Over at Model Minority’s blog, there is an excellent posting – entitled “Gentrification Has Nothing to do with white hipsters”.
Model Minority raises an excellent point, and one I’ve been thinking about ever since I moved to Harlem where there are many mixed feelings about the gentrification of the area and where a battle is raging between the local community and Columbia University over the same issue. She says:
Gentrification has very little to do with white hipsters moving into the ‘hood and everything to do with process of people who earn higher incomes moving into neighborhoods where folks reside who are earning comparatively lower incomes.
If I am a Black women, in Bed-stuy, East Oakland or the South Side of Chicago, and I earn $60K per year and I am willing to pay $1000 for an apartment that everyone else, who earns between $10-15K/year, pays $500 per month, then I am serving as a force of gentrification in this neighborhood. It bears being stated that I in may ways I am a gentrifying force in the same way that a white person earning $60K who moves into the same community.
What becomes pivotal is my willingness to be engaged with the community that I have moved into.
I agree wholeheartedly with this when looking from an American context where there is a large black middle class population.
I see it now in Harlem… and in Brooklyn. I see the old time Harlemites residents rubbing up, not always comfortably, alongside newer, more well-off black residents. It’s not just white people changing the neighbourhoods, but upwardly mobile affluent black professionals who are moving in and bringing change too.
We also want the fancy coffee shops, the Whole Food stores and nice bars. We want to live in newly built condos and redone brownstones and are willing to pay more for doing so. We too are driving up the rents and changing the areas.
This is where race and class meet: it’s not so as simple as saying it’s a white versus black issue anymore. I saw this too in Johannesburg when I lived there in 2006. Actually, there are some parts of townships which have become gentrified by black people alone, so the socio-economic component has been a key driver there in some places.
I wonder, however, if there is still a sensitivity about white faces moving into a black area even if an influx of higher-income black people has the same gentrifying effect. Could it be that the reason why gentrification is still regarded as a white-black issue because there is still something that some find jarring about the obvious change in racial composition of their neighbourhood?
I remember reading in a book called “It’s the little things: Everyday actions that anger, annoy and divide the races” that what can really get under black people’s skin is the feeling that non-black people want to have ownership of things that they previously never wanted part of, including the neighbourhoods in which black people have traditionally lived. A few years ago, most white people wouldn’t even venture into Bed-Stuy or Harlem. However, perhaps neither would have middle class black people.
In London, where I’m from, gentrification generally has been about white people moving into traditionally black area like Brixton and Peckham. It can look like this is a racial thing… but this is also because there isn’t really a large black middle class as yet in the UK. But as soon as there is, I can guarantee it won’t be a gentrification-by-race issue, so much as a class/socio-economic one.
I’ve never really understood the resistance to gentrification that I’m seeing in Harlem. As far as I’m concerned, I’d rather not live around crack heads or in an environment that is run down. I want more fancy bars, restaurants and stores in “my” neighbourhood, for it to be cleaner, safer and more comfortable…So I am, as a black gentrifier, as ‘bad’ as all the white people who move here and want the same thing, and are willing to pay more to get it.
Of course, there is an issue about what happens to all of the people who are displaced and have to move out of the area because they can’t afford to live here anymore. The other issue is how to have the older and newer residents live happily next to each other. It does lead to other questions too – being that people like myself are part of the gentrification, what are we doing to help the community? How are we engaging and communicating with old time residents? Are we doing that at all? What are we doing to preserve and protect some of the historical elements of a neighbourhood (particularly relevant in Harlem’s case) that are often wiped out due to gentrification? And how can we ensure that we give back – do we open businesses and so on?
But to say it’s about white versus black is to ignore the reality of the social and economic stratification of the black community these days.
In my eyes, gentrification has never been an issue of who moves where and why, its about preserving the cultural identity of said location.
The easy examples of gentrification gone wrong are when people from one place move to a new place, but try and bring all the amenities had at their original location for their convienence. It makes sense to want to have all your basic “needs”. However the question that should immediately follow is, how is this improving the lives of those in this neighborhood. Gentrifiers that move and force their standards on neighborhood X are the problem.
