Combating Gentrification

Cinemachinery · Post by **Cinemachinery** » Tue Oct 06, 2015 9:09 pm

Post by **OpiateOfTheMasses** » Tue Oct 06, 2015 9:59 pm

I don't really see why people have a problem with gentrification. I can understand why people might be annoyed if someone looks/talks down to others because they think they're better than they are because they've got some high-flying tech job - that's a different matter. But just because an area of a city is turning from a shithole to somewhere nicer is not automatically a bad thing.

A slight tangent - we went and saw Dara O'Briain do a stand up comedy show on Friday in Cambridge (extremely good and I'd thoroughly recommend it) - he did a small spot with the usual thing that comedians do where they talk to people in the audience and ask them what they do and that sort of thing. One guy was a web developer for the Cambridge University Press and Dara was expecting that to get a reasonably good response from the rest of the audience, but the reaction was more of a "Meh". When you're in a place as IT savvy as Cambridge being a web designer is not in the least bit impressive - it's all relative. Just sayin'.

Anakin McFly · Post by **Anakin McFly** » Wed Oct 07, 2015 1:47 am

I don't really see why people have a problem with gentrification

From what I've heard, it's because it often drives property prices up, such that many people living there can no longer afford to and eventually get evicted from their homes. If other areas are just as expensive, they then end up homeless. Meanwhile, small family businesses might get bought out and replaced by chain franchises, so people lose the places they grew up with, the area loses its character, and so on.

Dr_Liszt · Post by **Dr_Liszt** » Wed Oct 07, 2015 2:01 am

Anakin McFly wrote:
I don't really see why people have a problem with gentrification
From what I've heard, it's because it often drives property prices up, such that many people living there can no longer afford to and eventually get evicted from their homes. If other areas are just as expensive, they then end up homeless. Meanwhile, small family businesses might get bought out and replaced by chain franchises, so people lose the places they grew up with, the area loses its character, and so on.

^this

Unvoiced_Apollo · Post by **Unvoiced_Apollo** » Wed Oct 07, 2015 1:30 pm

The question then is...is it possible to gentrify without causing displacement?

Post by **OpiateOfTheMasses** » Wed Oct 07, 2015 2:43 pm

I'm still struggling to see what the issue is…

Okay - I'm being deliberately obtuse. The issue is that the lower income people want to stay living where they are and don't want to be priced out of the market, right?

But why should they have a right to stay where they are? This strikes me as a very “First World Problem" - they're not going to be made homeless in the sense that they will chased out of the county by a riotous mob - they'll just having to move a bit further out of the city to somewhere a bit cheaper. Or they'll have to pay more (and if they do they'll get to live somewhere a bit nicer too). It's really not the end of the world.

I work in London at the moment, I earn more than the national average and I'd struggle to find anything bigger than a glorified rabbit hutch in London. So I don't live in London. I live in a nice town outside London and I commute in each day.

Sure it takes me an hour and half to get to work each day (and the same to get home), but that's just the way it is. If I didn't like it I'd take a lower paid job where I was or I'd get a tiny apartment in London.

If people can't afford to live somewhere then move to somewhere where they can afford to live. But don't complain because the rest of the world is moving on and they're not. Sure it's not “fair" that they can't have things the way they'd like them to be, but life's not fair, so deal with it.

Post by **Gendo** » Wed Oct 07, 2015 2:48 pm

I don't see how you can describe the situation you just did and then say you don't see how it's a problem. Poor people being forced to move to different locations doesn't sound like an obvious problem to you? Maybe moving isn't a problem if you have enough money to afford 1) The move itself 2) Transportation from your new place to your job 3) The extra time it takes to commute to work, etc... but the people who are being negatively affected here are people that don't have the means to simply deal with this without a problem.

Cassius Clay · Post by **Cassius Clay** » Wed Oct 07, 2015 2:50 pm

The logic of gentrification is basically a smaller-scale form of the logic of imperialism and/or colonialism.

Dr_Liszt · Post by **Dr_Liszt** » Wed Oct 07, 2015 2:52 pm

What gendo and castor said.
The whole comment made upset especially after what happened here with the landslide. I know the UK is not to that extreme but is the same problem.

Derived Absurdity · Post by **Derived Absurdity** » Wed Oct 07, 2015 3:02 pm

I'm extremely confused. You don't think poor people being forced out of their own homes and moved somewhere cheaper is a problem? You think wanting the right to keep your own house is a "first world problem"? What?

sikax · Post by **sikax** » Wed Oct 07, 2015 3:10 pm

That's, um, fucked up nearly to the point of being alarming.

Post by **OpiateOfTheMasses** » Wed Oct 07, 2015 3:24 pm

I don't really know what you expect to happen. They're renting these homes, they haven't bought them. When you rent anything you don't have a right to use if forever.

I think Europe perhaps is a little more used to very high land and property prices than America is so it's not such a shock here - although there are still extreme examples (such as central London). But when you have a concentration of a lot of people wanting to live/work in a certain area then the value of that land will increase.

Now up until very recently in the UK the very poor could still live in those areas because the government would give them housing benefit to pay their rent, but relatively recently they've put a cap on that because in some cases they were paying out more in housing benefit to unemployed people who wanted to live in central London that most working people in the country earned and they felt that wasn't fair.

