Ever since I have joined the “pro-urbanism” community that embodies this subreddit, I have grown ever more distant with a subset of the community that has shown to have different values to me: those concerned about gentrification. Where a neighborhood goes from being bad to good, and the newer, higher income people move in and the long time residents move out through economic forces. I won’t offer an explicit defense of the phenomena, but I will defend it if as a side effect if broader good urbanist policy. Bolded statements indicate critical questions.
Individual level: should it be restricted?
Let’s imagine gentrification acting on an individual level. A high person sees a property for sale/rent, they determine that they either like/tolerate the neighborhood, they decide they want to live there, and decide to move in later. Where in this process was there behavior that should be restricted?
should the freedom of movement be restricted, and only “correct” people are allowed to live in certain places? That sounds a lot like that regimes that people here would reject. If racial immigration quotas are bad, redlining is bad (creating whites only areas), and apartheid era neighborhood restrictions are bad, why should I be convinced that restricting any other freedom of movement is a goal? Will this time be different?
Overly simplistic view of humanity
The anti-gentrification debate seems to have inherited a Marxist view of the world due to its left wing influence. There are the rich who make things bad, and the poor who have some virtues due to their condition. Given that the only thing anti-gentrification activists see are incomes, this causes a problem when locals try to improve from within. As an example, say a local resident defies the odds, they get a great education, become talented at their profession, make lots of money, and decide to move back in their community. What is a rags to riches story could be another case of the rich displacing the poor. Since, according to Marxist tradition, money is the real deciding influence, the recently rich local has become of an upper class, and it doesn’t matter if they once lived their before, as they are changing the character of the neighborhood with their money.
Can individual activists make exceptions for individual cases of local success, yes! The problem is that it makes the rich newcomer guilty before proven innocent. Discouraging the locals that make it big to move back in.
Historical perspective: cities change
Cities, as understood in an industrial society, are places of change. Companies rise and fall, industries change, and demographics change. What is the majority black neighborhood today most likely had a very small black population until 1900 when huge internal migrations occurred in the U.S.. The poor Hispanic neighborhood only became majority Hispanic after immigration changes happening in the late 1980’s. The process of neighborhood change is not foreign to the anti-gentrification crowd. Most understand that before the existing community there was a different community and then a different community and then farmland before the city grew into the region. What makes the current neighborhood worthy of glazing in amber, but past neighborhood changes seen as acceptable ?
Shouldn’t rich people moving into good urbanist regions be seen as a success to the movement?
If urbanists were correct, and that certain ways of managing human settlements were fundamentally more desirable, then this appeal would extend beyond class boundaries. Rich and poor would all desire to live in multi story buildings with shops below and cycle paths on the street. Shouldn’t rich people liking good urbanism be seen as a great compliment? It could be worse, they could all leave to low density suburbs, but the fact that people with money and could live in a verity of environments choose to live how urbanists think humans should live should be seen as a success to modern urbanist ideology.
What if gentrification is a response to a less racist and more tolerant society?
The story of suburbanization is tied in with racism, that certain people should are “undesirable” and moving away from them is good. The current generation of suburban youth that are ready to live on their own do not appear to have these tendencies. The fact that a rich suburban person is moving into a poorer, denser region could show that they are more tolerant to those that are different from them. If an individual who doesn’t fear someone who is racially different, they would be more likely to move to place with more of them than a racist person. Does anti-gentrification justify the racist segregation that plagued so many cities?
Imagine two people both from a wealthy suburb and earning above average income. Person A is racist, and, noticing a potential apartment is in a majority black neighborhood, decides to not lease it. Person B sees the same apartment, doesn’t mind the racial differences, and moves in. According to anti-gentrification logic, person B is doing something wrong. Person A’s racism is not immediately scrutinized as it helps maintain the historic demographics of the community.
Are the victims of gentrification the people that society should aspire to be?
Let’s say the points anti-gentrification activists make are all true: rich people move in to a poorer region, the poor cannot afford to live there, and they are forced to live somewhere. This raises an important question, Why can’t these inner city resident be the ones that have the wealth? Why can’t inner city people get dedicated to their education, stay in tune with the most modern industries and trends, and put aside petty differences to make profitable businesses that employs the region and become the wealthy outsiders that current anti-gentrification activists dislike? What I’m saying is that, by defending poor, inner city neighborhoods as holding aspiring characteristics, we might be defending the rationale that makes these regions poor: low educational attainment, gang behavior, limited worldview, and staying attached to dying industries for employment. For every noble savage from these communities exists someone who fully embodies the society around them. Many would argue that those traits are due to bad government. You are correct, but I fear that anti-gentrification activists romanticize poverty and dysfunction. Such that having nice things (cleanliness, popular chain restaurants, good public transport, etc.) is being less authentic and therefore undesirable.
Conclusion
Perhaps I am unsympathetic, too cold, and blind to externalities, but I come from a family that has taught universal human dignity. To hate someone or a group of people based on traits or perceived traits has never been something I have strongly considered. My dream is that everyone can live in a charming neighborhood with close access to necessities and density worthy of great public transport. Throwing boundaries about who can use these benefits seriously hinders the movement by making the activists worry about “worthy” and “unworthy” beneficiaries of good urbanism. In attempting to restrict it, the movement way follow the trends in history of attempting to make two wrongs into a right. The Jacobins executed the King, but then who was of the second estate become broader, and at some point even Maximilien Robespierre lost his own life to the guillotine. Anti-gentrification activists may find a truly wealthy person attempting to move in, but then innocent bystanders can quickly come in the crossfire.
I do not hate all of the anti-gentrification movement. I personally feel like I have the ability to find bits of common ground. I would have sympathy for those who have to moved if displaced as violently as described, but the current movement has shown its fangs to me. Is the movement nothing but another expression of envy against the rich or perceived rich? I hope I am proven wrong on that aspect.
