Current Events > What is wrong with gentrification?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Anarchy_Juiblex posted...

How do you guys suggest we stop gentrification? If it is such a problem.
Genuinely curious.

Their solution is usually to force property owners to give preferential prices to some people, in a bid of "integrating communities" and some shit. At least that's what I've seen people here propose in the past.
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Yeah im not sure what that ZP post is about. Im saying Nomadic is praising minorities leaving. Ask him what site hes been warned for linking to in the past
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Any of you guys been in Sydney CBD recently? It's a fucking ghost town of ultra wealthy apartments that people don't even live in, but own as investment property. This is gentrification in an extreme form. One of the most famous cities in the world and you can't even find a place to go for a drink after 10pm at night because it's so empty.
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pinky0926 posted...

Any of you guys been in Sydney CBD recently? It's a fucking ghost town of ultra wealthy apartments that people don't even live in, but own as investment property. This is gentrification in an extreme form. One of the most famous cities in the world and you can't even find a place to go for a drink after 10pm at night because it's so empty.

Uh what kind of idiot businesspeople "invest" in a ghost town? The entire point of investment property is to have tenants or to buy in an area that will appreciate. If it turns into a ghost town, that's a disaster. It's likely an outlier example.

In Chicago, there are neighborhoods that used to be extremely violent and dirty because of the public housing projects. Once the projects were torn down a few years ago, the violence started dropping. There are some areas where you can now see families outside with their kids. And it'll get better. There are areas where people are building new homes, building new businesses (pizza joints, Chinese food joints, dry cleaners, etc). That wasn't happening until after the projects were torn down.

Gentrification isn't always a bad thing.
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Logos posted...

hockeybub89 posted...

If we only have responsibility for ourselves, then what do we do with these people? It is a nice idea to just be able to tell people how they should have just made better choices, but that doesn't change the fact that they are who they are? What is your suggestion? Hope they all turn to crime so they can get arrested and stop being an eyesore?

Actually, less public housing doesn't necessarily increase crime.

http://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-Magazine/The-312/April-2012/Did-the-Destruction-of-Chicagos-Public-Housing-Decrease-Violent-Crime-Or-Just-Move-It-Elsewhere/

I would say that those people should not choose violence over applying themselves. A lot of the communities are destroying themselves from the inside because of the violence and drugs that creep into communities. Public housing communities had this problem big time. These communities need to prioritize education and self policing with a zero-tolerance policy for violence and drugs. And then they can make the right decisions consistently, eliminating this problem.

The solution isn't to impose some imaginary responsibility on others. People who buy the cheap property and move in to start businesses and growth aren't responsible for that mess.

You live in a fantasy world. People are poor. People are stupid. People make bad life choices. Standing over them and declaring that they should have lived differently doesn't help anything. You still have to do something with these people. And no, I don't think the solution is banning economic growth or whatever nonsense super commie thing you think I want. We can build nice upscale areas AND help the poor.
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CowboyDan posted...

ZombiePelican posted...

RebelElite791 posted...

ZombiePelican posted...

Nomadic View posted...

pinky0926 posted...

Because those poor people don't get a better quality of life, they just find it harder to exist anywhere and end up getting displaced. And then the entire soul of a place and the reason it was gentrified in the first place can disappear.

The "soul" of slums and ghettos disappearing is a good thing.

Tell that to the people who have lived in these neighborhoods before being pushed out by gentrification

(The people are who he's talking about)

I get you're a sheltered suburbanite who's never lived in a real city before but take it from someone pushed out of two neighborhoods thanks to gentrification,the soul of a neighborhoods comes from the people who inhabit it the more natives get pushed out the more the neighborhood loses its personality and soul

http://www.nola.com/futureofneworleans/2015/07/where_will_the_working_poor_li.html

Great reading comprehension

Great moving the goalposts
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hockeybub89 posted...

You live in a fantasy world. People are poor. People are stupid. People make bad life choices. Standing over them and declaring that they should have lived differently doesn't help anything. You still have to do something with these people. And no, I don't think the solution is banning economic growth or whatever nonsense super commie thing you think I want. We can build nice upscale areas AND help the poor.

People are stupid, and they make bad choices. Giving them a free pass every time is not going to show people that they need to think and make better choices. There's a difference between making a mistake, and being stuck in a perpetual pile of shit because you're too hard-headed and stupid to care. Your line of thinking enables the normalization of the latter.
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Logos posted...

pinky0926 posted...

