Talk:Gentrification/Archive 1

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

North East London

"Gentrification is intertwined with change; not only do the buildings, themselves, undergo renovation and beautification, but so too do the people, as such neighbourhoods often see an influx of highly educated, highly skilled, and highly paid residents moving in."

Is it really appropriate to suggest, as this sentence does, that "highly educated, highly skilled and highly paid" people are more beautiful than the previous residents?

Haha! Kent Wang 04:11, 16 Mar 2004 (UTC)

It is. СЛУЖБА (talk) 19:00, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

Is it worth mentioning the continuing, and likely accelerated gentrification of north east London with the newly awarded 2012 Olympics? Many news articles are saying the games will allow London to "renovate the third poorest borough in England". By renovate, it's pretty accepted they mean drive out the poor people and replace them with middle class people and then say "look, we renovated a poor area. Aren't we clever." Meanwhile, all the displaced people will have moved to Lambeth or something. AnonymousCoward

That's just silly left-wing prejudice that disregards the facts. The Olympic sites are on derelict railway and industrial land. The social housing will remain, and indeed the quantity of it will increase. There will also be some middle class people where there were very few, which is a good thing. Bhoeble 23:14, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

Scare quotes

From the "Hipsters and Artists as part of the Gentrification Process" section:

In the case of cities like New York City, groups of "pioneers" (usually artists) moved out to areas such as Park Slope or Williamsburg (in Brooklyn) or Hoboken, New Jersey, which were once "run-down, inner-city neighborhoods," because Manhattan had become prohibitively expensive to live in. These areas become desirable to yuppies and other hipsters because of their "bohemian flair", thus beginning gentrification and increasing property values and rents. This forces the very people who helped to make these places "unique" and "different" to move out to adjacent areas (such as Bedford-Stuyvesant in Brooklyn or Jersey City, New Jersey), where the process continues.

The number of scare quotes here is ridiculous. I'm guessing "run-down, inner-city neighborhoods," "bohemian flair," "unique," and "different," aren't actually real quotes, and if they are, they need to be cited. They're not slang terms that need to be explained, either. These are scare quotes, and as such, are used to indicate that the writer is disaproving, or at least is going out of her way to disclaim her use of these terms. It's got a very clear POV. --Ben.c 18:25, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

-- Also, they don't really bring the issue of racism and classism up. They just dance around the issue. 66.245.214.161 22:01, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

--For the whole scare quotes number, I don't think they're actually using quotes, but that they meant to slight the term they were using.

--I'd like to point out that artists and writers, while certainly not "working class," are still a low-income group; it is my feeling that the only reason they are the forerunners of gentrification is because the upper middle class and yuppies that are actually causing the gentrification are presently attracted to art and artists. If that fashion were to pass (to return, for instance, to the 80s trends, where opulence and insular lifestyles were favored), artists would not be relevant to the discussion. --autrui

"Instant Gentrification"

This paragraph needs some clean-up. It uses an example of "New Orleans with Hurricane Katrina" before any such thing has happened there, which makes it a bad example, and one that i think needs to be removed. Futhermore, it doesn't seem that this would be gentrification at all, as no one currently lives there (it's under water at the time being). It'll be rebuilding. Can the author point to another example to illustrate this point? Is this different from city development in blighted areas (where eminent domain has classically been allowed)? In general, this paragraph is not terribly informative, and needs some serious work.

Hipsters, musicians, artists and bohemians as part of the gentrification process

I changed this to "Trendsetters..." but an anonymous user has changed it back. Aside from being ridiculously long, what is this heading saying? What exactly is a "hipster" or "bohemian" in the context of modern New York City or any other city? This is not encyclopedic language and hasn't been current since 1959 except in an ironic or derogatory sense. Further, the section uses "hippify" and "yuppie" both of which are also outdated slang. Last, why are gay whites singled out for their influence in a separate section? How are they not also hip and artistic? --Tysto 16:45, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

Also, there has been African-American gentrification in New York's Harlem neighborhood, as young African-American "trendsetter" types from similar middle class backgrounds as their white counterparts have moved to that area, which in many cases their parents or grandparents had fled in the 1960s. I am not sure about the social impact of this.