So now we're seeing tranches of unemployed benefit claimants being forced to move out of London to find housing in cheaper parts of the country that are under the cap. And most people in the country are fine with that because some of them were claiming $40 or $50k a year in Housing Benefit.

I don't know what the rules are in America when it comes to Housing Benefit (or the equivalent) but I can't imagine it's that generous. And if there's a property where the market rate for the rent would be (say) $2,000 a month and the government wasn't willing to foot the bill who should foot the bill? Should the landlord just keep the rent down to let the “original" residents stay there? And whilst existing landlords may be able to afford to do this it will create two further problems:

1. They will lose a lot of their incentive to invest money in the property if they're getting less rent than they should for it.
2. If they do have to sell for whatever reason no-one is going to want to buy that property to rent out if they have to rent out at the lower rate - it's a very poor return on investment. Unless you force the landlord to sell it at a massive discount… but if you think you're being unfair on the tenant then how unfair would that be on the landlord?

Perhaps I'm just not as surprised by this sort of thing as you guys. I spent years working in Financial Services - particularly in Mortgages and property loans/Buy to Lets. So I've seen how markets shift and property prices/rents change and the resulting changes to demographics.

Sorry if it comes across as uncaring.

sikax · Post by **sikax** » Wed Oct 07, 2015 3:46 pm

Adapting to a "progressing" world may be well and good for yuppies who can afford to just up and move (moving isn't free), but a lot of families in poor areas of a town live paycheck-to-paycheck and can't exactly up and leave at the drop of a hat. Gentrifying, at least here, isn't always a matter of "people wanting to live/work in a certain area"; it's changing the entire landscape of the neighborhood, i.e. taking down locally owned Mom and Pop shops to make way for hip specialty stores no current residents could possibly be interested in.

It's taking out a 15-unit apartment block to make way for four-unit lofts. It's about giving the neighborhood a "facelift", making it trendy and attractive for young people. It's literally the belief that the presence of lower-income residents is a blight to the area. Legally, sure yeah they don't own their homes and, legally, if the landlord wants to sell to some investor group he can do that, but god damn it if that isn't some fucked up shit.

Not to mention the fact that the cost of living in the areas immediately surrounding this new, hip part of town will have to increase, creating a ripple effect that damages more than just the nucleus. Where does it stop? If gentrification is allowed to go on unchecked, eventually the entire city proper will be too hip and too expensive for anyone with a modest income to live, forcing them to the outskirts of town, increasing their commute, losing part of their identity, all kinds of shit.

I mean, some people grow up in a neighborhood, live there for forty years, have children who grow up there, and one day some developer comes in and decides to make the whole place a fucking shopping mall. Damn. And what do we tell them? "Shit happens, get over it"? Naw.

Cassius Clay · Post by **Cassius Clay** » Wed Oct 07, 2015 3:47 pm

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/livable- ... story.html

sikax · Post by **sikax** » Wed Oct 07, 2015 3:56 pm

^ That's another thing.

"Oops! There's a lot of black folk here. It must be a shitty neighborhood that they want improved. Allow me to improve it by replacing a historic building with a P.F. Chang's."

By the way, have any of you been to LA and seen the construction along Crenshaw? It's fucking mammoth and scary. They're building a whole new fucking town over there. It's the largest single gentrification project I've ever seen. Same thing will be happening to the Hudson Yards in New York soon, but I haven't seen that with my own eyes. Crenshaw is fucked.

Post by **OpiateOfTheMasses** » Wed Oct 07, 2015 3:58 pm

sikax wrote:I mean, some people grow up in a neighborhood, live there for forty years, have children who grow up there, and one day some developer comes in and decides to make the whole place a fucking shopping mall. Damn. And what do we tell them? "Shit happens, get over it"? Naw.

Okay - so you're saying it would be better for the people already living there if there were no improvements and everything stayed cheap.

(And in the short term it undoubtedly would be - the longer term is a different, much harder to answer question)

But other than complaining about how unfair it is, what do you propose should be done to stop all this "progress"? Shopping malls aren't inherently evil. Nice office blocks aren't necessarily bad things. New apartment blocks don't automatically gentrify somewhere. You'd need to set up a planning office that had a goal of planning for the prevention of development. And if you did accidentally let someone build something nice (be it an apartment complex or an office block) will you then stop a business owner from opening a nice coffee shop to service them in case it's the start of a "slippery slope"?

sikax · Post by **sikax** » Wed Oct 07, 2015 4:15 pm

If the price of the new office blocks, apartments and coffee shops is that the current residents are forced out, then yes, they are evil. Surely there are ways to improve a neighborhood without completely changing its landscape.

And, honestly, is it really progress to live in a loft and go to a nice coffee shop? What the fuck is the positive result in the gentrifying process? It seems the motivation is for hip young urbanites to be able to venture into a neighborhood they previously would have been frightened of. And developers know that white yuppies enjoy curious fusion delights and artists' lofts, so they provide them. But at what cost? Bullshit fucking superficial "progress" should not be tolerated as a justification for displacing people from their homes. My God.