Any of you guys been in Sydney CBD recently? It's a fucking ghost town of ultra wealthy apartments that people don't even live in, but own as investment property. This is gentrification in an extreme form. One of the most famous cities in the world and you can't even find a place to go for a drink after 10pm at night because it's so empty.

Uh what kind of idiot businesspeople "invest" in a ghost town? The entire point of investment property is to have tenants or to buy in an area that will appreciate. If it turns into a ghost town, that's a disaster. It's likely an outlier example.

In Chicago, there are neighborhoods that used to be extremely violent and dirty because of the public housing projects. Once the projects were torn down a few years ago, the violence started dropping. There are some areas where you can now see families outside with their kids. And it'll get better. There are areas where people are building new homes, building new businesses (pizza joints, Chinese food joints, dry cleaners, etc). That wasn't happening until after the projects were torn down.

Gentrification isn't always a bad thing.

It's the centre of a business hub, the property is absurdly expensive and will only continue to appreciate over time. The point is it's no longer a fun town anymore. I'm telling you without any liberal bias or whatever you might expect: Sydney city is a shit night out now thanks to the entire place being bought up by wealthy property investors who didn't want any kind of nightlife potentially bringing down their property prices. All the locals head out of town for a good time.
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hockeybub89 posted...

Logos posted...

hockeybub89 posted...

If we only have responsibility for ourselves, then what do we do with these people? It is a nice idea to just be able to tell people how they should have just made better choices, but that doesn't change the fact that they are who they are? What is your suggestion? Hope they all turn to crime so they can get arrested and stop being an eyesore?

Actually, less public housing doesn't necessarily increase crime.

http://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-Magazine/The-312/April-2012/Did-the-Destruction-of-Chicagos-Public-Housing-Decrease-Violent-Crime-Or-Just-Move-It-Elsewhere/

I would say that those people should not choose violence over applying themselves. A lot of the communities are destroying themselves from the inside because of the violence and drugs that creep into communities. Public housing communities had this problem big time. These communities need to prioritize education and self policing with a zero-tolerance policy for violence and drugs. And then they can make the right decisions consistently, eliminating this problem.

The solution isn't to impose some imaginary responsibility on others. People who buy the cheap property and move in to start businesses and growth aren't responsible for that mess.

You live in a fantasy world. People are poor. People are stupid. People make bad life choices. Standing over them and declaring that they should have lived differently doesn't help anything. You still have to do something with these people. And no, I don't think the solution is banning economic growth or whatever nonsense super commie thing you think I want. We can build nice upscale areas AND help the poor.

What do you propose? Suppose that a town is going through gentrification and some of the poor residents will no longer be able to afford to live there. What is your solution to that?
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pinky0926 posted...

It's the centre of a business hub, the property is absurdly expensive and will only continue to appreciate over time. The point is it's no longer a fun town anymore. I'm telling you without any liberal bias or whatever you might expect: Sydney city is a s*** night out now thanks to the entire place being bought up by wealthy property investors who didn't want any kind of nightlife potentially bringing down their property prices. All the locals head out of town for a good time.

Bring some of that over to south Chicago, we could use boring nights rather than people getting shot or stabbed all the time.
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Logos posted...

hockeybub89 posted...

You live in a fantasy world. People are poor. People are stupid. People make bad life choices. Standing over them and declaring that they should have lived differently doesn't help anything. You still have to do something with these people. And no, I don't think the solution is banning economic growth or whatever nonsense super commie thing you think I want. We can build nice upscale areas AND help the poor.

People are stupid, and they make bad choices. Giving them a free pass every time is not going to show people that they need to think and make better choices. There's a difference between making a mistake, and being stuck in a perpetual pile of shit because you're too hard-headed and stupid to care. Your line of thinking enables the normalization of the latter.

So what exactly is your suggestion? We need to completely abandon these areas so fear and desperation will either force them to figure shit out or crumble? With what money and resources will this occur? Do you not see the glaring problem with telling poor, uneducated people to figure it out on their own? We need to give them something even if we want them to self sustain. They need tools.

Here I thought we lived in a country. Not a collection of sovereign neighborhoods.
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Logos posted...

pinky0926 posted...

It's the centre of a business hub, the property is absurdly expensive and will only continue to appreciate over time. The point is it's no longer a fun town anymore. I'm telling you without any liberal bias or whatever you might expect: Sydney city is a s*** night out now thanks to the entire place being bought up by wealthy property investors who didn't want any kind of nightlife potentially bringing down their property prices. All the locals head out of town for a good time.