I think the better question is - how *are* gay whites "hip" and "artistic"? Last time I checked, being gay was more about sexuality than about whether you frequent the "cool" clubs and read artsy magazines. There has been extensive research about gays (particularly gay white men, but gay men of colour and lesbians have also participated - there is just not as much research about those groups) and their effect on gentrification. The article already cites Castells, who pioneered research in this field.

I would also like to see more about African American gentrification in Harlem. I don't know if there's been any research out there about the effect of this on displacement, etc. Darkcore 18:41, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

Young white people have no monopoly on gentrification, although the process in the USA is often intertwined with their presence. Middle-aged or older people (as with suburban "mansionization" described below, or the development of Naturally Occurring Retirement Communities in small cities like Winter Park, Fla.), people of color (like wealthy African Americans in Kenwood, Chicago), immigrants (like Chinese immigrants in San Gabriel, Calif. or Colombian immigrants in Kendall, Fla.), and other non-hip, non-trendy groups can instigate gentrification ("neighborhood succession associated with upward shift in socioeconomic status"). Paytonc 03:20, 7 March 2006 (UTC) This section is poorly written compared to the preceding "reasons" section, and doesn't do anything to improve on the discussion of young service workers there. If it offered a theory (say, that young metropolitan service workers with high cultural capital but little physical capital ["hipsters" in slang parlance] often seek locations convenient to CBDs, displacing residents with less overall capital; they, in turn are displaced by those with more physical capital), then it'd be potentially useful. Otherwise, I'd combine the hipster & gay sections into one section on "urban pioneers" (the word is so often used in the mainstream media that I find no reason to avoid its use here) belonging to various substrata of the bourgeoisie and their role in creating a social milieu acceptable to the bourgeoisie. One theory I've seen divides the bourgeois newcomers into three groups based on their acceptance of urban risks like crime or low-achievement schools: the "risk-oblivious" go first, followed by "risk-aware," and finally the "risk-averse." Paytonc 06:16, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Also, "hipster" and "yuppie" are commonly used to denote a specific group of people (at least here in New York City) so I don't really understand how that is "outdated slang." While I agree that the heading is long (and the section needs to be rewritten), artists and musicians (and not "trendsetters" whatever that vague term is supposed to mean) have long been considered pioneers in gentrification because of their need for a lot of space and their limited income. Later, other young people come in (students, professionals just out of school), attracted by the arts culture and the diversity of the community, as well as low rents. Before long, the hipsters and yuppies move in, which consequently attracts retail and other services to cater to the changing demographic.

Trendsetters is too vague and meaningless as a term - there are a number of different actors involved in gentrification and it is not necessarily about "trendiness." Darkcore 05:49, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Maybe it should be retitled to "The Role of Marginal White Workers in Reconstructing Space". Basically, it's the marginal white workers who are doing this "pioneering". (That word is pretty appropriate. White pioneers helped kill the Indians so the other whites could settle the land.) They create the "safe space" and the appearance of white power in a "gentrifying" community. They do things like use the police to harrass the older residents, so they feel unwelcome. They "illegalize" marginal people of color and poor people.

This, of course, ignores the role of developers, politicians, and tax credits. The entire process is prefigured by a general policy that is determined to push poor people out of the city, and rewards developers for doing so.

I think trendiness plays a huge part. Is it not the newly trendy parts of town that the gentrification issue brings to question? Certainly, lower income worker communities are being contested, but many of the darlings of the gentrification issue--think Williamsburg--are trendy.

Oh, and howzabout "trend setting hipsters" to end the dispute. =)Yeago 23:42, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Where I'm from hipsters and gay men are merely subsets of a very diverse group that we call urban pioneers. Many of them are not hip and not gay. There are different reasons for being an urban pioneer, but I suspect that their biggest unifying characteristic is that they are all real estate speculators.

-Another way to look at who "trendsets" is not that they are of a particular life style (hippie, gay, artistic, whatever) but that they are single. They can afford to take a chance and move into a riskier neighborhood because they probably don't have children to worry about.

Okay, folks, enough talk; I took action and introduced "urban pioneers," although always encased in "scare quotes." I detest the term, but couldn't think of a more neutral one. --Paytonc 02:20, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Urban pioneer is an excellent term. It is common language, and everyone knows what it means. There is nothing offensive about it, and it wouldn't matter if there was.