Dr_Liszt · Post by **Dr_Liszt** » Wed Oct 07, 2015 4:19 pm

Opiate, what happens with Gentrification is an attack on the poor and you are blaming market colonization on them for not "upping up their game" in the name of "development."

Real development means that this same poor people would be able to stand on their feet, not forcing them out so rich people can now use the area. It's fucking colonization.

sikax · Post by **sikax** » Wed Oct 07, 2015 4:27 pm

Yes, if the intent is truly to improve a neighborhood whose cost of living will subsequently go up, then a responsible developer would take the time to make sure that the current residents don't have to leave. Provide jobs and resources for them, get them in on the discussion about what will be happening to their neighborhood, ask the people if they really want a P.F. Chang's here or perhaps something different etc.

True development, from the ground up, is not the same as buying property and changing it overnight and when the local residents wake up the next day, their rent has tripled and their only consolation is a nice coffee shop. The fact that this is not the case is indicative of the fact that the motivation really is displacement, not improvement.

Unvoiced_Apollo · Post by **Unvoiced_Apollo** » Wed Oct 07, 2015 4:52 pm

Tangent: My town has gotten a tiny bit upscale. We now have an open air mall towne center with a few pricey restaurants: P.F. Chang's, Uncle Julio's, Firebird, etc. There's a few stores too I wouldn't go to, but I can't name them. The most upscale grocery store we have is the Wegman's that's part of the towne center, which I do patron. Across the street is a gated community, which aside from the gates, has no unique architectural design to its town houses and apartments.

It's an improvement to the community but it feels like a natural development. It didn't raze any existing homes or officrs. Just a driving range which had long since been out of business. I hadn't heard of people being displace but that doesn't mean it hasn't happened or it won't.

The biggest thing is my area still feels the same. Improvements are there, but it sedms there was demand for them and no one (from what I know) was displaced. A big difference though is I live in suburbia, and there was plenty of space to make these improvementd without encroaching on others' livelihood. I imagine the landscape being much different in urban areas.

sikax · Post by **sikax** » Wed Oct 07, 2015 5:16 pm

The density of urban areas definitely makes gentrification and development in general a much more delicate affair. Ultimately, though, whoever can put up the most money usually wins. Unfortunately, the group with the most money typically ends up doing the least desirable thing for the local residents.

If you can find a way to make a huge improvement to an area by only razing abandoned buildings and not directly displacing people, that's ideal, obviously, but generally speaking there will always be indirect displacement through skyrocketing rent prices. This is inevitable. I'm not naive enough to be against all forms of advancement, but when given the choice between kicking people out of their homes or not, I would hope that developers choose correctly.

Post by **OpiateOfTheMasses** » Wed Oct 07, 2015 6:18 pm

sikax wrote:Yes, if the intent is truly to improve a neighborhood whose cost of living will subsequently go up, then a responsible developer would take the time to make sure that the current residents don't have to leave. Provide jobs and resources for them, get them in on the discussion about what will be happening to their neighborhood, ask the people if they really want a P.F. Chang's here or perhaps something different etc.

True development, from the ground up, is not the same as buying property and changing it overnight and when the local residents wake up the next day, their rent has tripled and their only consolation is a nice coffee shop. The fact that this is not the case is indicative of the fact that the motivation really is displacement, not improvement.

The Private Equity (PE) that builds the developments aren't doing so with the primary objective of social engineering - they're doing it to make money. And the checks and balances to decide whether the PE should be allowed to build that development is the local planning authority which will be part of the city or county council authority. They're the ones that should be checking with the locals to see whether or not the plans should be authorised - not the PE guys.

But if you want "True development" (whatever that is) then you're up shit creek. Because PE isn't going to be interested in some social project that doesn't return on their investment. And government doesn't have any money to do it.

I still don't know what you realistically expect to happen. Even if they try to ban pretty much all development - as has been said - as the surrounding areas improve the value will still increase just maybe not as quickly.

You're trying to hold back the tide.

Dr_Liszt · Post by **Dr_Liszt** » Wed Oct 07, 2015 6:45 pm

Ain't capitalism great?

sikax · Post by **sikax** » Wed Oct 07, 2015 6:49 pm

OpiateOfTheMasses wrote:You're trying to hold back the tide.

No, just hopefully redefine the tide. Or reduce its damage. I don't want to stop progress, but when the development of a nice coffee shop and some lofts forces people out of a neighborhood, that is not progress for anyone but the people whose wallets they thicken. That, in fact, is the opposite of progress.

phe_de · Post by **phe_de** » Wed Oct 07, 2015 6:54 pm

Dr_Liszt wrote:Ain't capitalism great?

Yes.

Post by **OpiateOfTheMasses** » Wed Oct 07, 2015 10:07 pm

sikax wrote:
OpiateOfTheMasses wrote:You're trying to hold back the tide.
No, just hopefully redefine the tide. Or reduce its damage. I don't want to stop progress, but when the development of a nice coffee shop and some lofts forces people out of a neighborhood, that is not progress for anyone but the people whose wallets they thicken. That, in fact, is the opposite of progress.

It's also progress for all the people that live and work in the developments that they build.

