Gentrification with Justice
by Wolf
Wednesday night i went to an interesting seminar concerning Urban Planning/Development in Richmond. what went down……
Preface.
other than the final paragraph, this is basically my interpretation of what i heard. i’m not saying it’s right or wrong, I’m Just Sayin. the seminar was at 3rd pres church in the treacherous West End and was put on by a guy with about 30 years of urban planning experience in the ATL / Hotlanta, GA. the seminar tilted slightly toward Christianity, but was virtually secular in theory/application. the room was full of about (150?) 40-65 yo white people + me, my wife, and about 3 young black people. despite some things it had going against it, the seminar turned out to be very informative and just plain good. i wish more people who had a real interest in richmond were in attendance. it wasn’t made out to be a major event or anything.
Google Tells me Gentrification Means…
“The rehabilitation of a deteriorated neighborhood by new residents who are wealthier than the long-time residents. This can cause an increase in housing prices and lead to displacement of the long-time residents.”
Dumbed Down History (not exactly quotable).
back in the day in Europe the machine age began and people rushed into a limited area to work for the factories and the City was born. people in the city worked there and had money. some amount of time later, in america, people with money flooded out of the cities to the suburbs leaving the people who couldn’t afford the suburbs left in the cities. aka “white flight” although i’m not a fan of equating white:rich and black poor, even though there may be some truth to it. as applicable to us, this has happened for about 50 years.
Current Happenings.
Gentrification (see above). People with money, for whatever reason (there are many) are flooding back into cities. some cities faster than others. poor people are being displaced, so they go to the suburbs where there are 50 yo apartment buildings left over from the wealthy people. we are reversing what began 50 years ago. basically there’s been a donut of rich people around poor people, and at some point there will be a donut of poor people around rich people. this cycle could continue forever unless we do something about it…
What to Do About It.
here’s where the “justice” of the “gentrification with justice” comes in. if gentrification is going to happen, let’s try to do it with some responsibility. let’s see how we can use this trend to make a difference for poor people. the 2 ways to do this?
1. Multi-x Housing. x can be income, quality, etc. Essentially, when you build a community you build it with various levels of housing all intermingled. everyone thought he was crazy when he started- what rich person’s going to buy a house next to a poor person?? the only answer i heard for this was
a. it works because i’ve been doing it with a very high level of success for years
b. the trend of gentrification is strong enough that people are will to make that sacrafice to get a new nice house in the city.
2. buy crappy housing, repair it with gov’t $ and sell it to the poor renters for a low price. Gov’t loans/programs and Christian/Charitable programs make this possible. The results- a person with little income is a home owner (money not “wasted” on rent), the house isn’t an eye-sore to the rich people pouring in, and the house increases in value as everything else around it does as well, and displacement does not occur. everyone wins, right?
3. buy crap and make it not crap. buy up the ghetto, buy up the projects, buy up the crackhouses and develop and put things that have a chance to thrive there. but when you do that, put back places for poor people to live, but not places that perpetuate poorness. think big- buy up multiple blocks, and make stuff happen. talk to your local politicians- they don’t like slums either.
these seem to be just new housing ideas, but you have to think of the social and economic consequences of housing multiple levels of income in the same community. we aren’t just talking about geography and buildings here. this could be crazy.
The Race Issue.
there are both black people and white people that don’t want to live with each other. there always will be. this is a resistance for the obvious reason that the city poor people are mostly black and the incoming wealthy people are mostly white. however, the speaker said that race wasn’t nearly as much of a social problem as wealth difference- in other words, in his mult-income communities, clashes more often involved wealth-based values conflicts than racism. basically wealthy people get pissed at poor people for having tall grass and a car on blocks in the yard and poor people are bitter because they are poor. he might have even thought that racism could be at least partially overcome thru financial equality.
Education.
the speaker said we don’t need to do stuff with schools. ok, he didn’t say that, but his answer was that we shouldn’t make schools a real focus. i mean, do what you can, but the real answer is that as rich/poor balance out, the schools will naturally improve. wealthy people moving into cities aren’t going to put up with what’s happening in the schools there now and they have the $ and/or time to make a difference.
