No one has more of a claim to a neighborhood than anyone else. Saying that some should be entitled to a certain neighborhood because of any criteria is like arguing that one nation belongs to one group of people and that group alone—no intruders allowed. That way of thinking is nearly immoral. Who is to say that one person belongs in Bed-Stuy—that Bed-Stuy is his or hers—while someone else can stake a claim to Long Island City? De facto quotas on who lives where just are not right. Obviously there can’t be an unlimited number of people living in one place, but the scarcity of living space effectively regulates such a problem.
Then the problem arises, though, about where the “soul” of a neighborhood comes from and whether that should be preserved to whether the market should be allowed to “run its course.” Even though no one should be able to stake a claim to a neighborhood and exclude others, the soul of a neighborhood does come from those who have lived there for a long time. After all, they’re the ones who have shaped the area: they’ve created new stores, voted in elected representatives to make particular changes, sent their children to school in the area, shopped at their favorite shops, etc.
Although long-established residents do not have more of a claim to a particular neighborhood, it also does not mean that they can be kicked out—actually or just in effect—from their hometown. When an area becomes attractive to outsiders and pushes up the value of the homes and goods in the neighborhood, it is up to the local government to enact measures such as rent control. The purpose of these types of measures isn’t to keep developers out of the area—it is simply to allow those who already live there to continue living there. If there are new residents who are in a situation to buy more expensive, newly developed homes, the developers have a base for their market. Fairness for the many—the majority that’s already in a particular neighborhood—must always be preserved over the profit incentive for the tiny minority. This is about fairness, not rights to a neighborhood. Sure, most politicians want to push up the value of land. They, however, won’t receive votes from those who cannot afford the million dollar buildings that might be constructed on top of their beloved homes.
–Jonathan Eckman
I agree in spirit with all of this, but where I get confused (in general, not about your post), is what fairness should be in relation to. In other words, some (in fact many) would argue that free markets are fair: they offer equal opportunity to buy and sell, regardless of race, ethnicity, or how long you have lived in a neighborhood. But the allocation of capital is not equal to begin with. So even a “fair” market mechanism can result in unequal outcomes. The mechanism itself is fair. But the “before” and “after” allocations of land, wealth, etc. are not. (Indeed, markets often increase inequality.)
At this point in our story, government arrives in its rumpled suit, offering to save the day. Since the Progressive Era, one of the functions of government has been to protect society against the unequal outcomes of fair markets. Social security, for example, protects elderly people from financial insolvency when labor markets have abandoned them as useless. (Who wants to hire a 75 year old?) Welfare programs protect low-income single parents with children, whose demands on their time and resources prevent them from competing on equal footing in a cut-throat employment market. Etc.
But here’s the paradox. What if striving for equitable outcomes… for people to have equal wellbeing, regardless of age, race, education level, physical ability, etc. requires that government make fair market mechanisms less fair? Is it fair that some apartments are rent-controlled while others are not? Is this fair to the landlords? Not really. But it’s a compensation for another, more endemic unfairness, in the distribution of capital available to renters.
Which is a long-winded, roundabout way of saying that the concept of fairness only means something when it has a reference point. If real estate markets in gentrifying neighborhoods should be fair with regard to the amount of wealth at one’s disposal, then let them run their course. But if an additional reference point for fairness is one’s longstanding occupancy of an apartment or a house, then maybe the other kind of fairness will have to be sacrificed a bit to keep current residents in place.
And this is the core of the debate between free market Tea Party types and progressives about the role of government and… well just about everything.