Has anyone figured out what’s supposed to be so wrong with gentrification? I keep reading one angry article in the European press after another about neighborhood bars being displaced by nail salons and yoga studios and can’t figure out what drives the outrage other than the erasure of the traditionally working class male spaces in favor of those associated with successful professional women.
Yes, the demand for unskilled blue-collar labor has plummeted while the need for highly specialized, professional workers soared. Are we still mourning that? Because it’s been a while, and one would think it’s time to start getting over that.
In short, where is drama in ugly, dilapidated neighborhoods being spruced up and made more beautiful (and more comfortable for women)?
Clarissa's Blog 
The massive influx of rich people into a neighborhood greatly increases rents and displaces and destroys the existing middle class. Their salaries remain the same while the influx of new money drives up inflation especially in housing costs. This is happening in a major way in Africa due to the presence of hundreds of thousands of hugely overpaid NGO parasites from the US and Europe.
http://jpohl.blogspot.com/2015/10/ngo-parasites-and-high-housing-costs-in.html
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Otto, people with Western salaries in Africa is a bit extreme example…
If we stay within one Western country, the opposition to gentrification, IMHO, results from an interesting paradox: it is customary for self-identified liberals / PROGRESSIVES to advocate for preserving the ways how the things used to be (i.e. a deeply CONSERVATIVE agenda). Other examples include subsidizing all kind of depressed remote rural communities in order to allow them preserving traditional ways of life, preserving religiously or linguistically-based nation-states, etc. Somehow the idea that people are entitled to not experiencing change is not only considered acceptable, but PROGRESSIVE. This, frankly, boggles my mind.
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IME “gentrification” refers to young (non-black) professionals moving into (especially) traditionally black neighborhoods driving up the cost-of-living and pushing the original inhabitants out.
In Washington DC, it was/is an issue because young (non-black) professionals tend to feel threatened when there are lots of urban blacks around (crime) and they thus favor policies that ultimately push them out into the exurbs. But since they have a self-image of themselves as non-racist they can’t openly say what they want and pen articles denouncing the trend in non-racial terms.
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This is a fairly accurate depiction of the situation. I agree with the paradox and hypocritical actions of the gentrifiers that you mention
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I think we are talking about different phenomena here. I was responding to articles in Spanish and British newspapers, and there were no black neighborhoods involved.
It’s probably one term for different phenomena in different countries.
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There was this whole thing about 5-pound oatmeal in London recently, and that started the fresh round of gentrification drama.
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I live in one of the fastest-gentrifying areas of my UK city (not London) and am part of the gentrifying classes. I think the main problem isn’t that bars are closing down and yoga studios are opening. In my neighbourhood no bars or local businesses have shut – rather, it’s derelict properties being purchased and refurbished, which most everyone seems to agree is a good thing. Indeed, many of the pre-gentrification businesses have benefited enormously from new clientele with more disposable income. The problem is what has been described above: the rise in rent and property prices which displaces local communities. My area, like much of the UK, is in the midst of a terrible housing crisis and the lack of affordable housing, particularly for families, is a huge issue. Moreover, we don’t have a particularly great public transport infrastructure, which means a greater burden is placed on those who are forced to move further out of the city but who remain in service-sector jobs in town. I have no problem with gentrification as a concept and in my area it has resulted in a massive drop in crime, which is a good thing. The housing situation, however, is a problem which, while not caused entirely by gentrification, is certainly exacerbated by it.
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This is a great and insight – producing comment. Thank you!
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Gentrification doesn’t necessarily mean race. It does mean displacement of long time residents. It can mean the breakup of ethnic communities as people spread out in search of cheaper housing. No one cares that a nail salon replaces a bar, but the people who worked in the bar won’t find jobs in the salon and eventually will be forced out of the area.
Gentrification is a very natural economic process. If land declines in value relatively to neighboring spaces, it should be repurposed. However, the decline of ethnic newspapers in the US is directly linked to the decline of ethnic neighborhoods in major cities due to economic-driven migration. There are those who bemoan the loses of these communities and the tight ethnic identity they entailed. The fact that the poor wind up with longer and more expensive trips to work is a problem as well.
This really isn’t “drama” per se. It’s simply a realistic recognition that change can bring both gain and loss.
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Now I get it, thank you. It’s a byproduct of the discomfort some people still feel at the idea that it is no longer possible to spend one’s entire life living in one place.
