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 Grey Templar wrote:
So poor people are a race now?

That is what I always found weird, White people can be poor, that is why trailer parks exist.

Not only that, but the vast majority of poor people are white.


Anyway, don't pull the race card unless there is ACTUAL RACISM!

Call it discrimination against poor people if anything, but it certainly isn't Racism. Calling such is shameful and cheapens actual racism.

 Grey Templar wrote:
So poor people are a race now?

No, they are an economic group; no one equated it to a race.

Yes, people in this thread are saying the gentrification is a racial thing

 Ahtman wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
So poor people are a race now?

No, they are an economic group; no one equated it to a race.

Jimsolo certainly did.

 Jimsolo wrote:


I think you are absolutely on the wrong side of this. Gentrification is pretty clearly a force that only deepens racial-cultural divides, and encourages a system of racism. While there might be some kind of debate in a sociology class on this, in reality, there is no argument. It's a fact.

I think you need to take a moment and examine where you're coming from on this. I understand that it's an issue without easy solutions, and coming from a background of white privilege, it's always going to be hard to acknowledge when we're participating in a racist system, even if we are not ourselves racists.

hotsauceman1 wrote:Yes, people in this thread are saying the gentrification is a racial thing

And it can be, though it isn't always.

Grey Templar wrote:

 Ahtman wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
So poor people are a race now?

No, they are an economic group; no one equated it to a race.

Jimsolo certainly did.

His post didn't say that the poor = a specific race. He talked about the racism that can be a part of gentrification and said that it can be part of racism, but he didn't say the two were equivalent. Sometimes, and probably often, there is overlap, but that isn't the same thing as stating they are the same thing.

 Ahtman wrote:

His post didn't say that the poor = a specific race. He talked about the racism that can be a part of gentrification and said that it can be part of racism, but he didn't say the two were equivalent. Sometimes, and probably often, there is overlap, but that isn't the same thing as stating they are the same thing.

QFT.

I see the pro's and con's of "gentificationwhateverhipsterinfux"
I also see some similarities in the US past history displacing the Native Americans

I also know the Federal Government does have a hand in "gentification" with HUB and some other programs

Considering a majority of 'gentrified' neighborhoods are based around cities and not rural areas, and there are high correlations in most US cities where 'poor city = Minority', there are racial undertones often to the gentrification because while it is 'rich displacing poor', it is almost always 'white displacing minority'.

You can pretend it isn't or try to say 'I don't see color' or make references to the 'poor whites' in rural parts of the country, but it doesn't change the demographics of inner city populations for the most part and that economic lines and the poverty line in US major Cities is down racial lines.

So Gentrification often has racial impacts in many situations and can have racial overtones, especially in situations where there are overt actions to target specific races outside the normal "you can't afford a 10$ beer and your rent has tripled? You are welcome to stay, just earn more money."

And yes, 'the government' does have a hand. Displacing voters is a great thing for local politicians. If I am the politician which approved the new town center you live in, chances are you are probably going to look favorably on me as a politician. Why campaign and work for you constituency when you can basically work with developers to evict, bulldoze, build all new houses and 100% replace your entire voting block with people who are going to be favorable to you? This was a big deal in some areas where they used eminent domain to basically seize land to sell to developers, and the citizens were non-voting homeless before they could do anything about it.

Gentrification also occurs in the UK where there is much less of a racial dimension to things though I dare say there is a class element.

It is primarily based on economic factors.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Gentrification also occurs in the UK where there is much less of a racial dimension to things though I dare say there is a class element.

It is primarily based on economic factors.

Question (out of general curiosity, not contrariness): I know there are several different ethnic groups within the UK. Is there a separate ethnic component to UK gentrification? With Welsh or Irish or what have you being the primary group being affected negatively?

I just bought a house near an area of town with rundown homes, smaller trailer parks, and low-income housing. I think gentrification would do wonders for my property value. I'm not wishing the low income housing to go away but the trailer parks and run down homes definitely need razing.

As far as I am aware, race has very little to do with it.

There are divisions based on religion -- RC versus Protestant -- in Northern Ireland and Glasgow however gentrification seems to take two forms based on the rising cost of housing in suburbs or the re-conversion of inner city areas from industry back to residential uses.

The cases where it causes resentment are to do with wealthy people buying second homes in the country, which forces up house prices for young local people.

In London the ethnic mix is so diverse that in many cases it would be difficult to raise resentment based on race or national origin.

Gentrification seems to be the same thing that's gone on down through the ages, one people getting displaced by another that want their land.

It's slowly happening in my city and I think it's personally pretty great. 20 years ago the current "happening" section of town was a run-down ghetto with some of the highest crime rates in the city. Then the gays moved in, fixed up a gak ton of houses, and started renting out to grad students, young professionals, etc. and not the riffraff.