Finding that balance of having what you “need” and preserving the cultural integrity of your neighborhood are the key. The people of said neighborhood need to be factored into the equation, and not looked at as a liability.
@Lemu – thanks very much for your comment… You’ve made a really good point. I agree that preserving cultural integrity is key…Nobody wants identikit neighbourhoods (well, some do!). I’ve noticed as I’ve travelled that many of the big cities Europe and America etc are starting to look very much the same: Starbucks, McDonalds, Zara, H&M, Gap etc etc.
The question is how to do that… who decides what should stay and what should go? One man’s meat is another man’s poison…And shouldn’t there be some element of change, growth and improvement in any area? It’s an interesting one. Thanks for your comment!
Great discussion! Here are my thoughts:
People who are poor dont leave neighborhoods nearly as much as people think they do, especially when accounting for the fact that people who are poor move around a lot anyway. How many of us have worked with low income students whose numbers and addresses change every few months?
What is interesting is that black people from these neighborhoods, once making enough money to move usually jump at the chance to. Middle class blacks leave neighborhoods at a far faster rate than middle class whites move in. I’m surprised a similar resentment is not given towards middle class blacks when they decide to move back. Did they not leave for the same reasons whites did? Are they not returning with the hopes of making the neighborhood more suitable for their tastes and lifestyles? What may separate them from middle class whites is that they view their lifestyles as crucial for all blacks in terms of progress and equality.
Have you read Black on the Block? It’s a book that discusses the impact of middle class blacks moving into a low income black neighborhood. She analyzes how there may be good feelings at first but there is a great deal of tension especially when it comes to education and the use of public space. Sure, there are low income blacks that share middle class values, however middle class blacks have no problem leveraging their resources to create the community they want, regardless of the feelings of their low income peers. How’s that for community building?
Hey Lola,
Thank you for the link.
The next piece that I am going to write will be on Gentrification and the End of New York City’s Chinatown.
Fun!
All i see unfairness in this post. Yeah its nice to have a better looking neighborhood but some people make it seem like the cost of living does not rise and rise and rise!! minimum wage is only 7.15/hr in NYC you try getting paid that much and even paying over 1000$(increasing every where) a month for rent and Higher cost for food and things you NEED. you eventually going to have to move but to where? your life is where its been all these years.The Job you have isn’t flexible and you’ve work hard enough for a that raise.People don’t have enough money to even move some where else or even be with out a job temporarily. Who wants to move in Public Housing, if there’s still any space left. It’s a recession how long is it going to take to even get a job, let alone a job to pay for your expenses. It’s not right at all and i don’t see anything good coming out of gentrification but nice views. People pay lots more for college now and school. I see people saying lots of low income people have stayed but more than half their pay check went to rent and not to food and con edison and insurance and Bills. Making it harder to even live comfortably. Plus prices for every thing is going up at a fast rate but not the average income. it been the same for years and even before it only went up a 30 cents, so how much longer can they afford to stay. Not long at all. It actually becomes more of race issue, how come it has to be more of a police presence when gentrification occurs but before when there was more needed it wasn’t????? how come they didn’t fix the neighborhoods up along time and decide to do it now when non urban people take interest in the community and then raise prices as time go on by so then after while anybody who has a low income won’t be there at all!! If they’re going to add more jobs, how come the jobs don’t pay enough for the employee to live in the neighborhood? That’s not right!! Why would they build a building where nobody in the neighborhood could afford to live? The Majority of the Upper and middle class is what? Not urban.. So its not just race meets class. Whats is the majority of the low income? People post the articles either trying to make gentrification sound good or over look way more important aspects. The area would have been a nice area before gentrification if the RACIST government did their Job n fixed up the neighborhood and put more police presence in them. then nobody would need gentrification for a nice neighborhood. its not the low income people fault they were squashed into 1 area with everybody desperate for a better life and better income and lots of needs. and now when things pick up, you kick them out. They know darn well they can;t afford it. How is a person going pay for there expenses of school n a high rent. Financial aide and scholarships is at a lower rate due to the recession. Gentrification will always be wrong until it can be for everyone even for low income.