I'll use London as the example, because it's the one I'm most familiar with. Canary Wharf (and surrounding area) was a run down part of East London - extremely low rent by anyone's standards. They went in and built a huge financial services district in there and filled it with high end restaurants and hotels. They've even squeezed an airport in. There's now so much money there it's obscene. And it creates a fantastic amount of tax revenue for the country - depending on who you listen to, something between 2 and 5% of all the taxes raised in the entire country come from that one little corner of London.

So yes - it's possibly inconvenienced a few of the locals. It's also possibly benefited a few of the locals who will have found jobs there or a way to sell services to them. But no matter how you slice it, the "greater good" argument has to have a part of it too.

I don't think it's ever as simple as saying "this is going to be bad for X thousand people who currently live there so we shouldn't do it". Life isn't that simple. If it was that simple, we'd have smashed the mechanised looms and still all be weaving our clothe by hand because we wouldn't want to put the weavers out of work.

Dr_Liszt · Post by **Dr_Liszt** » Wed Oct 07, 2015 11:03 pm

While colonialism is
considered an antiquated term, it nonetheless suggests disempowering one group of people and
empowering another, while at the same time an elite group operates the mechanisms for
colonialism or in this case, gentrification, to flourish.

Gentrification is a byproduct of mankind's continuing interest in advancing the notion that one
group is more superior to another and worthy of capitalistic consumption with little regard to
social consciousness. It is elitism of the utmost and exclusionary politics to the core.

This is not to say that gentrification is wrong
- or for that matter right - but instead gentrification is a part of man's continual obsession with
conquering, disempowering, politicizing and capitalizing over other individuals for their own
gain.

This is not to say that
land ownership is right or wrong, but instead to consider that land possession through
colonization or gentrification is problematic because it implies that the property was acquired
with little consideration of prior owners, renters or stakeholders of the land. It is a continuum of
western mankind's interest in landholding (see figure 3). Most important, marginalized
individuals are considered an afterthought since they are sacrificed to cost of living adjustments
and ultimately total displacement "in the name of market freedom and personal choice or in more
direct ways through vengeful policies which have attacked the land tenure and human rights of
those least able to articulate resistance to the process."52

Recognizing that gentrification is an ongoing profit-making paradigm based on property
ownership, residential removal and profit, it must be further understood as part of a continuous
desire to promote colonization in urban spaces

http://forumonpublicpolicy.com/summer08 ... harton.pdf

http://www.urbancenter.utoronto.ca/pdfs ... lp-or-.pdf

Post by **thesalmonofdoubt** » Thu Oct 08, 2015 1:23 am

OpiateOfTheMasses wrote:
sikax wrote:
OpiateOfTheMasses wrote:You're trying to hold back the tide.
No, just hopefully redefine the tide. Or reduce its damage. I don't want to stop progress, but when the development of a nice coffee shop and some lofts forces people out of a neighborhood, that is not progress for anyone but the people whose wallets they thicken. That, in fact, is the opposite of progress.
It's also progress for all the people that live and work in the developments that they build.

I'll use London as the example, because it's the one I'm most familiar with. Canary Wharf (and surrounding area) was a run down part of East London - extremely low rent by anyone's standards. They went in and built a huge financial services district in there and filled it with high end restaurants and hotels. They've even squeezed an airport in. There's now so much money there it's obscene. And it creates a fantastic amount of tax revenue for the country - depending on who you listen to, something between 2 and 5% of all the taxes raised in the entire country come from that one little corner of London.

So yes - it's possibly inconvenienced a few of the locals. It's also possibly benefited a few of the locals who will have found jobs there or a way to sell services to them. But no matter how you slice it, the "greater good" argument has to have a part of it too.

I don't think it's ever as simple as saying "this is going to be bad for X thousand people who currently live there so we shouldn't do it". Life isn't that simple. If it was that simple, we'd have smashed the mechanised looms and still all be weaving our clothe by hand because we wouldn't want to put the weavers out of work.

There was a post a while back - I think by Silax about how gentrified Portland has become and how that was a bad thing. Up until that post, Gentrification wasn't an issue that I have ever even thought about so, I'm admitting I'm pretty naïve to whole thing and from what's been posted so far, it seems it plays out differently in different places depending on how you locally handle planning/ rent control/ affordable housing etc.
After reading a few of these posts - my feeling are. If you rent, then eventually you will be priced out of the market. Rent rises are strictly controlled here given you can't just increase the rates of what you just for rent by whatever you like. But, you can increase rents within bands and eventually that will have an impact on those people living in these area's.

The counter to this is - with Gentrification comes jobs, more shops/businesses opening in a certain area will lead to more jobs being available in that area and will go a little way to providing more prosperity for people living in that area. Obviously not all these jobs will be high paying and not all people in that area who are already disenfranchised will be able make utility of these jobs. But there is a minor opposing force.

If you are poor and own a house in what was a cheap area - then the benefits outweigh the disadvantages. Rates will probably go up, but generally rate are also controlled and moderated so the effect will be gradual. The up shot of all that is, if you decide to sell - you make bank. You house, thru other peoples efforts will be worth a great deal more after gentrification than before.. So there's that.

