Gentrification and Urban Displacement:
In the Shadows of Innovation
"Young people on both sides of the street struggle with the juxtaposition of ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots’ and what those designations mean for their uncertain futures"
The HBO documentary Class Divide (2016) opens, “Young people on both sides of the street struggle with the juxtaposition of ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots’ and what those designations mean for their uncertain futures.” The thought-provoking documentary reveals the hyper-gentrification that resides in West Chelsea, bringing the diverse community into close proximity, but with greater disparity than ever before. Gentrification is the process in which part of a city changes from being a poor area to a wealthier one, to which people from a higher social class begins to move. The term ‘gentrification’ was first used after a Marxist urban geographer Ruth Glass in the 1950s. Since then, there has been protracted debate on its causes, consequences, and whether it constitutes a dominant or residual urban form (Atkinson). Many people think gentrification is a necessary step for a city to develop. When members of a higher economic class move into the neighborhood, their arrival forces out a more economically-challenged group of people. A perfect example of a gentrifying city is located in Manhattan. Just about two miles from Central Park, the High Line attracts more than millions of visitors every year. But young people on both sides of The High Line offers unique and honest insights that challenge common perceptions of inequality today (Schjeldahl). This essay explores the positive and negative effects of gentrification, an ever-controversial topic, and highlights the extreme challenge of lessening the negative outcomes of gentrification and improve neighborhood more generally.
New York City pulsates like a giant heart, beating every second to keep things moving around while making the human population surge through tunnels, bridges, and roads. With a huge population, advanced technology, rising economy, and iconic fashion places, "But Manhattan also holds the lion’s share of regional jobs. So on a typical weekday some 1.6 million commuters pour onto the island to work" (Campanella, 210). This booming city encouraged developers to buy up land and subdivide it into greater purposes––Chelsea. Not far away from Central Manhattan, West Chelsea is one of the “it” places to go in New York. As an economically interdependent neighborhood, Chelsea attracts both residents and developers. With the growing industry and economy, transport and homes are soon built for a better community. As a result, the increasing levels of metropolitan congestion reach it maximum, and gentrification slowly rises within the neighborhood.
In Chelsea, the regions have grown as people flow into the city. The old disinvested communities become a hotspot for homes and investment. Meanwhile, on the other hand, Chelsea also faces many issues. Workers who live in other surrounding boroughs like Brooklyn and Queens are tired of commuting long distances and want to move closer towards the core. To increase the municipal budgets of Chelsea, public officials often promote regional developments that will draw people back to the center for shopping and entertainment. Under these circumstances, the new influx of people and capital has a distinct racial impact when displacement begins to occur. Because of the rising population, housing affordability becomes pervasive, and many New Yorkers who once lived in Chelsea had to shifted away. Most residents in Chelsea are unable to buy properties to live in, and the number of affordable apartments for low-income families is shrinking because is hard to make a big profit out of it. Additional to the decreasing affordable homes, the government raises taxes to increase local revenues. The U.S. legal system gives the right of each local community to make development decisions, based on local tax revenue, instead of what most residents need. Urban core jurisdictions increasingly opt for large-scale developments, like big retail stores, fancy hotels, scenic spots and stadiums that can draw visitors and travelers from across the region or even another country. But these major developments often directly displace community servings and old businesses, opening wounds for communities that have been negatively affected by earlier urban renewal. These growth trends are causes of gentrification and displacement in Chelsea.
Certainly what makes the gentrification debate so complicated but still very fascinating is that each side sees the conflict from their economic level. The majority of people agree that the process benefits the wealthy way more than it does the poor. Gentrification also tends to erase the socioeconomic diversity of a community. For example, the new developers and companies settled in West Chelsea to make more money while the old deli shop and vintage stores closed due to the increasing rents that were caused by the new arrivals. In many ways, gentrification could be harmful but also brings benefits to the community: “Stabilization of declining areas, increased property values, social mix, and reduction of suburban sprawl” ("Gentrification"). These are all benefits for the community that were brought by gentrification. With the new wave of high-income families moving into old neighborhoods, the landlords restore or repair the old buildings. So as the housing conditions improve, the neighborhood becomes visually pleasing and more livable. Nevertheless, everything has a dark side. More and more homeless people, loss of social diversity, and changes to local services are also brought to the neighborhood along with the benefits. One simple example in Chelsea––public safety. “As young hipsters and millennials with higher income move into gentrified neighborhoods, the crime rate slowly drops” (Deniz G.). On the bright side, public safety is getting better because the class of the city has been raised due to the influx of wealthier people, and the neighborhood becomes more advanced and modern with a safer environment. Meanwhile, places around Chelsea that haven't been gentrified––ghettoized or low-income neighborhoods––have a much high rate of crime than the central urban area (Triff). Poorly managed gentrification can lead to rocketing price inflation, social disruption, and a loss in our culture.
