Perhaps you’ve heard the term “gentrification” before. But, have you ever considered it in terms of the recent push towards creating more sustainable communities and moving back into the city from the suburbs?

At its basic level, gentrification is about one class with more financial power and resources displacing another group of lesser means, typically in urban areas. Gentrification can be identified by a large out-migration of an area’s long-time residents and an in-migration of a new class of people with higher incomes.

Soon after the first batch of new, higher class residents moves into these neighborhoods, the perception about those areas by the mainstream middle and upper classes improves. There are many reasons why the economically well-to-do want to move into these impoverished areas, including a revived interest in  the benefits of city living, such as shorter commutes, a walking lifestyle, efficient public transit, and an urban social scene. So, the mainstream continues to move in, and as they do, real estate becomes much more expensive. As a result, the existing community is priced out.

The gentrification process is often kicked off with a push from local government to decrease crime and increase public investment in these urban areas, as local governments encourage the arrival of wealth and the prospect of higher property tax revenue. While increasing public investment and decreasing crime are great goals, those goals are usually met only through the ousting of long-time residents who can no longer afford their homes due to the quick escalation in rent (1). And, crime is often decreased strictly by use of the penal system—a system that a study by the Justice Policy Insitute indicates puts more young black males in prison than in college (2). 

Gentrification of a neighborhood in this way changes a person’s living conditions without giving them the resources with which to empower themselves into a new situation. It can also exacerbate existing class and racial problems that have been present since the inception of our cities.
The smart growth principles of urban living that are being encouraged by city planners, environmental activists and New Urbanists can have the side effect of encouraging gentrification, as smart growth calls for a return to urban living by the middle and upper classes that have been propagating suburban sprawl. The smart growth and New Urbanism community needs to fully acknowledge and work against these negative impacts that come with bringing affluence into economically depressed areas.

There are some that argue that gentrification is a good thing because it solves urban problems, mainly crime and drug-related activity. They argue that a return of affluence can be used as a positive: to de-concentrate poverty. However, free market gentrification re-concentrates poverty elsewhere and merely displaces these urban problems rather than solving them. Some communities are now finding that their cities are being revitalized only to see their inner-ring suburbs become the new ghettos (3).

So, what can we do to live sustainably and work against gentrification?

Many see the creation of affordable housing in redeveloping areas as a fix for gentrification. Policies that promote affordable housing, such as rent control or inclusionary zoning (mandating that new developments have a certain percentage of affordable housing) are part of the solution, but are a far stretch from being the entire solution. Housing affordability is only one aspect of combating gentrification, and by itself is destined to fail. But, in conjunction with policies and programs that promote education, job training, a living wage, capital for small business startups, community building, the provision of equitable social services for all people, and a reform of the justice system, a solution is possible. By simultaneously working on policies that create reinvestment in our urban communities while also providing for housing and reinvestment in the people that make up those communities, the smart growth movement can undo much of the damage to our cities that was done during the “white flight” to the suburbs.

If you’re someone who would contribute to gentrification if you moved to an economically depressed neighborhood, then you can play an active role in helping to change the system that ignores gentrification’s negative aspects. Ways to do so are:

• Volunteer in the community

• Advocate for more education and reform of the justice system (especially for drug-related crime)

• Generally spread the gentrification conversation from the housing sector to all sectors

The gentrification problem is monumental, but through awareness and activism, our society can follow smart growth principles and empower the existing communities that feel the effects of gentrification.

Sources: (1) “The Cincinnati Riots and the Class Divide in America,” www.wsws.org (2) The Justice Institue, www.justpolicy.org (3) “Suburban Ghettos in the Making,” The Chicago Reporter, www.chicagoreporter.com

Michael Figura is a planner at GreenPlan, Inc., co-owner of Eco Concepts Realty, and a member of the New Life Journal Green Home Experts Board. He can be reached at Asheville Green Real Estate, www.ecoconceptsrealty.com.

Back to New Life Journal..