What I've seen of how areas become gentrified here is that its more gradual and grass roots than some PE firm or conglomerate taking over an entire area wholesale and changing everything over night. Most of these places are inner city locations that are prime but grimy so - people looking for affordable housing that they can invest in to life its value gets bought out by individuals with a very gradual shift from grimy to extra special. Most of these area's are heritage controlled. Its near to impossible to simply buy up a block of houses, raise them to the ground and build corporate luxury. It's almost always people buying heritage houses and working within planning controls to lift them from shitty to fab by the sweat of their own back. It doesn't "just happen".. it happens over the course of many years.

So - I have no idea how I really feel about it but I do feel that when you talk about gentrification in places like the States - you are not talking about the exact same thing as gentrification elsewhere ..

The best examples I can think of locally are - The Docklands, which was an area in town that was used, as the name would suggest, to dock boats, the area fell into disuse largely because big ships dock out of town where they can handle big ships - the area was getting by renting docking space to individuals with private boats. There were no residences there at all - the entire area got bought out and redeveloped with heritage factory buildings (disused) being converted to apartements and business. No displacement, all positive.. and turned an ugly part of town into a flash yuppy part of town.

Collingwood and Brunswick - Both inner city suburbs that used to be very blue collar - cheap and prime real estate in term of where they are located. Both suburbs had enormously high rates of owner occupiers, most of these people made a killing, but none of these area's were "just transformed" ..it happended over the course of 20 some years

Cinemachinery · Post by **Cinemachinery** » Thu Oct 08, 2015 3:23 am

As a guy who's had my family priced out of a diverse and affordable neighborhood twice now, (it rings of that Onion article on it where the family says "We'll just have to find another neighborhood terrifying and dangerous enough to be affordable") it sucks arse.

However, it's also sort of an inevitable function of commerce in high density areas and I'd hate the envision the intrusive laws necessary to somehow prevent it from occurring.

Dr_Liszt · Post by **Dr_Liszt** » Thu Oct 08, 2015 3:56 am

the envision the intrusive laws necessary to somehow prevent it from occurring.

This is just an example of how capitalism doesn't work for the poor. It's nothing but the use of economics to repress poor people (a.k.a minorities).
You need to regulate capitalism or it will eat everything in its path. You want less intrusive laws? Well tough shit because what I'm learning from privileged white men posting here is that progress comes at the expense of ethnic cleansing and injustice towards minorities, so more legislation in favor of the poor is the least we can do.

Cassius Clay · Post by **Cassius Clay** » Thu Oct 08, 2015 3:10 pm

The implicit defense of profit motive in an ethical conversation about the exploitive/parasitic nature of gentrification boggles the mind. As if profit is an intention that is detached from the issue and is above ethical consideration. Yeah, profit for a select group at other's expense is exactly how racism/classism works. You might as well defend colonialism the same way.

Monk · Post by **Monk** » Thu Oct 08, 2015 3:50 pm

So I admittedly haven't really researched the effects of gentrification, but there doesn't appear to be a ton of data. It looks like there are potentially benefits to everyone, however some end up getting fucked.

http://journalistsresource.org/studies/ ... ch-roundup

Benefits or drawbacks?

Recent studies of neighborhood change have examined other effects of gentrification on low-income residents. Research published in 2010 and 2011 found evidence that gentrification could boost income for low-income residents who remained and also raised their level of housing-related satisfaction. Examinations of gentrification's effects on crime have found mixed results, with a 2010 study of Los Angeles neighborhoods showing a rise in crime and a 2011 Chicago-based study showing a decrease (with the exception of street robberies in majority-black neighborhoods, which increased). A 2014 study from Grace Hwang and Robert J. Sampson of Harvard found that black neighborhoods were less likely to be gentrified than those with significant Asian or Latino populations.

Even if the proportion of low-income residents displaced by gentrification is low, research indicates that the aggregate number displaced can be high and the consequences of displacement particularly harmful. A 2006 study estimated that about 10,000 households were displaced by gentrification each year in New York City. Follow-up interviews found that among those displaced, many ended up living in overcrowded apartments, shelters or even became homeless. Further, there may be long-term political consequences for low-income residents of gentrified neighborhoods — a 2014 study found poor neighborhoods with rich enclaves spent less on public programs, for example.

- See more at: http://journalistsresource.org/studies/ ... a8dOu.dpuf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

sikax · Post by **sikax** » Thu Oct 08, 2015 4:03 pm

thesalmonofdoubt wrote:I do feel that when you talk about gentrification in places like the States - you are not talking about the exact same thing as gentrification elsewhere ..

I thought that might have been the case, but then Opiate has explicitly said "tough shit" concerning people being displaced from their homes and that profits are a good enough reason. So, he seems to grasp the basic concept of what gentrification means in the U.S. and still defends it. It's puzzling.

thesalmonofdoubt wrote:Its near to impossible to simply buy up a block of houses, raise them to the ground and build corporate luxury. It's almost always people buying heritage houses and working within planning controls to lift them from shitty to fab by the sweat of their own back. It doesn't "just happen".. it happens over the course of many years.

It really does "just happen" here. A gradual, natural process that is not driven by profit is very rare here in the states and virtually non-existent in major cities. The best you'll find is in small-to-medium sized towns where the presence of a relatively tighter-knit community has a better chance of prevailing over Big Money. In the city, though, we're fucked.