Now that section of town is alive, new shops are opening and remaining open, it's not dangerous at night, you don't have to worry about getting rolled at every corner, you don't hear gun shots anymore, it's great.

And the poor people are still there, just basically just moved down a few blocks, their slumlords are still ripping off the govt with Section 8 prices, and a part of the city was reclaimed. And lo and behold, the poor section is again filled with trash and crime.

I can only speak for my city in NY, but how is lowering crime, increasing property values, and making for a better community a bad thing?

 Grey Templar wrote:
Not only that, but the vast majority of poor people are white.


Anyway, don't pull the race card unless there is ACTUAL RACISM!

Call it discrimination against poor people if anything, but it certainly isn't Racism. Calling such is shameful and cheapens actual racism.

It's a racial issue because it's done by Evil, Evil White People. C'mon Grey, try and keep up.

DutchWinsAll wrote:

I can only speak for my city in NY, but how is lowering crime, increasing property values, and making for a better community a bad thing?

Is it really 'making a better community' or 'evicting a community and replacing it with a totally new community'. We can also bring peace to the middle east... we just need to wipe out or relocate the entire population of the middle east and then replace them with new people. How is that not a totally reasonable and workable solution?

Did you really lower crime? No, you simply exported the crime to another area which you don't care about as it is not your back yard. And a lot of these 'property increases' are artificial and lots of these neighborhoods eventually see a bust. Lots of ghettos of today are the amazing urban renewal of the 70s. Sure your property values are fantastic, but often not sustainable. You probably will need to get in early and also 'get out early' to cash out before values drop and the neighborhood 'becomes bad' again. Artificially high and fake house properties always 'screw someone'. For someone to make obscene profit off house prices, someone is eventually going to realize those loses.

It isn't trying to 'solve' the issues causing poverty, or run down city services or crime, it is simply packing up those people and sending them away... They used to just murder them hundreds of years ago, then they packed them up in trains and now they do it via economic and social policies. While it works for small groups of people who get exclusionary communities built around economic bars to keep the riff-raff out, it doesn't do anything for the larger county or state as a whole.

In a smallish city near Seattle, Kirkland, gentrification has gone crazy. It's almost to the point where you can't buy there unless you're gainfully employed at Microsoft, Google, or Amazon. I saw a condo project being set up and the foundations being laid. The sign said "Starting in the low 1,000,000s." I nearly gagged. One mil. For a condo.

So where are these folks moving *from?* what happens there?

Bre. You can keep those hipsters over there near Seattle. Over here in Port Orchard, Bremerton, Tacoma, and Gig Harbor has to much of a military presence. Hipsters and military do not mix well Except my hipster neighbor who I am converting to be a rifle nut.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
Yeah, Spike lee is a directer with a big head

As an occasionally brilliant director, I think that's his right.

 Jihadin wrote:
Bre. You can keep those hipsters over there near Seattle. Over here in Port Orchard, Bremerton, Tacoma, and Gig Harbor has to much of a military presence. Hipsters and military do not mix well Except my hipster neighbor who I am converting to be a rifle nut.

You realise he's just gonna be into muskets and stuff now?

nkelsch wrote:

DutchWinsAll wrote:

I can only speak for my city in NY, but how is lowering crime, increasing property values, and making for a better community a bad thing?

Is it really 'making a better community' or 'evicting a community and replacing it with a totally new community'. We can also bring peace to the middle east... we just need to wipe out or relocate the entire population of the middle east and then replace them with new people. How is that not a totally reasonable and workable solution?

Did you really lower crime? No, you simply exported the crime to another area which you don't care about as it is not your back yard. And a lot of these 'property increases' are artificial and lots of these neighborhoods eventually see a bust. Lots of ghettos of today are the amazing urban renewal of the 70s. Sure your property values are fantastic, but often not sustainable. You probably will need to get in early and also 'get out early' to cash out before values drop and the neighborhood 'becomes bad' again. Artificially high and fake house properties always 'screw someone'. For someone to make obscene profit off house prices, someone is eventually going to realize those loses.

It isn't trying to 'solve' the issues causing poverty, or run down city services or crime, it is simply packing up those people and sending them away... They used to just murder them hundreds of years ago, then they packed them up in trains and now they do it via economic and social policies. While it works for small groups of people who get exclusionary communities built around economic bars to keep the riff-raff out, it doesn't do anything for the larger county or state as a whole.

I can only speak for my city, Buffalo, but the the overall crime rates have gone down in the city since more people have begun to move back into the city and fix it up. In the 80's, there almost was no safe sections of the city. There are still broad swathes of area in the city where you just don't go after 9pm, But there are also now quiet, safe neighborhoods where there was once condemned houses and daily shootings. Again, how is that bad? Because the former residents didn't fix it up themselves?