It's sure offensive to those who live there, and remember what happened to the native inhabitants when the pioneers moved in! It implies a "civilization" versus "savages" mindset. --Orange Mike 13:25, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

everyone knows what it means What the hell is an urban pioneer?--Loodog 13:45, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

New people moving into a depressed neighborhood, buying up the houses and fixing them up; in other words, the frontline of the gentrification process. The underlying metaphor is of the pioneers of 17th-19th century white folks moving into the wilderness and building a new civilization where before were only the scattered primitive huts of the natives; see why the folks already living in neighborhoods where the "urban pioneers" move in find the term offensive? --Orange Mike 14:03, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

"urban pioneer"

I attempted a reorganization of the article's middle section (hipsters, gay men, a bunch of case studies): bringing the two sections under one umbrella, addressing other groups implicated in the process of gentrification, to provide a theoretical basis for the process (elaborating upon the rather good first section), and to group the various case studies in a clearer manner. This attempted to address the concerns of several under the "scare quotes," "hipsters [etc].", "case studies," and "urban renewal" sections above. However, this was all summarily removed over an objection to the neologism "urban pioneer," which I did not invent (in fact, it comes from Neil Smith) and included a lengthy disclaimer about. I believe, and apparently others as well, that it provides a fair (if politically loaded, which the disclaimer attempted to address) framework for discussing how different subgroups of the bourgeoisie infiltrate neighborhoods over the process of gentrification. I'm going to re-write the middle section and remove two of the three current references to "urban pioneers," leaving one.

Yeago, did you find anything else about my edits objectionable or merely the one phrase? If so, why remove everything? Paytonc 07:07, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Editonomics.

Before, you extended its use beyond its original context. Its good the article mentions it, however. Until reality comes up with an agreed upon term, we can't either =). Keep up the good work.Yeago 13:51, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. The second version is better. Paytonc 07:38, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Leftwing bias?

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

Anyone else think this article needs a "right of center" view on it? I'm not a righty, but it would help to balance it out a bit. --TheDoober 05:54, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

"Is it really appropriate to suggest, as this sentence does, that "highly educated, highly skilled and highly paid" people are more beautiful than the previous residents?"

If you read carefully, the statement in question decribes the attractiveness of the buildings, not their residents.

TheDoober

"...not only do the buildings, themselves, undergo renovation and beautification, but so too do the people,"

I'm sorry, TheDoober, but the 'so too do the people' makes it explicitly clear that 'beautification' is describing the people as well as the buildings.

--CC ¡ that's because poor people are ugly

Long before Ruth Glass coined "gentrification," the French referred to "embourgeoisement." I'll find a reference. paytonc

I thought the first section had a somewhat rightwing bias. It completely skirted the issue of developers and landlords, who are the main beneficiaries of gentrificaiton, and very eager to push for gentrification. It also avoided the very real politics required to get City Hall to go along with the plans. 66.245.214.161 21:40, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Obviously, good people could never benefit from gentrification. When an economically disadvantaged individual buys a home in a cheap high crime area only because they had no other choice, and then tough luck, the value of their investment increases ten fold, that's bad.

And when a poor rentor in the city is forced to move 20 miles away from their job and take up a car payment which they can hardly afford just to get to work and keep a roof over their family's head this benefits Jesus's country. Fuck all property owners. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.189.255.6 (talk) 14:32, 3 February 2007 (UTC).

I couldn't even get past the section titled Globalization. Talk about long winded unreadable irrelevant nonsense.

Yeah and those good economically disadvantaged people are usually forced to sell their house as they can't afford the rising property tax. If they're lucky they'll have enough to pay off their current mortgage and just enough left over to put a down payment on another house in a crappy neighborhood. WOW, good for them aren't they lucky! Are you really so dense or are you just being daft?

