Mar
12
Blog Post #6- Class 13
March 12, 2015 | Leave a Comment
Rent prices are becoming extremely unaffordable to people with lower incomes. It makes sense that prices are increasing because most corporations and organizations are housed in the cities. However, it pushes lower income families out of the cities and forces them to move into the suburbs or tight, but cheaper areas like Queens. The graph that surprised me the most was Figure 3.4 where there was a huge cross between 2008-2009 between median gross rent and median renter household income.
In figure 3.5, there is also a high level of severely rent burdened between 2000-2012 in the low 80% of household income earners. It is crazy how high these levels are compared to higher level income. The truth is staggering but can not be turned away when presented in statistics.
The numbers are absolutely staggering because there is less space for people to live because it is such a tight-knit city. Gentrification is a serious issue and has been a growing one. Gentrifying forces those with lower incomes to move out and people/corporations with higher incomes to move in. Thus, changing the atmosphere almost entirely and increase real estate value.
I did a project about gentrification in the SoHo and NoHo area in New York City. It was over half a century for the transformation but the nice and lavish stores that are in the area used to be warehouses back in the 1800s. People in those warehouses had jobs in the factories and once the factory went out of business, people had to find jobs wherever necessary. People often had to move in order to be closer to their jobs to save time and money on transportation.
Today, it is hard to find apartments because one has to consider price, proximity to transportation and safety in the area. There is a high emphasis on price, especially since it is difficult to attain a high level of each.