Located in southeastern China, similar to New York in many ways, is Hong Kong–with a 10 million population on a tiny island. 90% of Hong Kong has been utilized and constructed. As a quintessentially gentrified city, Hong Kong is the future of Chelsea if the gentrifying process keeps on expanding. According to Adrienne La Grange, who is an associate professor at the City University of Hong Kong, “the specificity of Hong Kong’s gentrification trajectory reflects its urban morphology, political institutions, social and economic structure” (La Grange). The city has been rapidly renewing itself economically; places located in central Kowloon with old, shabby, and functionally obsolete building stocks are hard to upgrade, but the government is providing many well-located, but affordable houses for seniors “and disadvantaged groups and small-scale commercial clusters” (La Grange).
As the waves of gentrification swept through the world, many cities continued to be affected by this controversial revolution. Although cities like London, New York, and Shanghai have very different political systems, social compositions, cultures, and histories. But they all have experienced the same process of urban gentrification: the emergence of the rich elite area follow by the relocation of the low-income groups, and the process is driven by property developers (Zhao).
No one can say for sure if gentrification is good or corrupt because there's no particular boundary for us to determine. This ever controversial topic for sure brings both big benefits and harms to the city. “While community advocates have worked tirelessly to attract new investment to their capital-starved communities, they concede that only recently have they begun to wield the tools or power to substantively intervene and redirect development projects that may bring harm to the community” (Rose). The unanswered question is, what are some strategies for combating the negative effects of gentrification. It is quite difficult to avoid gentrification during the process of urban development because it happens naturally with the society as the neighborhood grows, but numerous cities across the nation have formed some anti-gentrification projects and organizations, such as the Brooklyn Anti-gentrification Network, protesting on the streets in NYC. This group wants the state to pass a new law that can modify the rights of the existing owner of the property so that gentrification could slowly resolve. But Professor David Rand at UCLA thinks this law will conflict with the Constitution. He goes on to say that additional to the conflict, promoters of gentrification are often wealthy, powerful, influential, and undefeatable people who are unwilling to make any changes, so legal reform is hard to achieve (Rand). As a result, the best way to minimize the negative effect of gentrification is to control the usage of land for community development and renewal. “Land use, tax, and zoning policies all shape equitable developments; housing affordability plans can’t succeed without taking these three components into account” (Rose). Building more affordable housings to improve the lives of low and moderate-income individuals seems to be the best method to decrease the expansion of gentrification (Feldman). As a social phenomenon, gentrification raises many difficult questions requiring an element of wait and see, to find out if building more affordable houses will solve the problem.
Gentrification has undoubtedly improved neighborhoods. By reconstructing old houses and relocating former homeowners, the innovation has turned parts of cities into modern and high-end communities. But a culture and its unique characteristic might have disappeared as the consequence of this urban renewal. Coming from various economic classes, people have different boundary and limits that measure gentrification, which not only creates businesses but also ruins them. It raises the cost of living, but only the wealthy elites can afford to live there until the price declines. While these problems that have brought by the arrival of gentrification might not be a big issue for some others, the displacement that happens affects the lives of hundreds of people. As a modern artist and photographer, Khang Kijarro Nguyen once said, “Excessive gentrification destroys the biodiversity and ecosystem of a community” (Nguyen). Like all things in the world that change, places that go through gentrification transform following steps for a better and modern community through an “evolutionary” cycle that every other city might go through in time.