Please sign your comments and refrain from ad hominem against other contributors. --Rocketfairy 15:11, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Just want to point out that when one buys a house for $70,000 in a bad neighborhood and sells it for $350,000 after it has been gentrified, one has far more left over from the sale ($280,000 + equity built up) to move to a non-crappy neighborhood even paying high property taxes for a few years prior to the sale. Uris 20:01, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

There is a heavy use of the terms of "bourgeoisie". This makes it difficult to assess the NPOV of this article as the word has such left-wing tones to it. There is heavy use of Marxist (as defined by the article) theories without a counterbalance, or if there is, it is not described as such, and no setting out as if it were, with contrasting views. Wee Jimmy 23:32, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

I admit to using "bourgeois" in the article. Unfortunately, I can't think of any other good way to signify something that means something more complicated than "middle class" in English. "Middle class" is utterly meaningless in the USA, since everyone considers themselves such; a technical definition of "bourgeois" (owner of capital, either of physical capital or human capital) does clearly get there. BTW, I may talk like a Marxist sometimes but certainly see both sides of gentrification very clearly. Paytonc 08:54, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm a moderate liberal when it come to most things but I just don't understand the negativity to this idea of "gentrification." In the 2 cities I have lived in. San Antonio, and Austin Texas if you watch the local news every once in a while there will be a story on how community leaders in an impoverished area of town are begging for developers to build nice things, like clothing and book stores and more upscale restaurants near their neighborhoods. But this article make it sounds like the worst thing that could ever happen to a crappy rundown neighborhood is people investing in it and making it better(building such venues as stated before). These things then raise property values in the neighborhood. Effectively making the owners more wealthy without a similar jump in income, which with property taxes could drive them out of their home, but this naturally means at a profit. So they should simply move a few blocks/miles away and they can enjoy the low cost of living they are used to and have access to the amenities that they have lacked fro sometimes decades. So while it seems that there could be some things that are bad about having a neighborhood increase in value, it can't be worse then the alternative of having people living in slums in that area. There also seems to be some very racist attitudes here, namely that white people are bad for moving into a neighborhood where black people live. As if they are coming in with guns and kicking blacks out of their homes. Anyway almost every single NYC related article (to where I am moving soon and wished to do some research) linked to this word and I wanted to figure out what the heck it meant. --Dave1g 23:25, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Gentrification benefits:

• Owners who sell (financially)
• Cities that suddenly have a tax base again
• Public Schools (potentially) since these are funded off property taxes
• Businesses in the area
• Urbanists who want to see cities at their prime
• Tourists
• Economy in the area

Gentrification hurts:

• Renters
• Owners not wanting to move
• Families/people with small (or negative) disposible incomes (i.e. those living at or below poverty line)

"Good" and "bad" are normative statements and the overall effect to all people affected is not so simple as either of these. It moves poverty around. Excellent example: Philadelphia and Camden. Those who could no longer afford to live in Philadelphia moved to Camden, now known for its high crime rate. --Loodog 18:36, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

The "benefits/hurts" lists are pretty inaccurate. Public schools rarely benefit as gentrified areas rarely have many kids in them. Businesses do not benefit; they undergo the same flight of smaller/lower end businesses and influx of bigger-name retailers and businesses. Tourists? Well, is Times Square better as a plastic tourist trap than it was as a seedy but lively place? Owners who sell, maybe a bit, but they have to sit through some heavy tax increases waiting for the right time (most owners will not benefit much in reality). And gentrification obliterates local artist communities. Consider adding "diversity" to the "hurts" list, because gentrification severely homogenizes cities: all the neighdorhoods end up being very similar. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.20.190.24 (talk) 07:01, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

Thank you Loodog for posting that. It would be nice if such a simplified table were in the actual article, it really clears things up. It makes me wonder though if there would be a way to allow people to stay if they wish to, even if they cant afford the taxes. For instance instead of receiving taxes now the taxing entity could contract with the owner to apply the taxes accrued in the present(due to higher property values) to the sale of the home when it is eventually sold? Perhaps with some sort of fancy financing or a clause that forces the house to be sold at the latest at the death of the owner. I realize that wouldn't help the children(often grown and moved out by this point), but aren't typically the people who don't want to move the types that have lived there for a large portion of their lives and therefore have a lot of sentimental value in the home thus the reason they don't want to move. This being the case they must be at least middle aged in 20-50 years the house will be sold at some amazing profit, at which point the taxing entity could collect its back due taxes. Also what about relocation services to help the owner find a suitable place for their income while easing the transition and hopefully improving the quality of home they live in at the same time. Investment services to help manage the money from the profit of the sale to create an additional permanent (fixed?) income for the previous owner Such as tax free US/State/Municipal bonds. Of course none of these ideas help the renters, I will leave that problem to some one else I guess. Also I like the idea of the multipurpose rezoning part of the article. Forcing developers to provide housing units at a variety of income levels to have more diverse residents. --Dave1g 21:19, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