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My family traditionally has had a different kind of comfort …
It took me a while to realise why my family sold properties in “hot” areas only to move to areas that were (at the time) far less than “hot”, and it wasn’t because my family was in the habit of “flipping” these properties.
That’s not to say we haven’t left a few marks: the family name is well-placed in several parts of England in various forms and spellings, but it’s a vestigial effect of where we’ve been, rather than being about where we’re going.
We move when it’s no longer profitable or useful to stay in one place, and we tend to move to the edge of things when that’s possible. When that isn’t, we have a tendency to “go liquid” so we can make bigger moves.
In fact, that’s why I’ve been scarce on here for a while.
Now that I’ve finally healed from various injuries (some of which are physical, while others are of a governmental nature), I have a business to close permanently, some properties to sell, and many, many things driving me to become considerably more liquid (if not fluid) than I had been earlier in the year.
London’s already in the rear-view mirror, in other words … but rest assured, I will not be moving to LA, so there’s little risk of becoming Cory Doctorwho’s neighbour. 🙂
I’m starting to consolidate my belongings in one place again, and in fact I’ve been stuck in the United States for the past few weeks so I can complete that task. I will then be back in the United Kingdom to complete the rest of what’s already in process for that as well.
Anyway, “gentrification” to me simply means it’s less interesting to stay in a place because the place has become “cosmopolitan”, which is to say that it’s infected by the same sort of pretentious placeless quality that affects airport lounges.
I couldn’t give a toss about the omnipresence of posh ateliers and yoga studios in these neighbourhoods.
They’re not really there for me, so I’m not staying there for them.
For what it’s worth, Heathrow T5 has all of the aesthetic pleasantry of an overgrown garden shed, and I’m somewhat horrified when I realise that new architects believe that everything new and British should look like it, especially the environs of the posh ateliers and yoga studios I’ve mentioned.
There is another process that happens because of “gentrification”, where the better funded of these locales move to places that won’t be subject to these changes quite as quickly.
It’s what “natural aristocracies” do, and it’s what my family has done for well over twelve centuries in England and France. Admittedly various plagues helped accelerate the process, and it was definitely a healthy move to stay farther away from London during the Black Death.
It turns out that my family mostly gave up on larger cities long ago except as a supply convenience at a distance, but I’m now finally getting with the programme …
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“Gentrification is a very natural economic process.”
I think it is worse than this. When a poor neighborhood becomes more “classy,” the poor people are displaced and often made homeless, or at least deprived of their network of friends, etc.
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A looked up a couple of these articles on London and it seem primarily concerned with the passing of the nation state (gotcha!).
That is, they’re complaining about a system in which the unpalatable truth is that only financial interests matter. Dearly held myths about things like community are dying ugly deaths in the face of economic realities and of course people don’t like that.
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Cliff and David,
I am not sure this is so straightforward. Friendships and communities do not cease to matter, they get modified, they evolve. Yes, networks become more loose. But is it always a bad thing? Tightly knit communities have their own problems, from lack of personal space to being non-tolerant to success of a community member (either in general or if said success occurs outside of the community). Every coin has two sides. I am against looking only at what is disappearing, as if it is just completely destroyed and not evolved.
The answer is not in artificially preserving status quo, it is in implementing various measures for increasing upward social mobility – free/cheap education, etc.
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Well one article was complaining about the Church of England deciding to tear down a functioning church that is 350 years old in order to build expensive housing.
This is the Church disinvesting in religion (or demoting it from prime mover to hobby).
“Tightly knit communities have their own problems”
Absolutely, but living in a tight knit community (or more precisely on the fringes of one) is an appealing fantasy for many people that’s harder and harder to indulge in.
I remember when the video for the Janet Jackson song “Alright” came out everyone I knew was talking about how much they wanted to live in that neighborhood.
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I’ll try the video again:
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This video has it all: arguments about babies, gentrifrication and white privilege. It’s only about a minute and half long.
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the video:
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“Yes, the demand for unskilled blue-collar labor has plummeted while the need for highly specialized, professional workers soared. Are we still mourning that? Because”
No, the demand has not plummeted. All that unskilled labour is still being done, but in China. The irony is that the free market and the current implementation of capitalism is all based on work done in a command economy by people who don’t have the same choices as those buying the goods they manufacture. The free market does not work without the arbritage in labour costs caused by the existence of a population who are far from free.
So your cheering the loss of blue collar jobs in the western world is the cheering of the enslavement of a population in conditions like those of the USSR.
