To be honest, I feel like an idiot for not knowing too much about the riots in Tompkins Square. Upon reading that first article, I found myself shocked. First, the fact that officers could be so brutal and get away with it is disconcerting (“largely on the evidence of a four-hour videotape made by local video artist Clayton Patterson, seventeen officers were cited for “misconduct.” Six officers were eventually indicted but none was ever convicted” (4)); moreover, it seems that these evictees were left only with each other. It’s interesting to see that instead of attacking one another, they loosely organized into a coalition and “took” the park. I doubt this kind of action would take place today; though people don’t always recognize that the homeless are human beings, there are more available options for evictees and the like. Now we just have to wonder: these homeless were made homeless because of the effects of gentrification; even though more options are now available to the homeless, should now efforts be focused toward the anti-gentrification movements? Is providing homeless shelters but no guarantee of stable housing where these people had been previously living just a solution for the symptom of a much bigger problem?

One thing that struck me most about this week’s readings was the comparison of gentrification to “Class War” in the Smith excerpt. Before this week’s reading, I never really thought of the term “Class War” as ever really referring to a true war. While the conflicts surrounding gentrification in the Lower East Side certainly didn’t escalate to the point of armed soldiers killing one another on a grand scale, they strongly resembled the violence and strategies of many of history’s more traditional wars – just on a smaller scale. Large chunks of the reading discuss events through fairly militaristic terms, describing parties as “claiming land,” “making strategies,” and “retreating.”

Much like more traditional wars, this smaller scale class war proved to be largely fruitless and extremely costly for both sides involved. Victims of gentrification were beaten down in riots and pushed into unhealthy living conditions, while policymakers and gentrifying parties spent absurd amounts of money keeping lower income families out of the Lower East Side. I can’t help but wonder why there aren’t more systems in place to prevent costly battles like these from breaking out. There already exist a number of diplomatic institutes which aim to limit and prevent traditional war, so why aren’t there any dedicated to preventing class war?

What these readings afforded me was a concrete understanding of the processes and systems behind gentrification. Paradigms whose purposefulness I was more or less ignorant too, and having been educated as to their realities I am more or less shocked by how simultaneously devious and pragmatic an institution it is from an industry standpoint. It was also extremely interesting to see the birth of gentrification culture and the values for which pioneer gentrifiers stood, which to me seemed ironic given that the results of the gentrification they brought about were often times the exact opposite of these values. The reading regarding the complex nature of gentrification borders and it’s spread confirmed many of my own suspicions regarding the nature of gentrification, as it is only logical that something as complex as a neighborhoods make up, given all the social, political, and economic factors, would not change in an even and consistent manner.

The article “The Birth of Gentrification” constantly refers to the acts of landlords and investors to push towards gentrification, such as Cinderella schemes and homesteading, as schemes. And when reading these articles, I can’t help, but picture gentrification, or the steps to achieve a more gentrified community, as schemes.
I feel a bit ignorant for thinking that gentrification, for the most part, flowed through in an almost natural way. I believed: Of course, everyone wants to save money, even those who have money, so it makes sense that the gentry would start coming and occupying poorer neighborhoods, which invite more gentry, which invite commercial businesses that interest those gentry and as the dynamic of the area changes, the prices rise and the previous residents are forced to leave because they cannot keep up with the increased cost of living. However, I was missing the key factor: the “schemes” of these landlords and others to speed up this process of gentrification in order to make a profit. The series of disinvestment, reinvestment, tax delinquency, brownstoning and homesteading along with creating a public appeal for these changes, pushes towards gentrification. And although, gentrification is usually portrayed in a dark light, one cannot deny the positives of gentrification: it ultimately helps repair the results of disinvestment in a community; that is to say it helps the economy of the community and restores the buildings and other edifices within the area. I guess the real question is how can we receive all the benefits of gentrification without displacing both the existing residents and present cultural aspects of the community?

There are different ways to define gentrification as explained in the article by Lees. One way of describing gentrification is when middle class families move into urban areas and as a result, cause an increase in price of property and the removal of the poor families living there. Homesteading is another word that was used in place of gentrification, and it was a vital part to the development of the Lower East Side. Single-family houses were sold to families who would rehabilitate them. In the mid-1970s, the neighborhood of Park Slope was deteriorating and landlords did not have much involvement with keeping housing conditions in order. Smith’s “Mapping the Gentrification Frontier” states that this deterioration is “an essential part of urban development.” Not only does gentrification impact property prices, it also helps to establish a variety of cultures within a neighborhood. While gentrification does help neighborhoods update the housing conditions, bring new communities of people, and also helps introduce new businesses, there are downsides. The major downside is the fact that people who cannot keep up with the cost of living are forced to move elsewhere.

Question: Do you think that the gentrification of neighborhoods has more benefits or downsides?

Gentrification is an economic, cultural, political, social, and institutional circumstance. The main parties are the state that implicated the process as a disinvestor and investor, the private institutions, and the pioneer gentrifiers. Gentrification displaces the working class; it is termed as the replacement of an existing population by the gentry. To change the connotation of gentrification, alternative terms became popular for example brown stoning, homesteading, and revitalization.

Gentrification began in the U.S. and Britain during the postwar urban renewal when old neighborhoods were bulldozed and replaced by modern housing and highways. This eradication led to protests, from historians, architecture buffs, and young middle class families. During my second seminar class and honors English class, we covered gentrification and housing development in NYC, specifically during Robert Moses’ reign. One of the most criticized and heinous crimes done against one of the largest and finest landmarks is the demolition of Penn Station. Protestors quoted “Don’t amputate-renovate.” How would mixed-income housing mollify gentrification?

Gentrification has existed for quite some time. Despite many new terms like “revitalization” or “back-to-the-city” movement, gentrification still continues to be a destructive process. In The Brownstoner, “they argued that gentrification was not “genocide” but “genesis”. In reality, however, gentrification is only “genesis” for those who are able to make a profit by revitalizing a dilapidated house building and selling it for a higher price to an upper middle-class family. However, the under-emphasized result is the displacement of the low-income families in the area as it becomes more gentrified. As the area becomes more upscale, so does the cost of living, forcing the existing low-income families to move. Under Robert Moses, much of New York City was transformed with expressways and but as many people criticized, displaced hundreds of thousands of people in effect. Even though gentrification may appear to beautify neighborhoods, in reality “brownstoning” has many devastating, behind-the-scenes effects that far outweigh any of its positive effects.

Question: How can we improve low-income neighborhoods without necessarily gentrifying them?

All around New York, signs of gentrification are obvious. Areas like Cortelyou Road and Park Slope in Brooklyn and the St. George area in Staten Island are a few places that I know the most about in terms of gentrification. Park Slope is one of the areas spoken about in the first reading, “The Birth of Gentrification.” In this reading, two case studies of gentrification were compared. One in Park Slope, Brooklyn and one in Barnsbury, London. It was interesting to see that both areas started off as wealthy, became low income, and then experienced gentrification, becoming wealthy once again. Both also experienced gentrification around the same time, about a decade after the second world war. However, Barnsbury is an example of value gap and Park Slope is an example of rent gap.

In Barnsbury, companies were able to remove tenants for a fee and buy real estate for a very low price. Then they renovated the apartment or house and were able to sell it or rent it at a much higher price. In Park Slope, homesteading and the Brownstone movement, in which pioneers renovated brownstones in order to rent them at exorbitant prices, took hold.

Question: How can we focus on rehabilitation at a reasonable price rather than renovation at an exorbitant price?