New York City pulsates like a giant heart, beating every second to keep things moving around while making the human population surge through tunnels, bridges, and roads. With a huge population, advanced technology, rising economy, and iconic fashion places, "But Manhattan also holds the lion’s share of regional jobs. So on a typical weekday some 1.6 million commuters pour onto the island to work" (Campanella, 210). This booming city encouraged developers to buy up land and subdivide it into greater purposes––Chelsea. Not far away from Central Manhattan, West Chelsea is one of the “it” places to go in New York. As an economically interdependent neighborhood, Chelsea attracts both residents and developers. With the growing industry and economy, transport and homes are soon built for a better community. As a result, the increasing levels of metropolitan congestion reach it maximum, and gentrification slowly rises within the neighborhood.
In Chelsea, the regions have grown as people flow into the city. The old disinvested communities become a hotspot for homes and investment. Meanwhile, on the other hand, Chelsea also faces many issues. Workers who live in other surrounding boroughs like Brooklyn and Queens are tired of commuting long distances and want to move closer towards the core. To increase the municipal budgets of Chelsea, public officials often promote regional developments that will draw people back to the center for shopping and entertainment. Under these circumstances, the new influx of people and capital has a distinct racial impact when displacement begins to occur. Because of the rising population, housing affordability becomes pervasive, and many New Yorkers who once lived in Chelsea had to shifted away. Most residents in Chelsea are unable to buy properties to live in, and the number of affordable apartments for low-income families is shrinking because is hard to make a big profit out of it. Additional to the decreasing affordable homes, the government raises taxes to increase local revenues. The U.S. legal system gives the right of each local community to make development decisions, based on local tax revenue, instead of what most residents need. Urban core jurisdictions increasingly opt for large-scale developments, like big retail stores, fancy hotels, scenic spots and stadiums that can draw visitors and travelers from across the region or even another country. But these major developments often directly displace community servings and old businesses, opening wounds for communities that have been negatively affected by earlier urban renewal. These growth trends are causes of gentrification and displacement in Chelsea.
Certainly what makes the gentrification debate so complicated but still very fascinating is that each side sees the conflict from their economic level. The majority of people agree that the process benefits the wealthy way more than it does the poor. Gentrification also tends to erase the socioeconomic diversity of a community. For example, the new developers and companies settled in West Chelsea to make more money while the old deli shop and vintage stores closed due to the increasing rents that were caused by the new arrivals. In many ways, gentrification could be harmful but also brings benefits to the community: “Stabilization of declining areas, increased property values, social mix, and reduction of suburban sprawl” ("Gentrification"). These are all benefits for the community that were brought by gentrification. With the new wave of high-income families moving into old neighborhoods, the landlords restore or repair the old buildings. So as the housing conditions improve, the neighborhood becomes visually pleasing and more livable. Nevertheless, everything has a dark side. More and more homeless people, loss of social diversity, and changes to local services are also brought to the neighborhood along with the benefits. One simple example in Chelsea––public safety. “As young hipsters and millennials with higher income move into gentrified neighborhoods, the crime rate slowly drops” (Deniz G.). On the bright side, public safety is getting better because the class of the city has been raised due to the influx of wealthier people, and the neighborhood becomes more advanced and modern with a safer environment. Meanwhile, places around Chelsea that haven't been gentrified––ghettoized or low-income neighborhoods––have a much high rate of crime than the central urban area (Triff). Poorly managed gentrification can lead to rocketing price inflation, social disruption, and a loss in our culture.
Located in southeastern China, similar to New York in many ways, is Hong Kong–with a 10 million population on a tiny island. 90% of Hong Kong has been utilized and constructed. As a quintessentially gentrified city, Hong Kong is the future of Chelsea if the gentrifying process keeps on expanding. According to Adrienne La Grange, who is an associate professor at the City University of Hong Kong, “the specificity of Hong Kong’s gentrification trajectory reflects its urban morphology, political institutions, social and economic structure” (La Grange). The city has been rapidly renewing itself economically; places located in central Kowloon with old, shabby, and functionally obsolete building stocks are hard to upgrade, but the government is providing many well-located, but affordable houses for seniors “and disadvantaged groups and small-scale commercial clusters” (La Grange).