Post by **OpiateOfTheMasses** » Thu Oct 08, 2015 4:15 pm

What I've mainly been trying to get at is...

What is the realistic alternative?

It's all very well saying that it shouldn't happen and it's not nice (and I accept that it can be "not nice"). But I also refute that it is automatically bad, and that unless anyone can come up with a more reasoned alternative than "we don't like it so don't do it" it's going to keep happening.

Dr_Liszt · Post by **Dr_Liszt** » Thu Oct 08, 2015 4:35 pm

Give more power and privileges to working class people. This is a power struggle where one class of privileged fucks want to displace a less powerful one in the name of development, which as studies shows, it has nothing to do with development. It's about zoning, displacement and destroying small businesses and thriving small communities. (In other words the opposite of development)

It's what some people call, you know, socialism, but I don't know.

Dr_Liszt · Post by **Dr_Liszt** » Thu Oct 08, 2015 4:42 pm

I just find this extremely disturbing because this is exactly how Spanish colonization gets defended. "Look, they brought progress to the area. Look, because of them we have all the privileges, it was goood! Sooo good, otherwise we'd been sacrificing humans still." And it's like NO YOU IDIOTS. The Spanish displaced and enslaved the native populations who are still living in complete exclusion. There was/is no progress for them, they are living perhaps even worse than when the Spanish came. I as a white Latino with European ascendance did not suffer colonization, I profited from it by the displacement of an entire race that is now living in extreme shit.

SO STOP IT.

Cassius Clay · Post by **Cassius Clay** » Thu Oct 08, 2015 8:44 pm

^Hates progress

sikax · Post by **sikax** » Thu Oct 08, 2015 9:22 pm

^ Trying to hold back the tide

Post by **OpiateOfTheMasses** » Thu Oct 08, 2015 9:32 pm

At least Liszt has the honesty to openly state that she wants a Socialist agenda to resolve it. And by Socialist it sounds like she actually means "Socialist", not just "not quite as right wing as the Republicans" which is what most Americans take as the meaning of Socialist.

And to be fair, that's kind of your only real option. You either impose some pretty hard line, central government intervention - specifically, state ownership of most (if not all) property, state control of all rents, state control of proposed developments, etc or you end up with gentrification in some form or another. Because left to their own devices it's human nature to want to better their lot. And whilst altruistic behaviour can and does exist prioritising it on a wholesale, widespread basis above your own self interest is the exception rather than the rule.

[And history has shown us how effective regimes have been that have adopted these sorts of policies too - they've generally been failures]

Of course there are "half way houses". But even the more liberal Social Democracies like Sweden (which have what most Americans would consider to be punitively high rates of income tax) still have rising property prices in some of their towns and cities and some of their poorer people still find themselves unable to afford to live there. It's just not as severe as in places like America.

But I don't just think "tough shit". I think that ultimately neither solution is the perfect solution - both have lots of problems associated with them. And whilst I'm willing to recognise the pro's and con's of both and weigh them up, some of the arguments here just seem to be that everything about gentrification is deliberately designed to be evil/social engineering/whatever, but we're not really hearing any thought through alternatives.

And that's the bit I find exasperating. Just shouting "we don't want it, but we don't know what we want instead" is fuck all use to anyone.

Dr_Liszt · Post by **Dr_Liszt** » Thu Oct 08, 2015 11:15 pm

And whilst altruistic behaviour can and does exist prioritising it on a wholesale, widespread basis above your own self interest is the exception rather than the rule.

Actually no. Ayn Rand was wrong in everything.

Obviously what I want is utopia and it would depend on capitalism losing almost to a world scale. So my realistic proposal is legislation in favor of the working class and stronger worker cooperatives, stronger neighborhood resistance via consumption against monopolistic chains, so the powers get balanced. (So yeah, socialism, I tried to make my viewpoints as capitalistic as possible but I CAN'T.)

But what I want to say is that human nature works with incentives, the reason self interest thrives over any other human nature trait is because capitalism incentives it, rewards it and exploits it. We as humans have unlimited traits that have helped us throughout all our evolution and no, these traits aren't stronger than others, they all exist in the nature of humanity the difference is some get more incentive than others. When you change the incentives, humans will display their human nature in a different way. So we have to either:
a. Change the incentives of capitalism to make it better. (which in my opinion is of course impossible, because capitalism IS oppressive in nature.)
b. Look into alternative systems that would actually mean the development of all.

To me it's not about ending poverty in one area or one country, it's about ending ALL poverty, which this planet has more than the capacity to do. We just have change to a system that benefits us all.

Post by **thesalmonofdoubt** » Fri Oct 09, 2015 4:15 am

sikax wrote:
thesalmonofdoubt wrote:I do feel that when you talk about gentrification in places like the States - you are not talking about the exact same thing as gentrification elsewhere ..
I thought that might have been the case, but then Opiate has explicitly said "tough shit" concerning people being displaced from their homes and that profits are a good enough reason. So, he seems to grasp the basic concept of what gentrification means in the U.S. and still defends it. It's puzzling.

thesalmonofdoubt wrote:Its near to impossible to simply buy up a block of houses, raise them to the ground and build corporate luxury. It's almost always people buying heritage houses and working within planning controls to lift them from shitty to fab by the sweat of their own back. It doesn't "just happen".. it happens over the course of many years.
It really does "just happen" here. A gradual, natural process that is not driven by profit is very rare here in the states and virtually non-existent in major cities. The best you'll find is in small-to-medium sized towns where the presence of a relatively tighter-knit community has a better chance of prevailing over Big Money. In the city, though, we're fucked.

