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I've been seeing articles and discussions which bring up the topic of gentrification - like "Washington D.C. second only to Portland in gentrification" - and typically the underlying sentiment is that gentrification is bad and should not happen. I'm not disputing that in the slightest - what I'd like is a discussion on what exactly constitutes gentrification, and what should be done to prevent it both at an individual level and a policy level. The basic gist that I get is that gentrification is basically rich (or at least, wealthier) people finding a city neighborhood they like and buying up homes in it, causing an increase in property values and forcing established community members out through real estate market pressures: landlords raise rents because they know they can get more for it from someone else, or worse, sell the property outright. Property owners might be pressured by increasing property taxes due to rising home values (although in some areas I would think this is already ameliorated by tax laws which limit the amount property taxes can increase year over year), sell because the allure of money is too much, or leave because the neighborhood has changed in a way they don't like. This results in the erosion and eventual destruction of established local communities and cultures. Is this description generally accurate? What would an ethical individual or family looking to move to a different region do in order to not cause gentrification? What policy decisions at a city, state, and federal level would be prudent and effective in preventing gentrification?
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Feb 24, 2015 05:44
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Gentrification is the natural rebound from wealthier people leaving often the very same neighborhoods several decades prior - your neighborhood is going to become popular again at some point, as style warrants. There is nothing to be done about it, the only thing that needs to be done is to make sure there's sufficient public housing, housing assistance, and investment in working city services/school/etc all over each metro area to avoid people being involuntarily displaced, and to make sure people who choose to leave won't lose out on sufficient social services. "Local communities" have always been fluid as hell in any long lasting city. The only places it tends to stay the same for more than a few decades are outlying rural areas. The only way to avoid gentrification is to make an area so awful to live in that no one dares to live there and even the locals leave. You typically get that in places with heavy pollution, minimal city services, or no job market at all.
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Feb 24, 2015 05:59
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i find the thing for the wise individual to do is to buy much cheap property in growing cities to prepare for economic revitalization
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Feb 24, 2015 07:20
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One thing city planners can do is enforce mixed income housing in residential zones. If a developer wants to refurbish apartments into luxury units, she would be required to also build or refurbish low income units in the same general area. It keeps property values from skyrocketing, makes the poor happy and healthy by having a good neighborhood and allows a robust culture to flourish instead of just hipster stuff.
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Feb 24, 2015 08:17
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Why do you need to fight it?
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Feb 24, 2015 10:12
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Farmer Crack-rear end posted:The basic gist that I get is that gentrification is basically rich (or at least, wealthier) people finding a city neighborhood they like and buying up homes in it, causing an increase in property values and forcing established community members out through real estate market pressures: landlords raise rents because they know they can get more for it from someone else, or worse, sell the property outright. Property owners might be pressured by increasing property taxes due to rising home values (although in some areas I would think this is already ameliorated by tax laws which limit the amount property taxes can increase year over year), sell because the allure of money is too much, or leave because the neighborhood has changed in a way they don't like. This results in the erosion and eventual destruction of established local communities and cultures. Yes and no. You've got the basic short term idea correctly - but why does this happen? Isn't it a sign of inefficiency that there are undervalued urban places to begin with? Why such dramatic swings in price over timespans of a decade or less? Historically, first world anglo countries which depended heavily on automobiles in the 20th century (US, Canada, some others, generally non-Euro and Australia) rapidly developed suburban land and encouraged suburban settlement, leading to a relative hollowing out of cities. You end up with this deep impoverishment of urban land due to lack of demand from the wealthy and middle class, where relatively poor people were able to own houses close to the city center. Eventually wealthier people got over their fear of the city, and these areas rapidly increased in price. The correction over time is when urban land became more valuable, which is natural, as urbanized areas are scarcer then suburban areas. The main thing though is that gentrification is a very long term development largely based in collective economic decisions made 60+ years ago, with a huge amount of economic intertia behind it. Farmer Crack-rear end posted:What would an ethical individual or family looking to move to a different region do in order to not cause gentrification? You can't really fix this through consumer behavior. Sorry! At best you can buy a home in a neighborhood