As the waves of gentrification swept through the world, many cities continued to be affected by this controversial revolution. Although cities like London, New York, and Shanghai have very different political systems, social compositions, cultures, and histories. But they all have experienced the same process of urban gentrification: the emergence of the rich elite area follow by the relocation of the low-income groups, and the process is driven by property developers (Zhao).
No one can say for sure if gentrification is good or corrupt because there's no particular boundary for us to determine. This ever controversial topic for sure brings both big benefits and harms to the city. “While community advocates have worked tirelessly to attract new investment to their capital-starved communities, they concede that only recently have they begun to wield the tools or power to substantively intervene and redirect development projects that may bring harm to the community” (Rose). The unanswered question is, what are some strategies for combating the negative effects of gentrification. It is quite difficult to avoid gentrification during the process of urban development because it happens naturally with the society as the neighborhood grows, but numerous cities across the nation have formed some anti-gentrification projects and organizations, such as the Brooklyn Anti-gentrification Network, protesting on the streets in NYC. This group wants the state to pass a new law that can modify the rights of the existing owner of the property so that gentrification could slowly resolve. But Professor David Rand at UCLA thinks this law will conflict with the Constitution. He goes on to say that additional to the conflict, promoters of gentrification are often wealthy, powerful, influential, and undefeatable people who are unwilling to make any changes, so legal reform is hard to achieve (Rand). As a result, the best way to minimize the negative effect of gentrification is to control the usage of land for community development and renewal. “Land use, tax, and zoning policies all shape equitable developments; housing affordability plans can’t succeed without taking these three components into account” (Rose). Building more affordable housings to improve the lives of low and moderate-income individuals seems to be the best method to decrease the expansion of gentrification (Feldman). As a social phenomenon, gentrification raises many difficult questions requiring an element of wait and see, to find out if building more affordable houses will solve the problem.
Gentrification has undoubtedly improved neighborhoods. By reconstructing old houses and relocating former homeowners, the innovation has turned parts of cities into modern and high-end communities. But a culture and its unique characteristic might have disappeared as the consequence of this urban renewal. Coming from various economic classes, people have different boundary and limits that measure gentrification, which not only creates businesses but also ruins them. It raises the cost of living, but only the wealthy elites can afford to live there until the price declines. While these problems that have brought by the arrival of gentrification might not be a big issue for some others, the displacement that happens affects the lives of hundreds of people. As a modern artist and photographer, Khang Kijarro Nguyen once said, “Excessive gentrification destroys the biodiversity and ecosystem of a community” (Nguyen). Like all things in the world that change, places that go through gentrification transform following steps for a better and modern community through an “evolutionary” cycle that every other city might go through in time.
Work Cited
Abbey-Lambertz, Kate. "How Sky-High Rents Are Radically Changing New York Neighborhoods." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 12 May 2016. Web. 18 Mar. 2017.
Atkinson, Rowland. "Does Gentrification Help or Harm Urban Neighbourhoods?" ESRC Centre for Neighbourhood Research. Evidence Network, June 2002. Web. 19 Mar. 2017.
Brown, Stephanie. “Beyond Gentrification: Strategies for Guiding the Conversation and Redirecting the Outcomes of Community Transition.” Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies and NeighborWorks America. Harvard Education, July 2014. Web. 23 Mar. 2017.
Campanella, Thomas.“Schleptropolis.” Nonstop Metropolis: A New York City atlas. Eds. Rebecca Solnit and Joshua Jelly-Schapiro. Oakland: U of California Press, 2016. Print.
Feldman, Justin. "Gentrification, Urban Displacement and Affordable Housing: Overview and Research Roundup." Journalist's Resource. Harvard Kennedy School | Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics, and Public Policy, 15 Aug. 2014. Web. 13 Apr. 2017.
G., Deniz. "Pros And Cons Of Gentrification." Odyssey. Odyssey, 26 Jan. 2016. Web. 12 Apr. 2017.
"Gentrification." Google Sites. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 Apr. 2017.
La Grange, Adrienne. "State-led gentrification in Hong Kong." Urban Studies. Sage Journals, 8 Jan. 2014. Web. 12 Apr. 2017.