Yeah - when I was living in Portland, there was an area called "The Pearl" that went thru a similar exercise. Whole strips of housing were turned over to redevelopment right in the middle of the CBD (on the river). I didn't see the start of all this development but its entirely reasonable to say that it was probably quite residential and displaced the local community. To compensate, there was a whole heap of low income new development put in place but, I'm sure the upshot of it all was that it wouldn't have covered the initial displacement and to get into these buildings, people had to go thru a review process which means even more would have been knocked back.

I'm sure stuff like this happens on a much smaller scale locally. I've been trying to find some reports that go over it as an effect in local context but the information seems pretty thin on the ground and the issue seems to be clouded by the fact that house prices here have been spiralling out of control for the past 15 or so years so that even comfortable middle class folks are getting increasingly priced out of the market. Gentrification isn't the driving factor tho - its a whole host of issues that are contributing to making the entire situation untenable for almost everyone. If got in early and owned a house before the madness, you'd be largely insulated from the negative side of the equation in a "Rising tide lifts all boats" economic effect - If you rent or are looking to get into the housing market - then you are fucked even if you have "normal" cash reserves, if you live pay cheque to pay cheque .. then there is little hope for you without a complete property crash - which doesn't look likely to happen.

The overall point being that gentrification may be an issue here, probably more in cheaper outlying area's where you can actually still buy housing to raise to the ground for redevelopment given the houses are generally 60's thru 80's and not covered by heritage protections - from what I have seen tho - most of the gentrification here happens in desirable locations that are, for whatever reason, under developed.. But because you can't just pull a house down to rebuild, the process is much slower and normally funded by individuals over enormous periods of time. It still has the effect of forcing people out of what was once a cheap neighbourhood - but over the course of 10 or so years. Not overnight..
The upshot, here at least is, if you rent, you are fucked no matter where you live given no one can afford a house and most people can't afford to rent without moving miles out. If you own .. well then you are neither Fucked or stand to benefit given you buy and sell in an inflated market. If you own multiple investment homes - then huzzah for you given pretty much no matter where that home is, you are currently enjoying explosive housing price increases so if you sell - you stand to make excellent money. The upper end rich are getting richer - the middle class is being hollowed out and the lower classes really have few options.

Post by **OpiateOfTheMasses** » Fri Oct 09, 2015 8:54 am

Dr_Liszt wrote:
And whilst altruistic behaviour can and does exist prioritising it on a wholesale, widespread basis above your own self interest is the exception rather than the rule.
Actually no. Ayn Rand was wrong in everything.

Obviously what I want is utopia and it would depend on capitalism losing almost to a world scale. So my realistic proposal is legislation in favor of the working class and stronger worker cooperatives, stronger neighborhood resistance via consumption against monopolistic chains, so the powers get balanced. (So yeah, socialism, I tried to make my viewpoints as capitalistic as possible but I CAN'T.)

But what I want to say is that human nature works with incentives, the reason self interest thrives over any other human nature trait is because capitalism incentives it, rewards it and exploits it. We as humans have unlimited traits that have helped us throughout all our evolution and no, these traits aren't stronger than others, they all exist in the nature of humanity the difference is some get more incentive than others. When you change the incentives, humans will display their human nature in a different way. So we have to either:
a. Change the incentives of capitalism to make it better. (which in my opinion is of course impossible, because capitalism IS oppressive in nature.)
b. Look into alternative systems that would actually mean the development of all.

To me it's not about ending poverty in one area or one country, it's about ending ALL poverty, which this planet has more than the capacity to do. We just have change to a system that benefits us all.

There's nothing wrong with being a socialist! You don't need to beat around the bush.

The only problem with Socialism (as far as I can tell) is that it only works if everyone buys into it. It takes a huge mind set shift to get everyone to work for the common good and to not get greedy/jealous/lazy/etc. These are fairly common human traits and if they become too prevalent in Socialism it pretty quickly starts to unravel.

Capitalism - for all its many faults - deals with the negative traits in the human character very well. In fact it deals with them far “too well" - it's too brutally efficient at dealing with any flaw.

Which is why unless you can somehow successfully re-educate the entire population true Socialism isn't going to work. [And “re-educating" people has all sorts of negative connotations in itself but that's a different matter!] So the best you can hope for is something in between. But whilst that might be better than the unfettered rampant capitalism that goes on in America (and it is too extreme in America) there will still be people priced out of their houses and disadvantaged in other ways.

I guess what I'm really saying is that I'm trying to be pragmatic about all this. As far as I can tell there is no perfect solution - there will always be a proportion of the population that loses in any change. It's just about trying to minimise the losses and ensure that the benefits are worth it.