Bring some of that over to south Chicago, we could use boring nights rather than people getting shot or stabbed all the time.

I see your point, but your question was "what is wrong with gentrification", and clearly it's not a cut and dry issue. Sometimes it improves an area and brings in commerce and safety, sometimes it guts the life out of a place and displaces poor people without providing them a suitable alternative. You can make a place nicer but that doesn't automatically make all those poor people disappear.
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pinky0926 posted...

Logos posted...

pinky0926 posted...

It's the centre of a business hub, the property is absurdly expensive and will only continue to appreciate over time. The point is it's no longer a fun town anymore. I'm telling you without any liberal bias or whatever you might expect: Sydney city is a s*** night out now thanks to the entire place being bought up by wealthy property investors who didn't want any kind of nightlife potentially bringing down their property prices. All the locals head out of town for a good time.

Bring some of that over to south Chicago, we could use boring nights rather than people getting shot or stabbed all the time.

I see your point, but your question was "what is wrong with gentrification", and clearly it's not a cut and dry issue. Sometimes it improves an area and brings in commerce and safety, sometimes it guts the life out of a place and displaces poor people without providing them a suitable alternative. You can make a place nicer but that doesn't automatically make all those poor people disappear.

I don't think that worst case scenario happens anywhere near as often as you're pretending.
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Gentrification has allowed people to visit South Dallas
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Gentrication is slowly killing SF. I went to the Bayview district where there a plenty of projects, and literally right down the street they built luxury condos. As I was walking pass the condos I got stopped by a security guard telling me that I dont belong there. Mind you this is in San Francisco the hippiest city in America.

Ive never had such blatant discrimination even in the South.
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Gentrification is like the most thorough and effective means to destroy a neighborhood's culture and history. Dissolving it in homogeneity and scattering it's people.

I'm not saying it's pure evil or anything, but for all the time and money Malcolm Merlin spent on his earthquake machine, he could have wiped the memory of the Glades off the map by putting up a series of nice condos, a school, and a whole foods around the corner where his wife was murdered. (Arrow S1 spoilers)
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ZombiePelican posted...

CowboyDan posted...

ZombiePelican posted...

RebelElite791 posted...

ZombiePelican posted...

Nomadic View posted...

pinky0926 posted...

Because those poor people don't get a better quality of life, they just find it harder to exist anywhere and end up getting displaced. And then the entire soul of a place and the reason it was gentrified in the first place can disappear.

The "soul" of slums and ghettos disappearing is a good thing.

Tell that to the people who have lived in these neighborhoods before being pushed out by gentrification

(The people are who he's talking about)

I get you're a sheltered suburbanite who's never lived in a real city before but take it from someone pushed out of two neighborhoods thanks to gentrification,the soul of a neighborhoods comes from the people who inhabit it the more natives get pushed out the more the neighborhood loses its personality and soul

http://www.nola.com/futureofneworleans/2015/07/where_will_the_working_poor_li.html

Great reading comprehension

Great moving the goalposts

lol what does this even mean in this context
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Gentrification in my city (Richmond VA) has helped drive down crime and improve the economy.
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Slaya4 posted...

Gentrication is slowly killing SF. I went to the Bayview district where there a plenty of projects, and literally right down the street they built luxury condos. As I was walking pass the condos I got stopped by a security guard telling me that I dont belong there. Mind you this is in San Francisco the hippiest city in America.

Ive never had such blatant discrimination even in the South.

Not surprised about loving PoCs at arms length.
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Nothing is wrong with it. If the choices are:

> Poor people continue living a miserable life in a crime-infested shit hole
OR
> Wealthy people move into an area, reviving a decaying area and causing some poor people and criminals to disperse

then gentrification is always better.
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Isn't improving slums, which I don't think anyone is actually against, naturally going to increase the cost of living in those areas?
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shnangyboos posted...

Isn't improving slums, which I don't think anyone is actually against, naturally going to increase the cost of living in those areas?

Basically, yes. If you improve a region to the point where people with money want to move in, the prices are going to rise.

Unless you can artificially keep prices low through some legislation, the poorer residents will inevitably be displaced as prices rise. However, that'll keep the same poor people who were committing the crime around. That may keep the middle and upperclass people that businesses and property owners in the area want to attract away. Are the upper-middle class Smith family going to want to move into a neighborhood where you can hear gun shots popping off at night? Probably not.
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Asherlee10 posted...