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It’s plummeting in China, too, by the way. Ever heard of the technological revolution? Robotization? The US factories are coming back from China because cheap unskilled labor is no longer needed.
And as a descendant of actual slaves, I deeply resent this self-righteous, prissy comment about enslavement. I resent it almost as much as your attempt to lecture me about the USSR of which you cannot possibly know anything.
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I think you need to Google yourself some statistics on employment sector by sector in China. There is absolutely no sign of manufacturing jobs plummeting. Why would a command economy allow the instability that would cause? They created state factories to employ people not to be profitable so why if employment looked like being a problem would they add robots to the mix?
In relation to your second paragraph:
1) There are very few people that can claim to have no slave ancestors. How has the enslavement of your ancestors effected your life? I can point to the tangible lasting effects of various forms of enslavement to the the society in which I grew up, but I fail to see what this type of statement add to a discussion on the reality of labour and the free maket.
2) A single scentence does not make a lecture.
3) A comparision between the well documented aspects of two command control economies is not difficult.
4) Or more formally, a proof by contradiction. Lets assume you are correct and assume I cannot possibly know anything about the USSR. Then for the same reasons you cannot possibly know anything about the UK of the 60’s and 70’s where I was educated and spent my formative years for the same reasons. But if you don’t know anything about this time and place then how can you know what was known about the USSR in that time and place? Giving us a contradiction with the logical implication the initial assumption is erroneous.
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Since my short comment was unclear, I will make it clearer.
A) Don’t use the word “enslavement” in my presence.
B) Don’t use the word USSR in a sentence that is not a question.
Then I might consider you a valuable discussion partner once again.
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“I think you need to Google yourself some statistics on employment sector by sector in China. There is absolutely no sign of manufacturing jobs plummeting. Why would a command economy allow the instability that would cause? They created state factories to employ people not to be profitable so why if employment looked like being a problem would they add robots to the mix?”
China’s economy expanded quicker than economists forecast in the third quarter as the services sector offset weaker manufacturing, keeping Premier Li Keqiang’s 2015 growth target within reach.
Gross domestic product rose 6.9 percent in the three months through September from a year earlier, the National Bureau of Statistics said Monday, beating economists’ estimates for 6.8 percent. While that was the slowest quarterly expansion since 2009, based off previously announced data, stabilization will ease fears of a deeper downturn for investors and central bankers from Tokyo to Frankfurt to Washington.Strength in services and consumption helped reduce the drag from weaker manufacturing and exports, showing the continuing transformation of the world’s second-largest economy. The pace of growth in the services sector quickened to 8.4 percent in the first nine months of the year, while so-called secondary industry — which includes manufacturing — weakened to a 6 percent expansion.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-10-19/china-s-gdp-growth-beats-forecasts-as-stimulus-supports-spending
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China’s economy really does seem to be changing, with the move away from manufacturing and heavy industry and towards services looking real. It’s a sign that China is beginning to edge away from a growth model that is reaching its limits. A giant economy selling widgets can’t keep growing at ten percent forever in a world that is growing at three percent. This shift away from manufacturing is a good sign for China, but it will spell trouble for other countries. Combined with the overall slowdown in growth, that shift is very bad for producers of commodities and raw materials around the world. The countries and companies that prospered by shipping iron ore, oil, tin, manganese, and other raw materials into the maw of China’s industrial economy are going to suffer as if China was having a hard landing. Demand for their exports will slow dramatically even if China’s overall growth stabilizes at a lower level. These effects will ripple across Africa and Latin America, as well as countries in southeast Asia whose manufacturing economies are closely tied to China’s. Nations like Australia and Canada can also expect some problems—though their more diversified economies are better positioned to take a hit.Finally, though greens will likely miss it, the shift from manufacturing to growth in services is an unalloyed good for the environment and it suggests that the gloom and doom predictions about humanity choking on growth are less likely to come true. Growth in the developing world is decoupling from energy usage, just as it did in advanced countries. Sophisticated economies move away from metal bashing toward much less environmentally-questionable activities like health care, oboe lessons, and software, and it is very good news that this is now happening in China. World economic growth and world environmental health aren’t on a collision course.
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Exactly. Every once in a while, a person shows up here who is totally shocked to discover that low-skilled manufacturing jobs are shrinking because – surprise, surprise! – there is this little thing called “technological revolution.” Yet they still cherish the fantasy of a powerful and enormous proletariat. Even the most orthodox Marxists have accepted that, as a class, blue-collar workers are going out of existence. Yet there are still people who are stunned by the news.
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