The original residence Usually can’t afford to pay the higher rent or qualify for mortgages so...

The original residence

• Usually can’t afford to pay the higher rent or qualify for mortgages so they are forced into lower income areas with higher crime rates.

• Businesses that originally serviced these residence may have to close or sell to investors to make room for more upscale cafes, bistros, boutiques and other businesses.

What is gentrification

• A very questionable process

• that allows urban developers to take low income neighborhoods / inner city crime neighborhoods and convert them into upscale communities

• These neighborhoods are developed with

condominiums, lofts and other upscale renovated homes for wealthier tenants

Gentrification History

• Gentrification is not new and can be dated back in USA to the 1950 as city planners and developers created ways to eliminate urban decay.

• Politician along with landlords with Government funding for urban renewal financed the gentrification of poor neighborhoods. (SW/ DC and Haight-Ashbury San Francisco)

Who Benefits ?

• In most case gentrification benefits developers and landlords and leave original residents trapped because they can’t afford to leave the area and can’t afford the increase rent.

• This can lead to frustration and confrontation between the original residents and the new affluent residents.

On the backs of the disenfranchised.

• For some businesses and from some individuals perspectives gentrification creates better neighborhoods, and results in higher taxes for cities.

• Cities can then can create more and better services for its new residences at the expense of displacement of the original inhabitants.

Chester HartmanAn Urban Planner and Author

• Says the concept of “right to displace” suggest that residential owners can drive out nonowners. Those who are displaced are disproportionately nonwhite, elderly, poor and from large households.

• Hartman suggest the Displaced are forced into a biased housing market, where they are often forced to settle for more expensive and less adequate space.

• Hartman argues that this should be met with a “right to stay put,” and that measures protecting marginal groups from gentrification should be put into place.

The advocate of Gentrification

• Most who advocate for the good of gentrification suggest that “Sometimes the solution is to help current low-income residents find suitable and affordable housing elsewhere before allowing gentrification efforts to completely overtake the affected area”. (http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-gentrification.htm)

• This suggests that residence should be displaced before gentrification begins?

The moral obligation

• The main argument against gentrification is the moral issue. The obligation to stop negative effects gentrification has on communities/population.

• remedies: Inclusionary zoning- ordinances requiring the building of new housing for the original low and moderate-income residence intermixed with upscale housing.

Center of Disease Control

• The Center for Disease Control and Prevention has a webpage discussing the adverse effects gentrification has on health. It provides a list of policies that would inhibit gentrification in order to prevent these impacts. http://www.cdc.gov/HEALTHYPLACES/healthtopics/gentrification.htm.

• Let us defer to solutions ,remedies and alternatives suggested by the CDC.