Neighborhood Gentrification

Growing up in East Austin, one would be accustomed to seeing rundown neighborhoods inhabited mostly by African American and Hispanic working-class families. In the past few years though, the view has drastically changed. Now brightly colored two-story homes housing affluent Caucasian families occupy the once dilapidated areas. The previously desolated lots are now the future sites of lofts and condominiums. The recent changes in East Austin are a clear sign of gentrification. Gentrification is the extremely evident process of displacement. Revitalizing a derelict neighborhood favors the entire community, not just the ones with money. However, revitalization and gentrification

The gentrification process can be seen through the demographic and physical changes of the South Parkdale neighborhood. Gentrification is “the invasion of working-class areas by the upper- and middle-classes, who upgrade shabby, modest housing into elegant residences, resulting in the displacement of all, or most of the original working-class occupiers”. (Lyons, 1996) South Parkdale is a neighborhood in downtown Toronto that faces problems of gentrification. This problem has been ongoing since the nineteen fifty’s’.

Ultimately, the impact of gentrification on the Downtown Eastside will be most felt by its current low-income residents. It is understood that the complexity of the issues found in the Downtown Eastside does not allow for an easy fix. The extent to which gentrification’s impacts have been and will be felt by those living in the area are and will be great, respectively. While gentrification may bring diversity to Vancouver, it is at the expense of the many disadvantaged residents of the Downtown Eastside who will be

According to The Oxford English Dictionary, gentrification is defined as the renovation and improvement of a house or district so that it conforms to middle-class taste (Oxford English Dictionary). This definition absolutely fits the description of the current transformation of the inner City of Baltimore. When we look at neighborhoods such as Westport, Federal Hill, and Canton, it is evident that gentrification is on the City of Baltimore’s agenda. During the last two terms that Mayor Martin O’Mally has presided over the city, there have been many changes in administration and the population that are causing devastating effects on the city’s blue collar residents. The Baltimore City

When a neighborhood is gentrified it will not only change the image of it, but also the services available there (Al-Kodmany 2011, 62-63). In other words, gentrification does not only have an impact on the physical aspect of the land, but also the resources that lie there. During the 90s, the Near West Side neighborhood located near Loop, an up-scale neighborhood, sought drastic changes within the area. The changes in racial demographics in the Near West Side indicated that the health risks that affected minorities dropped in the past decade (1992-2002) (Al-Kodmany 2011,

For instance, the city Detroit has had a recent reduction in population percentages. As a result of the decrease in population growth, the Brightmoor neighborhood in Detroit area is being gentrified as of a similar situation resorting to the decline of population along the rest of the city. To handle the situation, the neighborhood has been renovated with an astounding outcome been increasing in population due to city helping college students get their bachelor’s degrees raising the population to 48 percent. This is great for Detroit because now that

Gentrification can be defined simply as the shift in the makeup of the people in a community. It is the transition in a community from a run down, poorer area to a more wealthy demographic. Gentrification starts with the increase of property values caused by brokers and real estate agents. These brokers and real estate agents usually benefit the most from gentrification. Businesses that are moving in are storefront coffee shops, cafes, boutiques, etc. Since these newer, nicer shops are occupying the storefront, the rent for the apartments above rise, causing many people to lose their homes. The new tenants that move into these apartments are typically young and hip. They prefer to hang out at these coffee shops below. These new landlords are more in touch with the demographic changes and are looking to change the area in order to make money. The older, current landlords do not see a need for change. Some people will argue that gentrification is inevitable. While gentrification is happing all over the world, I did my research specifically on downtown Kansas City, Missouri, Harlem, New York, and DUMBO, Brooklyn, New York. Gentrification comes with both positive and negative effects. These three areas each show a unique perspective on gentrification.

“Words are not passive; indeed, they help to share and create our perceptions of the world around us. The terms we choose to label or describe events must, therefore, convey appropriate connotations or images of the phenomenon under consideration in order to avoid serious misunderstandings. The existence of different terms to describe gentrification is not an accident, neither is the plethora of definitions for it” (Palen & London, 1984, p. 6). SAY SOMETHING Peter Marcuse (1999) argues that, “how gentrification is evaluated depends a great deal on how it is defined” (p. 789). Defining gentrification properly is necessary for anchoring an analysis of neighborhood change, particularly in light of recent scholarly efforts to replace the term (to describe the process) with less critical names like: ‘urban renaissance’,

Another effect is that service providers' clientele and staff leave the gentrified area in search of affordable housing. For example, in San Francisco, many low-income constituents have left the gentrified area known as the Mission. In response to their migrating client base, service providers have begun to establish offices elsewhere. In addition, non-profit organizations often cannot pay employees enough income to live in the gentrified area because of the price increase (Alejandrino 28). So as a result, many long-time employees are leaving non-profits in the gentrified area, which is definitely hurting these businesses.

First, let's start with what gentrification is. Google defines it as “the process of renovating and improving a house or district so that it conforms to middle-class taste”, but the image Gentrification usually evokes when brought into discussion is hipsters moving into a run-down but charming neighborhood and transforming it into something completely different. What is a hipster? Some may call them the fairy godmothers of the once neglected area, and others may refer to them as the monsters that are displacing families to make an artisan beard oil shop, but we’ll touch on that later.

By the 1960s many of these urban areas, with the loss of capital, jobs, and so on; began to deteriorate, and property values fell. Currently with the higher costs of property in the suburbs and other communities, there are fewer and fewer opportunities to invest small and gain a big profit; thus, making the once "undesirable" urban properties with their low property values and costs, more "desirable."

The term Gentrification was coined by a British Sociologist Ruth Glass to describe the movement of middle class families in urban areas causing the property value to increase and displacing the older settlers. Over the past decades, gentrification has been refined depending on the neighborhood 's economic, social and political context. According to Davidson and Less’ definition, a gentrified area should include investment in capital, social upgrading, displacement of older settlers and change in the landscape (Davidson and Lees, 2005).Gentrification was perceived to be a residential process, however in the recent years, it has become a broader topic, involving the restructuring of inner cities, commercial development and improvement of facilities in the inner city neighborhoods. Many urban cities like Chicago, Michigan and Boston have experienced gentrification, however, it is affecting the Harlem residents more profoundly, uprooting the people who have been living there for decades, thus destroying the cultural identity of the historic neighborhood.

Communities that are becoming more gentrified have already seen an improvement of life, and positive lasting changes in those communities. Patrick Gillespie

Nonetheless, technology advances in gentrification can also have a negative side effect on the population. Gentrification brought a negative impact upon San Francisco in the past years. The side effects lead countless of citizens to

Gentrification has been a controversial issue both in urban planning and politics primarily due to the displacement of poor people by the rich folks (Shaw & Hagemans, 2015). Many individuals have viewed gentrification as an illegal act that should be avoided at all costs. On the other hand, another group of people believe that gentrification is the way forward to promoting growth and development. With such contrasting ideas, this paper is going to take a look at gentrification from a positive and negative perspective, its effects, and how it can be prevented or contained. Apart from this, the paper will also address the following questions.