Moss, Jeremiah. "Disney World on the Hudson." In the Shadows of the High Line. The New York Times, 21 Aug. 2012. Web. 19 Mar. 2017.
Nguyen, Khang Kijarro. "Khang Kijarro Nguyen Quotes." Khang Kijarro Nguyen Quotes. Good Reads, n.d. Web. 13 Apr. 2017.
Rand, David. "Gentrification." Gentrification-Zhihu. Zhihu, 2 July 2016. Web. 13 Apr. 2017. Translated from Chinese to English with Google Translater.
Rose, Kalima. "Combating Gentrification Through Equitable Development." Combating Gentrification Through Equitable Development. N.p., n.d. Web.15 Mar. 2017.
Schjeldahl, Peter. "High Line Rhapsody." The New Yorker. The New Yorker, 6 Oct. 2014. Web. 7 Feb. 2017.
Triff, Alfredo. "Out with the Old." Miami New Times. New Times, 2 Apr. 2016. Web. 12 Apr. 2017.
Van Sant, Shannon. "Gentrification Defies Hong Kong Realty Drop." VOA. VOA, 22 Apr. 2016. Web. 21 Mar. 2017.
Zhao, Yiling. "Hong Kong 's urban landscape and cultural identity cultural." Feature. N.p., July 2007. Web. 12 Apr. 2017. Translated from Chinese to English with Google Translater.
Abbey-Lambertz, Kate. "How Sky-High Rents Are Radically Changing New York Neighborhoods." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 12 May 2016. Web. 18 Mar. 2017.
Atkinson, Rowland. "Does Gentrification Help or Harm Urban Neighbourhoods?" ESRC Centre for Neighbourhood Research. Evidence Network, June 2002. Web. 19 Mar. 2017.
Brown, Stephanie. “Beyond Gentrification: Strategies for Guiding the Conversation and Redirecting the Outcomes of Community Transition.” Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies and NeighborWorks America. Harvard Education, July 2014. Web. 23 Mar. 2017.
Campanella, Thomas.“Schleptropolis.” Nonstop Metropolis: A New York City atlas. Eds. Rebecca Solnit and Joshua Jelly-Schapiro. Oakland: U of California Press, 2016. Print.
Feldman, Justin. "Gentrification, Urban Displacement and Affordable Housing: Overview and Research Roundup." Journalist's Resource. Harvard Kennedy School | Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics, and Public Policy, 15 Aug. 2014. Web. 13 Apr. 2017.
G., Deniz. "Pros And Cons Of Gentrification." Odyssey. Odyssey, 26 Jan. 2016. Web. 12 Apr. 2017.
"Gentrification." Google Sites. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 Apr. 2017.
La Grange, Adrienne. "State-led gentrification in Hong Kong." Urban Studies. Sage Journals, 8 Jan. 2014. Web. 12 Apr. 2017.
Moss, Jeremiah. "Disney World on the Hudson." In the Shadows of the High Line. The New York Times, 21 Aug. 2012. Web. 19 Mar. 2017.
Nguyen, Khang Kijarro. "Khang Kijarro Nguyen Quotes." Khang Kijarro Nguyen Quotes. Good Reads, n.d. Web. 13 Apr. 2017.
Rand, David. "Gentrification." Gentrification-Zhihu. Zhihu, 2 July 2016. Web. 13 Apr. 2017. Translated from Chinese to English with Google Translater.
Rose, Kalima. "Combating Gentrification Through Equitable Development." Combating Gentrification Through Equitable Development. N.p., n.d. Web.15 Mar. 2017.
Schjeldahl, Peter. "High Line Rhapsody." The New Yorker. The New Yorker, 6 Oct. 2014. Web. 7 Feb. 2017.
Triff, Alfredo. "Out with the Old." Miami New Times. New Times, 2 Apr. 2016. Web. 12 Apr. 2017.
Van Sant, Shannon. "Gentrification Defies Hong Kong Realty Drop." VOA. VOA, 22 Apr. 2016. Web. 21 Mar. 2017.
Zhao, Yiling. "Hong Kong 's urban landscape and cultural identity cultural." Feature. N.p., July 2007. Web. 12 Apr. 2017. Translated from Chinese to English with Google Translater.