Gentrification

The term gentrification could bring up different emotions for different people according to whom it is affecting. When wealthier people buy houses in a less affluent neighborhood, it causes certain socio-cultural changes to that community. These small changes send a shock wave of economic effects. The average income increases and the average family size will then decrease. The economic eviction of the lower income families will result because of the increased rents, property taxes and house prices. Once the higher income residents are there, new businesses that cater more towards them will also move in. The once blighted areas have a new appeal to affluent migrants. It becomes almost impossible for the lower income residents to stay. The neighborhood is less accessible for the people with less wealth. Although the community is technically urban, when gentrification occurs it has a more suburban character. If a depressed urban area has a transportation hub, accessibly for pedestrians, and social interactions it is desirable for people slightly opposed to the suburban community. Besides a change in the average income, there is a decline of ethnic minorities in the area. Gentrification can often be described as the “rehabilitation” of a decaying area in the city. But to a person that was living in the decaying area for their entire lives, they wouldn’t call it rehabilitation rather exile. The people of higher incomes are drawn to the areas because of its low cost. Typically in Philadelphia the people moving into the less prosperous communities and renovated them are college or grad students and post-baby boomer professionals.. But it causes displacement of poorer residents who can no longer afford the high rent and taxes. There are two sociological theories for reasons for gentrification. The first theory explains gentrification as an economic process called production-side theory. It has the relationships between flows of capital and the production of urban space, linked with economics. There’s an continues flow of capital going towards the suburbs causing a devolution of inner-city capital. Neil Smith a geographer put a his rent-gap theory as a major explanation for gentrification. The difference between “the actual capitalized ground rent (land value) of a plot of land given its present use and the potential ground rent that might be gleaned under a ‘higher and better’ use.” When the rent-gap was wide enough, landlords, developers and other people invested interest in the land and saw it as profitable. This redevelopment closes the rent-gap and then leads higher rent and mortgages. The consumption-side theory says that the gentrifiers themselves are important to understand gentrification. The concept of globalization could also be the cause. In terms of demographics, cities are seeing a growing percentage of 25-45 year olds’ in the urban, inner city core. Researchers for urban settings are seeing an increase of single women professionals living alone in gentrified areas. The urban middle class does not settle in new neighborhoods all at one. It’s often the “trend-setters” who are the first to move into gentrified areas. These groups do not have high incomes, but their educational status for example makes them bourgeois. These residents are usually young and have a higher tolerance for urban problems like crime, lack of shops and parks, poor schools than middle class parents would. When the number of “trend setters” grow, then they create services like new bars, art galleries, restaurants and attract other people. They’re adding property value and give more investors and future residents a path of a new community. The first “trend setters” or newcomers, are done with their fashionable community and move on to other areas. The entire process starts all over again. The neighborhoods trickle down the socioeconomic groups. The urban artist colony started in the 1960’s with the hippies in New York City’s East Village. Now the hippies are called hipsters. There artists and subcultural students looking for urban neighborhoods with low prices. Through the 60’s and 70’s the lofts in SoHo were housing for artists and hippies. Those areas became increased in price, so the artist moved to Park Slope, Brooklyn and Hoboken, New Jersey and now to Williamsburg, Brooklyn. The people living in the gentrified neighborhoods have organized into grassroots groups to keep affordable housing in their communities. Many of which started in the 1960's. In Miami Florida, the Liberty section, the organization Take Back the Land took control over land and built housings for the homeless which is known as Umoja Village. In response to gentrification, some cities have passed rent control areas. Rent control allows existing tenants to remain but does does affect the increase of property prices. In New York City and the surrounding counties, rent regulation protects over 1 million units and tenants from the rising rents.There are two kinds of regulations on rent. Rent controlled housing and rent stabilized housing. The rent is set annually by the Rent Guidelines Board for rent stabilized housing.