which isn't way below your price range. Then again, wealthier people moving to a poorer neighborhood has positive impact on school district funding, police presence, etc. The main problem is that we need people of all income bands to be living in the same neighborhoods. Gentrification is worst when an all-poor area becomes an all-middle class area. Farmer Crack-rear end posted:What policy decisions at a city, state, and federal level would be prudent and effective in preventing gentrification? Without typing too much, the basic solution is government interference to prevent the unwarranted displacement of persons who can't keep up with the economic shift in their neighborhood, as well as strong regulation to enforce some level of 'affordable' housing to prevent areas from becoming too socioeconomically homogenous. I'm not just talking about Section 8 and projects - in NYC (and other cities) there is a real problem where cops, teachers, nurses, and other necessary middle class workers are priced out of the neighborhoods they work in. Cities need to forego property tax increases for protected persons, so that they do not get evicted from their neighborhoods through tax increases. Cities also need to encourage if not mandate affordable housing in growing neighborhoods, as well as encourage slow growth across an entire city rather than concentrating resources on one hot neighborhood at a time. Also mass transit etc. States don't have much power, but they can support cities by providing grants as well as encourage the formation of regional planning organizations that support broader regional growth rather than hedonic explosions in one small area after another. Also mass transit etc. On the federal level, the main thing that would help is permitting a mortgage interest deduction on residences other than single family homes. This would encouage people to develop and buy condos, townhomes, and denser residential structures which would lessen the pressure on relatively scarce stocks of urban single family homes. Also mass transit etc. Lord Windy posted:Why do you need to fight it? Yeah. Gentrification is a good thing so long as you do not exploit, destroy, or damage the quality of life of persons with less economic resources. Which is practically impossible given the current political climate, but still.
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Feb 24, 2015 10:25
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If you have largely or wholly negative feelings about gentrification consider the situation in London, which is commodification. Because of the insane property prices and the astronomical rise in value (due to limited supply, increasing demand, increasing commercial centralisation and more internationalisation of London) this now happens: super rich buyers all over the world buy properties in London for investment purposes. They don't live there, they don't even rent out the properties. They simply hold the property in a portfolio for 2 or 3 years then sell at approx. 30-40% return. You aren't obliged to pay city tax (no city tax), no income tax (if you aren't resident), no capital gains tax (if you aren't resident). I'm not sure if you are even hit by council tax (refuse cleaning, street repairs, etc) if you aren't resident. This trend of foreign owner non-occupiers buying for investment and not renting out has resulted in thousands of empty properties across a city already chronically under-supplied with rental property. Whole residential developments have been sold off-plan and are sold and empty - awaiting trade to the next investment buyer. The competition by wealthy buyers has driven up prices. So London has a perfect storm of being very expensive for cost of living, expensive to rent in, extremely expensive to buy in (with relatively little liquidity and high competition), low in supply, high in demand > ever-rising prices > greater appeal of London property as pure investment. E: The Thatcher government (1980s) just about wiped out social housing rented to the poor at reasonable rates by local councils, so London has lost much of its low(er) cost rental property. Additionally, local authority regulations stipulating any development has 20% "affordable" properties is pretty much ignored. Developers rules lawyer it and state that at market prices £200,000 is "affordable". Other times developers don't build any affordable properties and are not sanctioned for it. Reading material: http://money.cnn.com/2014/03/27/news/economy/london-hong-kong-property/index.html http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-26980299 Is it easing off? http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/...n-property.html Josef K. Sourdust fucked around with this message at 13:21 on Feb 24, 2015 |
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Feb 24, 2015 10:53
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There's a common theme on these forums that urban living is ideal and rural and suburban living is unnaturally subsidized by the state. Gentrification is basically white people saying "you're right, urban living is so much better, I want to live there [again]". It's the inverse to White Flight, where people decide that they'd rather not drive a car to work every day even if it means interacting with other people (even if it practice they don't really interact that much). The main issue with Gentrification is not the specific factors surrounding it, but because it involves massive transfers of people. There's a very good book about the development of Chicago in the 1950s called Brown in the Windy City, and it basically detailed how massive amounts of immigration and development led to misery for bunches of people. You're seeing the same issues here - whenever you move large amounts of people, you're going to get a lot of misery and pain. As for solutions, as mentioned earlier the best solution is to build lots of low income housing in a location that's still close to urban centers. You're not going to stop Gentrification for the same reason you're not going to stop White Flight.
