whew: hard one. I'm watching it happen in Five Points Denver where folks with means are moving in, which endangers the ability of the long-term residents to pay property taxes, as the gentrifying does increase property values. THere is some racial line break here, but Five Points was already gaining an Hispanic population (originally THE black neighborhood: it was ritzy in 1930-50) and the people moving in are white or mixed race/mixed couples (including same sex couples: a shock for churchgoing blacks and the gangstas crips/bloods big here) Some of the radical difference is going slowly, but some of teh oldtimers wryly note the old nickname for urban renewal: negro removal. I'd like to see Ethel's House of Soul survive & I patronize Welton Street Cafe but coffee houses and hippy bars might be the death of the neighborhood. THat all said, if people own their property, they have a right to spruce it up. I undeerstand moving where you can afford and making YOUR home nicer, but teh wholesale investment by buying blocks of houses is dealing in hopes and dreams: the neighborhood's hopes and dreams. I fear that white yuppie chowderheads will overrun this vibrant historical neighborhood and kill it. then the history of Denver's African American community will be resigned to the library vaults. A mixed neighborhood with strong roots is Ok. urban renewal-type eradication is not.
I'll agree with everything Drumminmama said. I do think that The church going black people need a shock, as do the church going white folks. When cultures live together there will be some minor shock from time to time, but thats a good thing. I was more anti-gentrification a while back. I do see a real service being done for the actual houses, and the city as a whole. If some one can fix up an old worn down house, and add 50 years to the life of the house, than more power to em. The more housed fixed up, the fewer houses built on the outskirts, which are growing farther and farther out everyday. Does gentrification reduce sprawl? maybe maybe not, I don't know?
I'd say it doesn't, Jim, because it provides homes for more people in an infill neighborhood, and most have come from housing elsewhere in the area, so the NEED for sprawl is less. I contend that the car culture is the root cause (the ability to live farther away from work and a daily commute) with status in these brand new "safe" neighborhoods being secondary. However, here, people are getting as close to the mountains and on as cheap a farm property as they can, so we are getting sprawl in four directions.
I'm moving to Denver in Sept. When you said that 5 points was being gentrified, I thought, maybe I should move there. Then I thought about it and decided that if its well known as a "neighborhood in transition" then it would already be to expensive for me.
actually not yet. Real estate has been soft and the transit oriented stuff for the southeast line of light rail is not onboard yet. Some is on the SW line, such as Alexan City Center in Englewood. What ya looking for in a new home? I'm a reporter in the southern 'burbs and know WAAAAAY too much about this sort of thing! In fact, if you are looking to buy, check out the Progressive realtors at http://www.progressiveteam.net/ They are great folks who will really work with you. Good politics, too. Drop my name, Robyn, when you contact them. They work anywhere in the metro, btw.
Atlanta is seeing some of the same gentrification issues. While it is good to see some run-down neighborhoods being spruced up a bit, it is disheartening to see long term residents (some whose families have lived in the neighborhood for generations) being forced out because they can't pay the property taxes that the incoming well-to-do masses and their "McMansions" bring to the neighborhood. Infill issues also exist in many neighborhoods around town, both white and black, low and middle income. Much of the charm of the older neighborhoods is being lost to this surge of upscale home buyers wanting to buy a plot of land, tear down the original older house, and build these huge houses (again what the newspeople, at least in this area, call "McMansions...what a hoot! ) There is legislation being considered that would limit the types of houses that can be built in these older neighborhoods , legislation that would enable the neighborhoods to retain their original charm and "feel" and would hopefully keep the property taxes from going through the roof because of the newer, "ritzier" homes.
acording to my research the average US home is 2300 sf and family size is 1.9 children. In 1970, it was 900 sf and 2.3 kids.
This is a really, really big issue for me... I think it's disgraceful. I believe it's all a symptom of materialism, people aren't happy until everything around them is "shiny and new". What happened to history and heritage? Everything's being torn down to create new, sterile, soul-less environments in our public spaces and neighbourhoods. Greed - property developers tear down an old house because they could put 8 new apartments or townhouses there instead. And they want to do it as cheaply as possible, so forget about things like adequate insulation from noise, or privacy.