If you figure out a way for allow people to stay, you're essentially intentionally undervaluing your city's realty, which 1) deprives you of funds you could otherwise get and 2) potentially creates shortages in the market, raising prices further in the area. Rent-controls are an example of this: anyone currently renting in an area can continue to rent for the same price, by law. This is still in effect in parts of Manhattan, and also were briefly instituted in Boston. Some people blame Boston's current high cost of living on this. Everything's a mixed bag. The problem is economics and consumer preferences have no regard for what might be called "demographic justice". If people suddenly have the desire to live in an area, and they're willing and able to pay more than the current occupants (maybe not even aware of this), you get straight supply and demand.

I've heard of so-called inclusionary zoning, where you tell a developer that for every x units he builds, he has to make y low-income units. My guess is the low-income units are either less appealing (i.e. smaller and less shine), or the city must be subsidizing them. Personally, I'm a fan of this, as mixing low-income households with high-income households really benefits everyone (especially the kids).--Loodog 03:00, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

See new threads on left wing bias. .:davumaya:. 17:44, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Inaccuracies and Omissions

The gentrification entry contains some troubling inaccuracies as well as omissions; I will provide an example of each.

The following statement:

"Whereas Smith and other Marxists often take an approach that vilifies this new middle class as a homogenized, self-centered group who often act without concern for the consequences of their actions or the results of their strive [sic] to gentrify inner-city environs..."

is an egregious if common misinterpretation of Marxian theory in general and Neil Smith's work specifically. It implies that Smith and other Marxists locate the motor force for gentrification in the purported moral failings ("self-centeredness") or cultural characteristics ("homogenization") of the middle class consumers of gentrified housing. This is simply not the case. Smith, like other Marxists, provides a structural critique of gentrification that exposes the political economic forces compelling a variety of actors in the gentrification process (landlords, tenants, banks, the state) to act in particular ways, not a moral critique which attributes gentrification to greed. Capitalists (including developers), to take one example, do not seek to maximize profit because they are "evil" or "heartless" or "selfish" -- as with any other group of people, individual capitalists run the gamut from the generous to the self-serving -- but because they MUST maximize profit in order to remain competitive, and therefore remain capitalists. Smith does not blame the consumers of gentrified housing for the fact of gentrification; nor does he blame gentrification on anyone's moral failings. Quite simply, the question of whether middle class housing consumers are "self-centered" or "homogenous" (what does this even mean?) does not figure into Smith's analysis. While he writes passionately of the brutality often entailed in gentrification-induced displacement, it is a mistake to confuse that passion (and compassion) with explanation. I would recommend that this sentence be removed from the entry. It is not so much a "bias" (although that may be at play here as well, given the favor with which the author of this paragraph looks upon Ley) as an outright inaccuracy, and should not be presented to Wiki readers as a correct interpretation of either Smith's work or Marxist theory in general.

An important omission should also be corrected: gentrification is no longer thought to be restricted to cities. A burgeoning literature on rural gentrification is growing not only in the academy, but in the popular media is well. Scholars in Britain have largely taken the lead in this regard (the work of Martin Phillips is one of many examples), but the phenomenon is an increasing topic of interest in the United States as well. This entry would therefore benefit greatly from a brief discussion of rural gentrification. I would be happy to append a paragraph or two summarizing the salient problems, theories and findings regarding gentrification in the rural arena if the other participants are amenable.

Falada 00:33, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

I agree (as the author of the Smith part). Thanks for pointing that out and I concur that it should be removed.

User: Scottwhitlock 3 April 2006

I do not beieve that this "urban renewal" takes place in Harlem or in Brooklyn.

Sorry, I'm new here...