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Feb 24, 2015 13:53
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computer parts posted:There's a common theme on these forums that urban living is ideal and rural and suburban living is unnaturally subsidized by the state. This is somewhat true. The biggest problem with suburbs in this urban context is not that they exist but that they depend so heavily on cars for transportation. They're just poorly designed from an efficiency standpoint and thus require an abnormally high amount of resources per capita. Which was fine when it was relatively wealthy people moving there, but decaying inner ring suburbs are becoming the new ghettos as poor minorities are pushed out of desirable areas. In Europe suburbs have long been ghettos, but at least people can travel to and from them. American-style suburbs compound poverty with spatial isolation, because a car is mandatory to navigate these areas in any reasonable timeframe. I have family who lives in one of these suburban ghettos and since there are no sidewalks, just grassy shoulders, there are loooong trails marking the 2ish mile walk from the neighborhood to the nearest corner store. boner confessor fucked around with this message at 16:29 on Feb 24, 2015 |
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Feb 24, 2015 16:27
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Farmer Crack-rear end posted:I've been seeing articles and discussions which bring up the topic of gentrification - like "Washington D.C. second only to Portland in gentrification" - and typically the underlying sentiment is that gentrification is bad and should not happen. I'm not disputing that in the slightest - what I'd like is a discussion on what exactly constitutes gentrification, and what should be done to prevent it both at an individual level and a policy level. Why is that? FIrst you need to prove that everyone deserves a place to live, which I haven't seen done. If you can't afford an apartment, you don't deserve shelter.
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Feb 24, 2015 16:43
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TwoQuestions posted:Why is that? FIrst you need to prove that everyone deserves a place to live, which I haven't seen done. If you can't afford an apartment, you don't deserve shelter. If you are poor you should go live in the woods and starve to death.
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Feb 24, 2015 17:04
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TwoQuestions posted:Why is that? FIrst you need to prove that everyone deserves a place to live, which I haven't seen done. If you can't afford an apartment, you don't deserve shelter. That's a dumb thing to say when you look at the state of a lot of areas. America doesn't have a living wage and has rampant un/under-employment and poverty is rising. One of the big problems with gentrification is that it has been happening very, very quickly in some areas. If something becomes fashionable you'll see entire communities displaced extremely quickly. People who live in an area and want to stay aren't given an economic choice in that they can't afford to stick around. Given the rampant speculation an rent-seeking in some areas there literally isn't anywhere for them to go other than the nearest tent city. In many American states you literally can't afford anything that isn't a closet off of a full time job and that's even if you pay for nothing else including, you know, food. Gentrification is more of a symptom than a disease.
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Feb 24, 2015 17:08
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TwoQuestions posted:Why is that? FIrst you need to prove that everyone deserves a place to live, which I haven't seen done. If you can't afford an apartment, you don't deserve shelter. What does "deserve" mean, in this context? Is it a moral phenomenon?
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Feb 24, 2015 17:09
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Effectronica posted:What does "deserve" mean, in this context? Is it a moral phenomenon? Why should other people be forced to give you shelter, or anything else you need for that matter, if you can't afford it yourself? BigPaddy posted:If you are poor you should go live in the woods and starve to death. Exactly. Nobody earns the right to live simply by breathing. You earn it by being valuable to other people, enough that they pay you enough for the necessities made by other people. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PepQF7G-It0
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Feb 24, 2015 17:22
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Jackbooted statist thugs violating the third amendment forching me to house 0bama's shocktroop illegal immigrants AT GUNPOINt
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Feb 24, 2015 17:36
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TwoQuestions posted:Why should other people be forced to give you shelter, or anything else you need for that matter, if you can't afford it yourself? Okay, so in other words, the right to existence is predicated on having money? Wealth is what makes you human?
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Feb 24, 2015 17:38
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Effectronica posted:Okay, so in other words, the right to existence is predicated on having money? Wealth is what makes you human? The right to existence is predicated on your ability to provide for yourself. If you live off rabbits in the woods, more power to you, but it's wrong to take someone else's money, even FU money, to keep someone else alive. Wealth isn't necessary for humanity, it just guarantees your humanity. On a moral level that seems wrong, but I can't put my finger on why, so I can't in good conscience recommend policy that I can't prove correct.