The rents in the new areas definitely did increase, but not by these crazy substantial shifts overnight. It was a gradual process over 20+ years. It's a common practice in many cities. Cheap land attracts and artists and other people interested in fixing up a place, place becomes nicer, more people want to live there, supply and demand results in higher rents. And again at least in Buffalo, the poor people there weren't "wiped out", they were just forced to look for other Section 8 Housing run by slumlords who cheat the govt a few blocks over. Free to keep those communities in squalor while at least a few areas get nice again.

Maybe living in a city that has been very economically depressed since the 1970's leads me to see this in a different light then in other cities. For me, the things that help a community increase in value are easily done even in poor areas. Keeping your yard neat, community gardens, neighborhood watch programs, not breaking into other people's houses and cars, are all really easily obtainable by people of any economic strata. Maybe it is selfish on my part, I would just rather live in an area where people take pride in where they live vs the plight of people whom I already pay for their housing.

Gentirifcation is not a problem, irt means that the economy is at least in part heading in the right direction.

Once the region is wealthy enough the next trick is to try social inclusion as a tasty topping to your gentrified area.

DutchWinsAll wrote:


The rents in the new areas definitely did increase, but not by these crazy substantial shifts overnight. It was a gradual process over 20+ years. It's a common practice in many cities. Cheap land attracts and artists and other people interested in fixing up a place, place becomes nicer, more people want to live there, supply and demand results in higher rents. And again at least in Buffalo, the poor people there weren't "wiped out", they were just forced to look for other Section 8 Housing run by slumlords who cheat the govt a few blocks over. Free to keep those communities in squalor while at least a few areas get nice again.

.

So what happens when you continue to displace people. They have to go somewhere. Like nkelsch said, you're not fixing the crime problem; you're simply moving it to a place that you can no longer see and care less about.

 cincydooley wrote:

DutchWinsAll wrote:


The rents in the new areas definitely did increase, but not by these crazy substantial shifts overnight. It was a gradual process over 20+ years. It's a common practice in many cities. Cheap land attracts and artists and other people interested in fixing up a place, place becomes nicer, more people want to live there, supply and demand results in higher rents. And again at least in Buffalo, the poor people there weren't "wiped out", they were just forced to look for other Section 8 Housing run by slumlords who cheat the govt a few blocks over. Free to keep those communities in squalor while at least a few areas get nice again.

.

So what happens when you continue to displace people. They have to go somewhere. Like nkelsch said, you're not fixing the crime problem; you're simply moving it to a place that you can no longer see and care less about.

Nobody is forcing them to move. They could stay and join the new local society, along with the higher pay and standard of living.

 Grey Templar wrote:


Nobody is forcing them to move. They could stay and join the new local society, along with the higher pay and standard of living.

Oh goodness. Where to start.

When gentrification happens to an urban center, the cost of housing goes up considerably.

The businesses most often don't want to hire the former residents.

A quote from an article about our local gentrificarion:

In 2001, the neighborhood was the epicenter of the race riots that erupted in Cincinnati following the police shooting of an unarmed black man. Five years later, the National Trust for Historic Preservation put the neighborhood on its list of Most Endangered Historic Places.-

The neighborhood is now home to a growing number of urban professionals and empty-nesters, setting up house in apartments and condos that sell for $300,000 and up.

And then:

And an advocate for the poor told the Cincinnati Enquirer newspaper that the gentrification of Over-the-Rhine is making affordable housing increasingly difficult to find.

As with any urban-renewal project -- Cleveland's Tremont, Columbus' Short North -- there will be winners and losers. And I don't mean to discount the stress of displacement that Cincinnati's most vulnerable citizens may be experiencing.

But from an outsider's perspective -- and no doubt many natives as well -- the renovation of Over-the-Rhine is nothing short of amazing.

The last part is the real gem.

 Jihadin wrote:
Bre. You can keep those hipsters over there near Seattle. Over here in Port Orchard, Bremerton, Tacoma, and Gig Harbor has to much of a military presence. Hipsters and military do not mix well Except my hipster neighbor who I am converting to be a rifle nut.

You can extend that to the Seatac area (I live down in "Southern Tacoma") where my rugby club is located... Sure there may be the appearance of the odd beard/short hair combo favored by many hipster males, but overall the towns of Burien and Seatac are still the "blue collar" type places that have been at least well maintained.

It seems to me the problem people mention with gentrification is that it does nothing for the poor. Which is true in many cases, but that strikes me as an issue that is fundamentally about poverty, not the changing face of an inner city area.

If poverty were made less harsh, it seems to me that many of the issues with gentrification would no longer exist. Whereas if gentrification were stopped, I think it would do next to nothing to help people in poverty.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
Some seem to think you can or you can prevent it

Genocide? Forced displacement? Hipsters are sub human propaganda?