I hope I haven't violated protocol by editing the entry as I saw fit-- I realized afterward that discussion first would have been appropriate. I like the entry overall-- it is one of the only rhetoric-free (more or less) definitions of the term I've ever seen anywhere. I think my additions about race shouldn't be too controversial...

--jrg

That's fine. Your edits may wind up being changed, but what you said wasn't wrong and was in good faith, so as far as I'm concerned it's welcome. It may get changed, but that's how things improve. Thanks. —BenFrantzDale

Long time reader. Apologies for not commenting on an existing thread or commenting at the bottom of the page, but this is the sentence that caught my attention:

"Once in place, these economic development actions tend to reduce local property crime, increase property values and prices, increase tax revenues, and increase the social acceptance of gay people and racial and ethnic minorities."

This is problematic because the source for the quote, Betsky, A (1997) Queer space: architecture and same-sex desire, is about queers and not "racial and ethnic minorities." I'm not sure it's true that gentrificiation increases acceptance of racial and ethnic minorities; in certain cases, racial and ethnic minorities might feel less welcome in their own communities or in neighborhoods that are "changing."

--Chaunceyswan (talk) 08:34, 9 December 2009 (UTC)chaunceyswan

Needs more non-U.S. content

This needs more non-U.S. content. For one thing, the comments about displacing the existing population need to be heavily qualified in a UK context as in most gentrified districts in the UK large amounts of social housing remain. It's the average income people who get squeezed out here, not the poor. Bhoeble 23:11, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

--I, as a only moderately-worldly US person, was under the impression that gentrification implied a kind of "Europeanization" of the American city. In my reading and experience (limited, of course) it seems that European cities are built with the wealthiest areas closest to the center of the city, and the suburbs are where the poor neighboorhoods are. This obviously has its exceptions, but in the cases of Paris and Berlin, this seems to have been the case for much longer than it has in the U.S. Is this an ancient city-building difference, or did gentrification in Europe simply predate U.S. gentrification? autrui

Ayeum. Tough to say. American cities are supposed to have undergone "white flight" between the 50s and the 80s, only to regain trust as being safe, healthy, stimulating places to live in the late 90s through today. Now that people are moving away from the suburbs and frequently to the former "inner-city". Does that help?Yeago 18:43, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm just doing a paper on "urban environments" and there is a useful article that explains the development of suburbanisation and why the Anglo-American and continental European cities took different paths in this respect. It's titled "Bourgeois Utopias:Visions of Suburbia" by Robert Fishman, published in Readings in Urban Theory, Blackwell, 1996. Basically, although the social circumstances that lead to the separation of work and home life and the privatisation of domestic life were the same in both England and Europe at that time (early-mid 1800s), and in both cases the bourgeoisie (I know some people don't like that word, but really, it is the only one that totally incorporates the meaning, and Fishman uses it all the time) were seeking both a more attractive domestic residence and class separation, the English & the French sought achievement of this in different ways. The English middle class were influenced by Evangelical puritan principles which not only sought exaltation of home life but also revered the pure and simple rural life. The English were therefore lead to abandon the chaos of the city, regarding it as depraved and dangerous. Meanwhile the French bourgeoisie did not share these beliefs and instead aspired to the aristocratic lifestyle of theatres and cafes, which required inner city living. Achieving this with both superior accommodation and class separation would not have been possible however, due to insufficient space to build suitable apartments and lack of sufficient capital to build them anyway. However, Napoleon III was a bit of an empire-builder and wanted Paris transformed into a really stately city. He enlisted the help of Baron Haussmann, city prefect, and gave him carte blanche to transform the city. Hausmann did something similar to what Moses did in New York, cutting through the big boulevards and demolishing everything in the way. He then lined these boulevards with stately apartments with fashionable shops and cafes on the ground floor. The state organised a finance system using funds from small investors and the bulk of the transformation was achieved within 20 years, 1850-1870. Thus it could not have happened without massive state intervention, but once it did, it set a pattern emulated by many other major European cities. There's a lot more detail but that's the gist of it. Kiwijmc (talk) 09:53, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Do you have a reference for that? Last I checked, for "the big cities" outmigration to the suburbs (for native born) exceeded inmigration to cities, with the notable exceptions of foreign-born and 20-35 year-olds. Paytonc 06:52, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Do you have a reference for that? =)Yeago 13:48, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Go read the opening lines of white flight for starts. Its not a very controversial picture of American housing.Yeago 13:48, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

