In J. Vigdor’s piece called “Does Gentrification Harm the Poor?”, he discusses the distinguishing factors between the rich and the poor within a neighborhood. The political cartoon above shows a neighborhood with a clear divide between the rich and the poor. The man on the bike is depicted as colorful and trendy as he strolls by with his latte that fills the street with its perfect scent. A few feet apart, a homeless man is depicted with dull colors and a odor being released from him to emphasize his lack of cleanliness and his section of the neighborhood behind him are as dull and unnecessary; ruining the colorful joyful fun of the man and his perfect latte, his bag of fun activities and expanding his section of the neighborhood with him. I chose this source because it gives a visual representation of an active gentrification of a neighborhood, it comes with colors, and activities but where does it leave the poor homeless man? What does it do to property cost? In In J. Vigdor’s piece called “Does Gentrification Harm the Poor?”, he explains the “Land is allocated to the highest bidder. Each household’s willingness to pay for land in a given neighborhood is based on its valuation of a bundle of amenities associated with that neighborhood.” The neighborhood of the homeless man is be depicted to be sheltering low income tenants at rates they bid and they can pay. However, when the colorful latte shops, that the smell can reach the street, come into a neighborhood people will be more susceptible to bid for the land at much higher rates than it was initially set, displacing the low income tenants to have to search for land elsewhere. The divide in land rates can be a few feet apart as seen in this picture, but with a few changes, such as coffee shops and cleanliness can dramatically change the cost of living in a neighborhood specifically living rates that are dictated by people’s wiliness to pay and it can run people out of their neighborhoods.
- Is the image depicting that the coffee shops the reason the man is homeless, or is it just showing class division?
- How does property cost and gentrification effect homeless people?
- is there a way to include coffee shops and increase the cleanliness of a low income neighborhood without changing property cost?