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Feb 24, 2015 17:44
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TwoQuestions posted:The right to existence is predicated on your ability to provide for yourself. If you live off rabbits in the woods, more power to you, but it's wrong to take someone else's money, even FU money, to keep someone else alive. Maybe there is a middle ground between people 100% able to pay their own way and people 0% able to pay their own way? What if you're working, but also poor? Some kind of working poor. Can that exist? TwoQuestions posted:On a moral level that seems wrong, but I can't put my finger on why, so I can't in good conscience recommend policy that I can't prove correct. It's wrong because it is both incorrect and evil, hth
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Feb 24, 2015 17:46
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TwoQuestions posted:The right to existence is predicated on your ability to provide for yourself. If you live off rabbits in the woods, more power to you, but it's wrong to take someone else's money, even FU money, to keep someone else alive. Hmmm... Okay, no further questions!
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Feb 24, 2015 17:48
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TwoQuestions posted:Why should other people be forced to give you shelter, or anything else you need for that matter, if you can't afford it yourself? Too hard, too fast. If you're going to play this game, play it subtle.
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Feb 24, 2015 18:08
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Popular Thug Drink posted:It's wrong because it is both incorrect and evil, hth Why? It's taken as an axiom that people deserve to live, but I've never seen it proven outside of religious arguments.
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Feb 24, 2015 18:16
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TwoQuestions posted:Why should other people be forced to give you shelter, or anything else you need for that matter, if you can't afford it yourself? What congressional district do you live in matey
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Feb 24, 2015 18:22
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The real problem is that urban areas don't have control over zoning in the outskirts of their metropolitan areas and rich suburbanites throw a shitfit whenever a poor person gets within 500m of their communities so there's no new housing being constructed. The solution is to annex those communities and rezone them against the wishes of their current inhabitants. The solution isn't even necessarily public housing, just rezoning. However in a context like the Bay Area that would/will be a herculean task
icantfindaname fucked around with this message at 18:25 on Feb 24, 2015 |
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Feb 24, 2015 18:23
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TwoQuestions posted:Why? Look at it the other way; if group A has all of the resources and group B has none does group A have the right to deliberately starve group B to death?
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Feb 24, 2015 18:24
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icantfindaname posted:The real problem is that urban areas don't have control over zoning in the outskirts of their metropolitan areas because rich suburbanites throw a shitfit whenever a poor person gets within 500m of their communities. The solution is to annex those communities and build poor person housing there anyways Houston politics best politics
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Feb 24, 2015 18:25
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icantfindaname posted:The real problem is that urban areas don't have control over zoning in the outskirts of their metropolitan areas because rich suburbanites throw a shitfit whenever a poor person gets within 500m of their communities. The solution is to annex those communities and build poor person housing there anyways Only because they're too wussy to toll people on their way into the city limits. "Oh hey, you work in our city and take advantage of all our services without paying tax? Well, here's a 'entering-the-city' tax! Enjoy your stay."
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Feb 24, 2015 18:25
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ToxicSlurpee posted:Look at it the other way; if group A has all of the resources and group B has none does group A have the right to deliberately starve group B to death? Yes.
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Feb 24, 2015 18:30
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TwoQuestions posted:Yes. Congratulations on being a psychopath.
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Feb 24, 2015 18:31
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Less trolly, the notion that the people who live in a neighborhood pre-gentrification should be expected to stay there seems like something worth examining. They're not the "original" residents except on a very arbitrary time scale, they're not being illegally displaced (if they are that's a problem that needs addressing), when they move out they“re moving into another neighborhood - maybe with a nice payout if they sold property. So what is the great wrong being perpetrated?
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Feb 24, 2015 18:35
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Fojar38 posted:Congratulations on being a psychopath. Then apparently better than half the nation are psychopaths, and you gotta convince them why they need to divert resources to keeping less productive people alive.
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Feb 24, 2015 18:37
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TwoQuestions posted:Yes. OK, then. Why? If A has enough resources to comfortably and completely feed B do they have that right? What if A has more resources than they could possibly consume and the stuff that could feed B just rotted in the fields? TwoQuestions posted:Then apparently better than half the nation are psychopaths, and you gotta convince them why they need to divert resources to keeping less productive people alive. What if A has all of the resources? B can't produce anything with no resources to do so.
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Feb 24, 2015 18:37
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ToxicSlurpee posted:OK, then. Why? Isn't this hypothetical getting a little far afield. What if A has more resources and wants to live where B lives, so they pay B a bunch of money and B goes to live in a cheaper neighborhood and pockets the difference. And this repeats enough that the neighborhood becomes safer, cleaner, and generally more desirable to live in. The horror!