See pages 13, 21, and 25 of this [[1]] report: not only large central cities, but their counties and metro areas are continuing to experience high levels of domestic outmigration. Also, most American cities are vastly larger in area than their European counterparts. Paytonc 22:32, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

There is not always a racial element to gentrification, especially in traditionally poor European countries like the Republic of Ireland where racial minorities haven't existed until recently. Try to keep a "Worldwide" view. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.45.77.56 (talk • contribs) 23:21, 22 February 2009

Urban Renewal

The first section isn't very good. The language isn't tight enough, and it dances around key points.

Describing the suburbs as "Meant primarily to discourage undesirable elements" is absurd if by "undesirable elements" you mean people. Suburbs resulted from changes in transportation and industry, tax policy, population growth, inexpensive housing, etc..

Gentrification is the popular term that describes the process by which working class residents are displaced by wealtheir residents, within a city. Gentrification is often marked by significant cultural differences between the incoming groups and the existing groups, highlighting the difference.

If a specific rental market becomes desirable, building owners attempt to raise rents. They may seek out ways to legally evict existing residents, to rent units at a greater profit to new tenants. Houses and entire streets become "targeted" for renovation. As the influx of new, wealthier residents increases, larger, more expensive real estate development projects begin to make visible, rapid changes to the neighborhood.

A neighborhood homeowners association may form, and become a political force to reshape the neighborhood to their liking. They may seek out a specific designation for their area, to define a clear border between their more expensive neighborhood, and the old neighborhood to which they used to belong. In more extreme cases, the new neighborhood may contract with a private police force to further increase the contrast.

The focus on "hipsters" or "artists" is very "Eurocentric", approaching the entire issue from the perspective of the middle class people who are "moving in". Terms like "pioneers" remind me of the westward expansion, and are offensive. If the artists are the pioneers, then what are the existing residents? Savage Indians? Once the Indians are pushed out, will the "pioneers" say "there was NOBODY here before; there was NO CULTURE" or some other such nonsense?

Also, the essay completely misses the phenomenon of "mansionization" which is somewhat like gentrification, except it's happening in suburban housing tracts that were developed in the 1950s and later. Gentrification is related to postwar suburbanization, because many of the "gentrifiers" are moving from suburbs into the city.

Key issues that are missed include the following:

- Gentrification and Real Estate Prices - 
- Gentrification and the Police - 
- Gentrification and Developers -
- Gentrification and Redevelopment -
- Gentrification and Retail Choice -
- Gentrification and Zoning -
- Gentrification and Public Housing -
- Gentrification and Homeless people -
- Gentrification and Racism -

66.245.214.161 07:12, 6 December 2005 (UTC) What about -What keeps Gentrification going?

We must ask ourselves the questions that might lead to real positive change... not simply perpetuate gentrification with a colorful diguise! What can we, the community, do to improve our city, without enevitably gentrifying it? If I improve my city... yuppies will move in, working people will realize the value in thier house is increasing, they'll fix it and then sell it. They'll probly sell it to someone who can afford it, who doesn't work nearby. More crap will be built to accomodate these new people, then the process begins to ecalate into gentrification, yes? Please how do I improve my community and keep out high prices without the authorities calling me a communist?69.160.244.117 23:28, 4 June 2006 (UTC)Joey5683

Here is your answer. What you call high prices are actually normal prices. A low price, non-gentrified area sells at a discount because of various urban ills such as violent crime. Remove the ills, and the temporary discount disappears. Rents and taxes will rise. A low income individual who wants to stay should look for ways to make more money. You have to value the positive changes as much as the general public or you're done. (unsigned).

If its so easy for "A low income individual" to look for ways to make more money, then they would'nt need to live in societies ills, think about that, I live in a "low income" neighborhood, and as you would call a low income person, its not easy to look for more ways to make money, if that was the case then I wouldn't need low income housing, now, think about that! 76.112.180.49 (talk) 22:44, 7 September 2008 (UTC)