as their living conditions, sense of security, and access to local resources were all being diminished. This loss of security and freedom, of feeling lost in your own home, is an aspect of gentrification that Stabrowski feels has not been adequately addressed.

     Referring back to the gentrification discussion, it was brought up that “People who have been long-term residents should be engaged in those processes to define what kind of neighborhood improvements they would want to see and be a part of reaping the benefits of those improvements.” This, however, is commonly not the case. Long-term residents of Greenpoint, some of even who advocated for improvements in the neighborhood, were unable to enjoy the benefits that eventually came to be. This filled the Polish tenants with “a sense of loss and dispossession” – feelings that arose when they realized that landlord neglect will only exist for as long as they live there (Stabrowski). The much-needed maintenance and renovations that they requested for so long will only come to pass when they no longer reside there. This is the aftermath of gentrification, what Stabrowski calls “everyday displacement” – an ongoing sense of loss in a place that was once home.

Questions:

1. After reading about everyday displacement and the way it impacts people, do you believe that NYC still retains its status as a place that is open to all all? As a place that cares and nurtures for anyone and everyone?
2. Mindy Fullilove says that ethnically mixed neighborhoods are becoming wealthy areas of white people. With this in mind, do you think that NYC is losing its title of being a “melting pot”?
3. Communities and immigrant enclaves are part of NYC’s uniqueness. With neighborhoods being altered on a large scale, is gentrification eradicating this uniqueness?