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Gentrification May Actually Be Boon To Longtime Residents
by LAURA SULLIVAN
January 22, 2014 3:44 AM
The bustling Sidamo coffee shop in Washington's H Street Northeast neighborhood. The area has attracted many new, young residents and high-end bars, retail and restaurants over the past several years.
Bobby Foster Jr. can often be found reading the paper on a wooden bench outside Murry's grocery store on the corner of Sixth and H streets northeast in Washington, D.C.
"The sun shines over here this time of day," says Foster, a retired cook. "It's always good when the sun shines."
Murry's has been an anchor in this neighborhood for decades — during the crack wars of the 1980s and the urban blight that followed, when most other businesses packed up and left. Foster has been somewhat of an anchor, too. He's lived here for 54 years.
But now, this neighborhood and hundreds like it across the country are changing. Every other shop is a new restaurant, high-end salon or bar.
A 1988 riot in Tompkins Square Park in New York's East Village helped bring the concept of gentrification to the fore in the U.S.i
That's been a dirty word for 30 years, since the middle and upper classes began returning to many urban cores across the U.S. It brings up images of neighbors forced out of their homes.
But a series of new studies are now showing that gentrifying neighborhoods may be a boon to longtime residents as well — and that those residents may not be moving out after all.
Even Foster is conflicted by the change he sees happening around him.
"Some things are good; some things are bad," he says. "But sometimes the good outweighs the bad."
Gentrification burst into the social consciousness on Aug. 6, 1988, with the Tompkins Square Park riot in New York City's East Village. Residents carried signs saying "Gentrification is class war." Police carried batons. The bloody battle that ensued left more than 100 people injured.
The protesters' fury centered on the idea that the poor would be made homeless so the rich could live in their neighborhoods, destroying whatever character they may have had.
A lifetime resident of the H Street Northeast area, Cherry Tilghman says some of the changes here, like a new Giant grocery store, have improved the neighborhood.
Lance Freeman, the director of the Urban Planning program at Columbia University, says that's what he believed was happening, too. He launched a study, first in Harlem and then nationally, calculating how many people were pushed out of their homes when wealthy people moved in.
"My intuition would be that people were being displaced," Freeman explains, "so they're going to be moving more quickly. I was really aiming to quantify how much displacement was occurring."
Except that's not what he found.
by LAURA SULLIVAN
January 22, 2014 3:44 AM
The bustling Sidamo coffee shop in Washington's H Street Northeast neighborhood. The area has attracted many new, young residents and high-end bars, retail and restaurants over the past several years.
Bobby Foster Jr. can often be found reading the paper on a wooden bench outside Murry's grocery store on the corner of Sixth and H streets northeast in Washington, D.C.
"The sun shines over here this time of day," says Foster, a retired cook. "It's always good when the sun shines."
Murry's has been an anchor in this neighborhood for decades — during the crack wars of the 1980s and the urban blight that followed, when most other businesses packed up and left. Foster has been somewhat of an anchor, too. He's lived here for 54 years.
But now, this neighborhood and hundreds like it across the country are changing. Every other shop is a new restaurant, high-end salon or bar.
A 1988 riot in Tompkins Square Park in New York's East Village helped bring the concept of gentrification to the fore in the U.S.i
That's been a dirty word for 30 years, since the middle and upper classes began returning to many urban cores across the U.S. It brings up images of neighbors forced out of their homes.
But a series of new studies are now showing that gentrifying neighborhoods may be a boon to longtime residents as well — and that those residents may not be moving out after all.
Even Foster is conflicted by the change he sees happening around him.
"Some things are good; some things are bad," he says. "But sometimes the good outweighs the bad."
Gentrification burst into the social consciousness on Aug. 6, 1988, with the Tompkins Square Park riot in New York City's East Village. Residents carried signs saying "Gentrification is class war." Police carried batons. The bloody battle that ensued left more than 100 people injured.
The protesters' fury centered on the idea that the poor would be made homeless so the rich could live in their neighborhoods, destroying whatever character they may have had.
A lifetime resident of the H Street Northeast area, Cherry Tilghman says some of the changes here, like a new Giant grocery store, have improved the neighborhood.
Lance Freeman, the director of the Urban Planning program at Columbia University, says that's what he believed was happening, too. He launched a study, first in Harlem and then nationally, calculating how many people were pushed out of their homes when wealthy people moved in.
"My intuition would be that people were being displaced," Freeman explains, "so they're going to be moving more quickly. I was really aiming to quantify how much displacement was occurring."
Except that's not what he found.
We didn't pop the top on our house, open a vegan soup kitchen, or start a community yoga center.
We picked it because we don't believe in luck. The house was do-able (not our dream house, not our potential investment property). It had a mortgage payment either of us could make if one of us died or became unemployed. It was on a lot of bus lines in case our sorry cars gave up the ghost. You could walk to a non-name grocery store, liquor store, or a little farther - a public library.
There was a lot of crime (property and personal), a dealer lived on our block with the attendant chaos, our yard got searched by police more than once. SWAT set up on my lawn.
All the bad things happened: lost jobs, dead cars, evil relatives, poor familial loans, unexpected catastrophes, etc.
The neighborhood picked up. Young white couple bought in, trendy stores opened, classy eateries appeared. Our no-name grocery closed and the natural grocery store that took it's place was out of our budget. The regular liquor store closed but you could get budget beer if you knew to ask (they kept it in the fridge, not displayed). The area become more interesting with street festivals and unusual stores. The crime dropped. The dealers left. The police stopped coming around. Housing prices went WAY up.
We could have stayed but we sold at the top of the market and were glad to do it. It turned into a hyper-trendy, very artsy location which is great but not what we liked. So we moved. Just like a lot of people of all colors, cultures, and ages. Moving was not a defeat - it was a victory!
NPR
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