I do disagree. I think that we (society) have an obligation to provide housing, because housing is a basic need that should be met if we want to continue with progress. If our basic needs are not met, we stagnate in all other areas.

Yes, we do have a responsibility to ourselves and our loved ones. That doesn't mean we do not have one to our society.

There is no obligation to pay for someone else's housing. That's how simple this is. Feel free to champion a candidate that thinks we should take some people's money to pay for other people's housing.
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I would rather live in a neighborhood where I wouldn't have to worry about the crime rate than living somewhere that has a history behind it.
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Asherlee10 posted...

Logos posted...

There is no obligation to pay for someone else's housing. That's how simple this is. Feel free to champion a candidate that thinks we should take some people's money to pay for other people's housing.

I never said there is an obligation to pay for someone else's housing. I said provide quality, affordable housing. The affordability part means that land owners and contractors are encouraged to build low to medium income housing that displaced people and other low to medium income families could rent or buy.

My only qualm with gentrification is the displacement of people. If they don't have another option, what are they supposed to do? There are existing housing crises all over the U.S.

I know at least from the black communities that are gentrified (harder than you may think), they go back to the south where it is cheaper for them to live.
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Asherlee10 posted...

Dathrowed1 posted...

Asherlee10 posted...

Logos posted...

There is no obligation to pay for someone else's housing. That's how simple this is. Feel free to champion a candidate that thinks we should take some people's money to pay for other people's housing.

I never said there is an obligation to pay for someone else's housing. I said provide quality, affordable housing. The affordability part means that land owners and contractors are encouraged to build low to medium income housing that displaced people and other low to medium income families could rent or buy.

My only qualm with gentrification is the displacement of people. If they don't have another option, what are they supposed to do? There are existing housing crises all over the U.S.

I know at least from the black communities that are gentrified (harder than you may think), they go back to the south where it is cheaper for them to live.

That's fine if there is a decent place to go. That isn't always the case, which is what my point is addressing.

The communities they go to in the south are familiar to them. It won't always be the case, it can't be.
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Dathrowed1 posted...

Asherlee10 posted...

Logos posted...

There is no obligation to pay for someone else's housing. That's how simple this is. Feel free to champion a candidate that thinks we should take some people's money to pay for other people's housing.

I never said there is an obligation to pay for someone else's housing. I said provide quality, affordable housing. The affordability part means that land owners and contractors are encouraged to build low to medium income housing that displaced people and other low to medium income families could rent or buy.

My only qualm with gentrification is the displacement of people. If they don't have another option, what are they supposed to do? There are existing housing crises all over the U.S.

I know at least from the black communities that are gentrified (harder than you may think), they go back to the south where it is cheaper for them to live.

plenty of poorer blacks who migrated to the South are in shittier situations than they were in the North/West unfortunately the blacks who have benefited from the reverse migration have been the Middle class transplants poorer Black folks are still slightly better off outside the South
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RebelElite791 posted...

Yeah im not sure what that ZP post is about. Im saying Nomadic is praising minorities leaving. Ask him what site hes been warned for linking to in the past

I think he thought your parenthesized comment was directed as a negative towards him, rather than you saying something about Nomadic to him.
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ps are we still assuming city neighborhoods with a high percentage of working class people are all dangerous lol
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hollow_shrine posted...

Gentrification is like the most thorough and effective means to destroy a neighborhood's culture and history. Dissolving it in homogeneity and scattering it's people.

I'm not saying it's pure evil or anything, but for all the time and money Malcolm Merlin spent on his earthquake machine, he could have wiped the memory of the Glades off the map by putting up a series of nice condos, a school, and a whole foods around the corner where his wife was murdered. (Arrow S1 spoilers)

gj putting the spoiler warning after the spoilers
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You guys are anti gentrification, but then you buy online and shop in person at places like Costco, Walmart, Kmart, Best Buy and so on. Local businesses die that way and lots of people lose their jobs, and it discourages locals from staying in their home towns and other tight-knit neighborhoods. But nobody cares as long as they get the best deal on their computer equipment and home furniture.

This outrage against gentrification is disingenuous.
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It was this neighborhood in my city that had the only outside bar in the city, one of the biggest skate shops in the country, an empty parking lot where all the food trucks would stay at, and the best chicken and Mexican restaurants in the city.

Everyone loved going there so much, someone bought the land all this sat on and built condo's so you could live there
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I like my $4.00 Bodega sandwiches and shit thats why lol.
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Lorenzo_2003 posted...

