Gentrification is such a nice, hot phrase for something liberals enjoy while simultaneously decrying it for ruining city slum authenticity. It is not like rich conservatives are gentrifying those areas. Simple reviews of vote history in elections by census tract can show the media progressives how they are just attacking the hands that pay for them. Academia even has a nice myopia or selective amnesia about gentrification. In no other way can one explain this piece of work from Richard Florida.

Immediately, the writer does not notice the circumstances of recent decades where the gentrifying cities suffered sharp declines and White flight while being followed by the FIRE economy real estate bubble. The Sun Belt cities had no gentrification because they experienced their growth in the post-WW2 era as those old, bordering bodies of water experienced decline. Sun Belt cities had no zoning-law red tape and they had cheap land. Rust Belt cities held on a bit longer due to manufacturing sticking around as an economic force longer there than in the older port cities. For liberals who celebrate diversity, they miss diversity of economics, history and land.

Comedy continues as the writer notes research finding that gentrification is very dependent on the percentage of Black inhabitants, with 40% a magic line. It might not just be “explicit racism”, but other factors. Here is an idea: maybe it is crime statistics for the area. Maybe there is a sweet spot where real estate values are depressed by the crime and blight in the area but the crime and blight might be more manageable with an increased police presence. Do black gangs operate in 65% black neighborhoods but have less of a footprint in 30% black neighborhoods? Just asking before I label gentrification scouts as racists.

The researchers find that gentrification does not have spillover effects for bordering neighborhoods. Anyone who has walked in a major Northeastern city knows this. It is an archipelago one navigates for safe zones. These academics, and the writer, have the foolish mindset that if you paint the cage pink, the pit bull will change. The idea that inserting people with wealth into an area will help surrounding areas is an ancient one from the bygone era of ethnic city neighborhoods. Neighbors that all sent kids to the same schools, ate the same ethnic foods, went to the same church, and were a connected unit. Twenty-first-century gentrification is made up by wealthy or adventurous people who love the architecture, the location, the idea of living in, or returning to, the city. There is no connection to the older ethnic enclave mindset; these gentrifiers simply bring the atomized suburban experience to the city.

Looking at gentrification as an economic and lifestyle selection on the part of big-money developers and urban knowledge workers strips the stupidity from these academics’ assumptions. This is not organic neighborhood-building with a bonding drive. It is a homo economicus decision for one’s lifestyle. It is about money—their money. If the natives do not adjust or do not feel the financial benefits, then tough—sell and move out. Gentrification is not evil, and it is also not a solution to improving the plight of the urban poor. A return to the old neighborhoods in American cities is a fantasy. It might not improve the lives of the urban underclass, but gentrification at least improves the quality and utility of the prime real estate in our knowledge economy hubs.

  • http://patientambition.com/ Nick

    San Francisco and Oakland are good examples of this, the economy in the Bay Area, focused around Silicon Valley, is doing well and the low availability of housing makes it necessary to expand to “lower-income” areas in search of a place to live. Articles like these: http://bit.ly/1zVAMlr show the disconnect between fantasy and reality. There’s an expectation to subsidize the poor so they can enjoy the “benefits of gentrification”.

  • Seek

    The creative class is good at creating many things — especially jobs. Yes, gentrification does improve the lives of the poor. It offers employment opportunities. And when one considers that many among “the poor” are violent, habitual criminals, the fewer there are of them in an area, the better off that area is.

  • Rudeforthought

    The presence of hipsters (largest demographic responsible for gentrification) is generally a good indication of a city’s safety and affordability. The desire to have an authentic urban life without the authentic ass-kickings that this entails in the 21st century requires one to find areas of demographically non-violent (read white/European or East Asian) residents. Factor in language barrier and the choice of where to call home is clear. After all, hosting an open mic benefit for the starving AIDs victims of Zambia in the local coffee shop or hip bar is typically a form of apology by a hipster for the fact all of his/her neighbors are white.

    When I see a bunch of men walking the street in plaid with beanies and beards and women in thick-framed glasses with 80s style clothes I know I’ve found a place where there will be cheap beer and beds and a low chance of getting culturally enriched by mugging, assault, or murder. The only thing hipsters will do is bore you to death.