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Feb 24, 2015 18:40
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TwoQuestions posted:Then apparently better than half the nation are psychopaths, and you gotta convince them why they need to divert resources to keeping less productive people alive. How are we defining productivity? Is a financial sector employee who spends all day moving stacks of imaginary money around more or less productive than a fast food worker who produces immediately tangible hamburgers? wateroverfire posted:Isn't this hypothetical getting a little far afield. Alternatively, A buys property in B's neighborhood. As the A individuals become more prevalent, B's landlord raises rents commensurate with land values. B gets priced out and is forced to move out to the fringes of town or into undesirable suburbs, where services are of lower quality and commute becomes a serious limiting factor. paranoid randroid fucked around with this message at 18:43 on Feb 24, 2015 |
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Feb 24, 2015 18:40
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paranoid randroid posted:Is a financial sector employee who spends all day moving stacks of imaginary money around more or less productive than a fast food worker who produces immediately tangible hamburgers? edit: more.
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Feb 24, 2015 18:41
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This thread went to absolute poo poo real fast
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Feb 24, 2015 18:41
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wateroverfire posted:Less trolly, the notion that the people who live in a neighborhood pre-gentrification should be expected to stay there seems like something worth examining. They're not the "original" residents except on a very arbitrary time scale, they're not being illegally displaced (if they are that's a problem that needs addressing), when they move out they“re moving into another neighborhood - maybe with a nice payout if they sold property. So what is the great wrong being perpetrated? There's generally not a whole lot of housing available for the poor. Gentrification cuts this down further, primarily through the increase in property taxes and indirectly rents, forcing people into homelessness and increasingly shittier housing. If we assume that there's effectively unlimited housing at every level of quality, then, yes, gentrification is not a problem. In the real world, however, it is one, and one that must be resolved if we are to be fully human.
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Feb 24, 2015 18:41
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Effectronica posted:There's generally not a whole lot of housing available for the poor. Gentrification cuts this down further, primarily through the increase in property taxes and indirectly rents, forcing people into homelessness and increasingly shittier housing. If we assume that there's effectively unlimited housing at every level of quality, then, yes, gentrification is not a problem. In the real world, however, it is one, and one that must be resolved if we are to be fully human. idk this raises some questions in my mind. One, I thought the deal with gentrification is that the housing started off lovely. If that's the case gentrification is sort of a lateral move for lots of people. Second, I find it really hard to believe there is a housing shortage of the type you describe. I mean, maybe if you qualify it (ie: in Manhattan) but otherwise why do you believe that's a general thing? Do you have any sources?
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Feb 24, 2015 18:46
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louis ferrakhan for Congress
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Feb 24, 2015 18:47
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wateroverfire posted:edit: more. Is a middle manager more productive than the people they oversee? Give me some metric to determine productivity here, as it seems a fairly arbitrary standard. Are we defining it by how much revenue they produce? Because surely if there's one thing the past decade has taught us, its that profit and reality are not required to intersect.
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Feb 24, 2015 18:49
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wateroverfire posted:Isn't this hypothetical getting a little far afield. Not really. A group A with more resources than B may very well be the reason B has fewer resources by actively preventing B from getting any. That's one of the issues of gentrification and the land use/rights stuff going on in America right now. People are being displaced but have nowhere to be displaced to. Coupled with stagnating wages, rising prices, and the generally lovely employment situation we have a group A that owns everything (the 1% that Occupy was bitching about) and a group B that owns nothing and is totally at their mercy. If you want to look at wealth distribution imagine it this way. 100 people are sharing a 100 room house. One guy gets 35 rooms all to himself. Four people are sharing 28 rooms. Another five people get 14 of them. The next ten people get 12. The other 80 people are crammed into the other 11 rooms and are being told they're asking for too much and have to make do with less. Now consider that the 80 people represents 80% of the population and you'll see how skewed that ultimately is. 40 of those people are only allowed access to less than half of one room. If you go by quintiles 85 rooms are owned by 20 people. The bottom 40 are being told they're asking for too much and they should give their less than half of a room up because they don't deserve it. Meanwhile the whole game is rigged and the people with a lot of rooms available are using that to prevent everybody else from getting more.
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Feb 24, 2015 18:50
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