You guys are anti gentrification, but then you buy online and shop in person at places like Costco, Walmart, Kmart, Best Buy and so on. Local businesses die that way and lots of people lose their jobs, and it discourages locals from staying in their home towns and other tight-knit neighborhoods. But nobody cares as long as they get the best deal on their computer equipment and home furniture.

This outrage against gentrification is disingenuous.

People have to live. Sometimes there's only one option

Also there's no such thing as ethical consumption under capitalism
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Logos posted...

Asherlee10 posted...

It's not so much about "finders keepers" as it is displacement, like pinky said. In the U.S. we're not doing a great job about providing quality affordable housing. Especially not in a dangerous neighborhood.

It's not our job to provide "quality affordable housing" except to the extent that we allow the housing market to continue building homes.

We don't do that, land use regulations are ubiquitous and very onerous.

Gentrification isn't as bad as people are saying though. There are upsides and downsides, bit more upside usually, especially if you own your home. Will post studies when I'm not on mobile
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ZombiePelican posted...

Anarchy_Juiblex posted...

Paper_Okami posted...

Because it makes it too expensive for the people who have been living there for years, often decades.

If they bought their houses instead of living as perpetual renters, problem solved.

Why don't poor people stop being poor?

Yeah, no shit. I hate how people defend the poor. I use to be poor, but I busted ass and I quadrupled my income from 3 years ago, and soon I'm going to have a 40% increase to that. I don't have a college degree either, just the attitude and drive to better myself.
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South Tulsa has been pretty hardcore gentrified compared to the rest of the cardinal directions and center.

Wal-Mart is also a huge factor in elevating or reducing crime, based on their (lack of) security, and there are something like 20 supercenters in the immediate Tulsa metro area.
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kinetika_ posted...

ZombiePelican posted...

Anarchy_Juiblex posted...

Paper_Okami posted...

Because it makes it too expensive for the people who have been living there for years, often decades.

If they bought their houses instead of living as perpetual renters, problem solved.

Why don't poor people stop being poor?

Yeah, no shit. I hate how people defend the poor. I use to be poor, but I busted ass and I quadrupled my income from 3 years ago, and soon I'm going to have a 40% increase to that. I don't have a college degree either, just the attitude and drive to better myself.

yeah, pretty much this. Especially if you live near a city. You can find hundreds of job listings on any job search website. There's definitely work out there that pays decently. You put yourself out there, get experience, and keep searching for better jobs.
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averagejoel posted...

People have to live. Sometimes there's only one option

Also there's no such thing as ethical consumption under capitalism

That's basically my point. People get mad about change and act morally righteous, until you point out that they are one of the reasons for that change and they're just cherry picking which causes to champion and which ones to be "offended" by.
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Also, in Tulsa, the only job growth is in retail or medical sectors.

If you aren't passionate about one of those two, Tulsa, and more broadly speaking Oklahoma, is a job desert.
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fire810 posted...

yeah, pretty much this. Especially if you live near a city. You can find hundreds of job listings on any job search website. There's definitely work out there that pays decently. You put yourself out there, get experience, and keep searching for better jobs.

And what about other areas that have been gentrified that aren't in a major city. Because I'm pretty damn sure you have no actual idea what it's like to be poor in an area where there aren't an abundance of jobs.

The Great Muta 22 posted...

fire810 posted...

yeah, pretty much this. Especially if you live near a city. You can find hundreds of job listings on any job search website. There's definitely work out there that pays decently. You put yourself out there, get experience, and keep searching for better jobs.

And what about other areas that have been gentrified that aren't in a major city. Because I'm pretty damn sure you have no actual idea what it's like to be poor in an area where there aren't an abundance of jobs.

people are gentrifying rural areas? Seems a bit of a waste
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Gentrification is a nice thing to happen to cities, but the way it's done is very shady.

Lobbyists from real estate get cities to change their property tax structure to scale more with land value.
Businesses work the other end of the city's legislature to pitch putting business in the area if THEIR property taxes are kept low.
The city agrees, and businesses are paid to invest in the neighborhood. As values rise, property taxes on homeowners rises.
Meanwhile, real estate lobby has gotten the city to change their rental laws, so that homeowners can't rent their homes to hipsters, or have to jump through undue hoops to do so, giving them two choices for most people: stay or leave.
The lower economic homeowners leave.

It's essentially lobbying and politics being used by business and real estate to kick people out of their homes for profit.
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