But (and this is going to sound really patronising, but it's not intended that way) you're young. And if the young can't be idealistic and want to rail against the machine and change the world then there's no hope for any of us. I'm older and more cynical. I'm allowed to make deals with the Devil…

Dr_Liszt · Post by **Dr_Liszt** » Fri Oct 09, 2015 9:41 pm

I know. But you have to defend and educate people what it means and what it does since people point at China and say "Communism didn't work" when China operated and operates more like a corporation than a country. So no, it's still capitalism. There has never been a socialist or communist country in the world ever.

So my issue is that capitalism, simply doesn't work. It just doesn't. It doesn't reward people for their hard work, as you can see, it doesn't bring progress and development, it's a system that is based of privileges for privileged people. When I saw one of my friend's villages that had a bridge made of stones and the doctor asked "Is that a stone trail?" And she said "Yes, children made it so they could go to school." So we're not talking about lazy third world people who want to live on benefits, we are talking about children building a bridge so they can go to school! How much evidence do we need about people working really hard, fighting against the tide and losing in the process until we realize that this system is not working for those children, is not working in my country, it's not working anywhere??? It's about putting profit in a few hands, leaving the crumbles to a few people and the people like us get completely obliterated and forgotten.

Capitalism is great if you happen to live on the side of the tide, otherwise it won't do anything for you. So yes, ideally speaking, I want to stop the tide and get rid of any sort of centralized power. Also I was born in a country brutalized by capitalim's totalitarianism, so of course I'd feel different had I be born elsewhere. Like Cuba, so of course I'm going to be biased against it.

Also people tell me my judgement is clouded because I feel too much sympathy for the poor.

At least I'm not a psychopath.

BruceSmith78 · Post by **BruceSmith78** » Sat Oct 10, 2015 8:04 pm

^ totally a psychopath

Pope Bucky · Post by **Pope Bucky** » Mon Oct 12, 2015 5:02 pm

Gentrification is the same in principle to white people not wanting the (blacks, Mexicans, Asians, etc) to move into their neighborhoods because it will lower their property values.

Cinemachinery · Post by **Cinemachinery** » Wed Oct 14, 2015 9:30 pm

You need to regulate capitalism or it will eat everything in its path. You want less intrusive laws? Well tough shit because what I'm learning from privileged white men posting here is that progress comes at the expense of ethnic cleansing and injustice towards minorities

Holy fucking balls I said I can't imagine what intrusive laws would be required, not that I want "less laws". Jesus christ.

Dr_Liszt · Post by **Dr_Liszt** » Wed Oct 14, 2015 9:43 pm

I'd hate the envision the intrusive laws

"intrusiveness" is something our government does day in and day out. Bending laws to favor poor people for once shouldn't be hard to do.
As I said in another thread, all capitalism is regulated capitalism.

Post by **OpiateOfTheMasses** » Wed Oct 14, 2015 9:55 pm

Cinemachinery wrote:
You need to regulate capitalism or it will eat everything in its path. You want less intrusive laws? Well tough shit because what I'm learning from privileged white men posting here is that progress comes at the expense of ethnic cleansing and injustice towards minorities
Holy fucking balls I said I can't imagine what intrusive laws would be required, not that I want "less laws". Jesus christ.

I think we've kinda established this...

To achieve her aims we essentially need to abolish private ownership of property and implement a state controlled central market for all goods and services.

Shouldn't be too radical, really.

Cinemachinery · Post by **Cinemachinery** » Wed Oct 14, 2015 9:58 pm

The overall point being that gentrification may be an issue here, probably more in cheaper outlying area's where you can actually still buy housing to raise to the ground for redevelopment given the houses are generally 60's thru 80's and not covered by heritage protections - from what I have seen tho - most of the gentrification here happens in desirable locations that are, for whatever reason, under developed..

I think it varies by the area, population density, diversity in the area, etc. Chicago generally sees minorities displaced. (Generally - there are whole areas that are "mostly white' that also get pushed about but it's far more common to happen to minority areas).

In contrast, there are two interesting cases near Chattanooga - one on the outskirts of Dalton that was, a decade or more ago, a run-down shit mill of an area, all white, mostly trailers and tiny, run down homes. The other was Suck Creek (no, seriously) right off Signal Mountain - it's always been a meth-riddled, impoverished white community. In the last ten years, the Dalton community has been displaced and pushed out by development by primarily Mexican Americans - they're made the area seriously nice, brought in business, now it's mostly them there, very homogenous - the previous residents can no longer afford it. Same with Suck Creek, only it's become a mostly black community and, instead of ramshackle two room shacks they've brought in investors and developers and made it into a typical suburb.

It *can* happen in any direction. But capitalism + racism in a white dominated society sees it usually happening solely to minorities.

Cinemachinery · Post by **Cinemachinery** » Wed Oct 14, 2015 10:01 pm

Bending laws to favor poor people for once shouldn't be hard to do.

Again, I have no idea what sort of intrusive laws would be necessary to keep upper income development from moving into and displacing lower income areas. Yours is an easy sentence to type but the "how to" is just unimaginable. While working on your capitalism model to see wealth spread equally among everyone (again: how?) how do you keep Starbucks from opening in [insert lower income neighborhood} and raising the nearby rent? Or keep a higher income family from purchasing a home, improving the property and raising the local rent?