Downtown Jersey City has gone from being a melting pot, to being a predominantly "white" neighborhood...housing prices have skyrocketed, open spaces like the shore of the Hudson river have become home to the tallest, ugliest building in jersey turning our natural beach into the new "Gold Coast" a proud extension of Wall Street... Liberty State Park (one of the best spots in northern nj, btw) now has to share part of its open spaces w/ the new golf course for the "well to do" in our area.... meanwhile, where are all those who were trying to fix up the neighborhood for their children, for the community as a whole? Where are those 3rd and 4th generations "Jersey-Citians"? Those artists that had opened up a new world for a forgotten community? displaced by the Starbucks, and new gourmet restaurants that cater to the hipster-artsy-yuppie hybrid taking over my land... i know i ramble...and sound like i'm generalizing people, putting them in a box... it's hard not to, when i've been put in a box myself why can we better the neighborhoods for all?...because is all about who can spend the most money....not people... We talk about the 15 mexicans living in a one bedroom, in those dirty, delapitated (sp.?) houses that devalue our properties!!! That's because thier money is going back home to feed their husbands/wives and clothe their children... it makes me angry... so much money going into McMansions (i like that term ) for a couple, when the same amount of money could go to house three families comfortably... it's obscene put down the cellphone, the blackberry, the designer latte and go back to working the land, i say! ps: i'm not against technology by any means...just the addiction to it...
shiny and new: often in areas that need insulation the energy values are so "off" that gutting and starting over is the most economical thing. Some prefer a scrape off. Some leave the ouutside walls. I took down a few walls in my time because the house didn't need all the nooks and crannies and did need airflow for the fireplace to heat it. (this was a redesign on my mom's home in an historic neighborhood) I do believe that all the wood and other reuseable materials should be salvaged. What happens when a building is so very far off fire code? or literally falling down? Now, scraping a 1975 house is proably taking the too easy way out, but I do know what a pain it is to redo those windows. You ave to look at each project individually. As for the developers coming in and rebuilding, if that gets six affordable housing units wherew once was one or two, then, OK. If it is just for the chowderhead hordes? No.
I think its good and bad. In my hometown I like it because the inner city was being completely ignored, was super violent and overrun with gangs, and the suburbs were (are) sprawling off into the horizon. They've gone in and cleaned it up, exposing some really amazing old houses that have been there all along...no one got kicked out, its still a cheap city with plenty or decent areas to live in. gentrification brought new life and decreased the violence....the area most people go out in now, you were taking yourlife into your own hands going in there after dark, plus they've created a great market that is nice to go to, and tore down a decaying penetentiary and built a hockey arena. When I lived in Seattle I thought it was awful. The "black" area got overrun with hipsters and I started just noticing less and less black people in general, its like they forced them out into another city. I sort of feel that way about New York City too, a bit overgentrified, artists can't afford to live in soho, etc.
Very much agreed. Here though, the affordable housing tends to get torn down for the chowderheads (love that term, where did you get it?)...even affordable apartment complexes are being eliminated to put in ritzy apartment complexes or out of this world expensive townhomes or condos. I have a friend that has had to move twice in the last few yrs. because her apartment complex was being torn down...finding affordable housing for her has been a real chore...living inside the perimeter in the Atlanta metro area is getting to be a expensive proposition pretty much no matter what you do...glad I'm leaving fairly soon.
Damn, we're stuck in the 70s then (thank the Goddess). We have 980sf and 3 kids between us. Now if only the music today was half as good as it was in the 70s... Gentrification = profit / discrimination. Bad.
Personally, I don't think there's a single thing wrong with gentrification. It's investment in real estate with the intent of restoring value to a neighborhood. It is sad that family homes are lost... but all it takes to lessen the blow is some education in the neighborhoods about what is going on. "We're going to lose grandad's house because property taxes are going to rise too high for us" (enter a shiny real estate agent) "Excuse me sir, but have you considered selling this house for twice the value it had five years ago before you lose the property for failure to pay income tax?" The only loss in that sort of scenario is the family's loss of that particular house, and to borrow a gem from Happy Gilmore, "a house is just... a house." A good friend of mine was raised in Five Points in Denver, and she says that she can remember a few times when her ride to school was delayed because people had broken the windows out of her mother's car to get at her stereo. Is it a bad thing that there is going to be less crime in this area? And please don't regard me as a racist, i'm fully aware of the racial issues that surround gentrification. The sad fact is that when it comes to ALL economic issues, caucasians are unfairly positioned above minorites. The solution for that problem however is not the discouragement of investment in lower class neighborhoods. Developers buying up whole blocks with the specific intent of cheating the former inhabitants for profit is obviously not a step in the right direction either, but even that scenario has the positive of reclaiming a neighborhood for law-abiding individuals. I really wish someone would gentrify large portions of Cheyenne because maybe then we wouldn't have a whole quarter of our city pumping meth into any venue it can find.
I frequent Five Points and even though the first vanguard of the chowederheads has arrived, crime has gone UP not down. I have lost a mirror and come out to find blood on the van. But so what? pack too many people in without opportunity or even diversion and crap happens. THere has to be a balance and some development company that would get involved in neighborhoods (real neighborhoods where you know who lives next to you and you have even shared groceries) to keep the population that wants to stay in their homes. What will it take to get the up and coming middleclass that isn't white to return to invigorated inner cities? So far it is till , as one person quipped in 1967: "Negro Removal." (Urban renewal)
