Through the recent history of New York City, gentrification has played an important role in changing the population patterns within the city. As the city takes on a more prominent economic and political position nationally and internationally, gentrification seems to be a necessary process for the city to maintain its status. The change of population patterns as a result of gentrification would be an interesting topic to discuss in relation with the film The Landlord.
We can hardly imagine today’s Park Slope in Brooklyn from The Landlord. In about four decades since the movie was filmed, Park Slope has been transformed from an African American dominant ghetto to a white Americans populated wealthy neighborhood. Today’s Park Slope has about sixty percent of whites, twenty percent of Hispanics, and less than ten percent of African Americans. It’s also one of the best and wealthiest neighborhoods in New York City. The contrast between The Landlord and today’s Park Slope provides strong evidence about how gentrification has changed the population pattern in New York City.
The Park Slope in the film was a ghetto dominated with African Americans. The living conditions, as shown by Elgar’s tenement house, were very poor. The neighborhood also had many problems like other ghettoes such as poverty and teenage problems. While I think The Landlord was more about racism and the relations between white and African Americans, the film certainly constituted a crucial aspect of gentrification. The fact that Elgar, being a wealthy white man, purchased property and moved into the neighborhood was a symbol of gentrification. After Elgar moved into the house, he began to talk about the rent problems to his tenants, and to repair and improve the conditions of his house. This also represented the beginning of gentrification of the neighborhood. Yet, I believed that racism was still an important theme and should deserve some discussion. For instance, the scenes about Elgar’s family gatherings always had white and bright lighting while the scenes about the Elgar’s house in Park Slope had very dark lighting. In addition, when Elgar told his mother he might be in love with an African American woman, Elgar’s mother immediately thought of a native African woman dressing in traditional costumes, and when Fanny told Elgar she was pregnant, Elgar’s mother immediately thought of a group of African American children wearing white dresses surrounded and listened to her singing. All of these provided examples about racism and stereotypes toward African Americans during the mid-twentieth century.
The reason I discussed the theme of racism in The Landlord was that racial discrimination could greatly hinder gentrification in certain neighborhoods. As the article “The Gentrification of Harlem?” pointed out, Harlem could hardly be gentrified if it couldn’t attract investments outside of the neighborhood, and the main sources of investments came from white Americans since there were very limited numbers of high-income African American families in New York City. However, if white Americans continued to conceive Harlem as a dangerous neighborhood, Harlem could hardly attract any investments and gentrify in a way that would improve the conditions in the neighborhood. Although the article was published in 1986 and the data might not be true anymore, the arguments were still true. While there were successful examples of gentrification such as Park Slope, Brooklyn, there are many underprivileged neighborhoods that could hardly gentrify within the next several decades because of people’s misconceptions toward the neighborhoods. Indeed, gentrification is an essential process for the development of New York City. Neighborhoods should continuously improve their living and working conditions for their residents in order to create a better city and society. Positive gentrifications can help underprivileged people to attain better living conditions without displacing them. While this is a difficult topic for city planning, it can greatly benefit the urban development of the city.
Gentrification is a necessary process for the urban development many cities. Many neighborhoods in New York City have been gentrified and would be re-gentrified according to the needs of the city and society.