Crime.
he told some crazy stories demonstrating how criminals aren’t necessarily terrible people and to be careful not to demonize drug dealers and prostitutes. ok? one of the most annoying things he said was basically, “the best/easiest way to get rid of a crackhouse is to buy it and fix it up.” ok, that’s easy for you to say mr. wealthy-pants. he also said if you ask/tell them to stop committing crimes, they’ll do it. uhhhh. he was so serious and said he’d done it before. and then, if they don’t stop you get the law involved. he was hardcore about getting involved to make the community better. the moral of this was, if the community bands together against criminals, the community will win, but people typically just try to ignore crime.
My Insight.
honestly, this guy really impressed me. he seemed super smart/educated. i make him sound stupid, but i think he has some terrific ideas. i might even say his idea is the most important means of fixing many of the problems of the city, whether directly or indirectly. it did strike me that he was sort of putting all his eggs in one basket so to speak, and i’m not sure this is the one way to fix every single thing. i do think it’s a great idea, which, when combined with some other programs, could make a huge difference in Richmond as it seems to be making in the ATL.
Interesting insights… I always felt that the well-to-do people living in cities were either yuppies with no kids, or were parents planning to send their kids to private/parochial schools. School quality has been holding wealth out of cities for a while.
the way to some kind of long-term economic parity is through equal education anyhow.
I have so much to say about this topic I don’t know where to start. First of all…great insight and write-up.
I’ll start with proposed solution number one “Multi-x Housing” I don’t think its quite as simple as just “creating” the low priced housing, wether its mixed in with expensive or not. The problem is poor people don’t even know TO buy a house let alone HOW to buy a house. I sold very reasonably priced housing, $150′s, and not one poor person bought. Not one poor person even called or came in. Becuase they don’t know how.
Programs like Habitat build the low price housing AND have programs that teach poop people how to buy/own it.
Ok, before the comments “poop people” was an error, I meant to say “poor people”
Ok I could things, 150$ is not a house for a poor person. That is waaaay too expensive for poor people.
Second, I’ve been thinking about multi-income housing areas in Richmond for a while and I think they could work. I know there is one in Manchester maybe? I think the key is everyone signs a covenant, and it is a waaaay strict covenant. Like, if your grass is too long you get kicked out. That way you don’t have poor people (or rich people) who aren’t interseted in a pleasant/safe living envoirnment. Addendum: by multi-income I mean nice houses 150k+ that are available to poor people at way lower prices. LIke something insane liek 100k.
In Richmond the problem isn’t really racism. The problem is class. There are rich people and there are poor people. The schools for poor people suck and their living enviornments suck. So they stay poor and sucky. In Richmond it just so happens that if you are poor, you probably are going to be black. And that fact is a result of racism.
We are still dealing with racism, and it is still a giant big issue (the biggest?) for Richmond, but now it more manifests itself as a class problem than a sitting in the back of the bus problem. Just thoughts.
hey i am a middle class person (i think) and i have no idea how to buy a house. i managed to do it anyways by signing everything they put in front of me without reading it. so anyways, it’s not just poor people!
oftentimes the houses/apartments/condos/whatever are not the same. the point of it (usually) isn’t to give poor people the same product at a discounted price; it’s to get them the opportunity to invest their money into something that will appreciate in value. so in 1 community, you will have many different sizes and even qualities of homes. remember, this is privately run, so people still have to make money on this. but, isn’t that better than the same house repeated a million times anyway?? variety- of architecture, lot size, class, race, etc. etc. it’s utopia!!! yippy!
also, just for the record, i don’t agree that racism currently has much of a direct effect on keeping black people poor right now in richmond. i think it’s how they got there in the first place, and they haven’t gotten out of it (bc it’s hard), but i just don’t believe that white people are sitting around plotting ways to keep black people poor. i’m sure there’s a little of that, but probably negligible. that’s just what i think. but sure, racism is indirectly, or originally, the cause.
also, poor people wouldn’t need to know much about buying a house. it would be like, “ok, we’re tearing down your crappy project- you’ll pay the same amount, but you’ll own this new unit. sign here.”
Regarding the injustice of the poor getting the residential hand-me-downs of the middle classs, that’s not injustice. It’s actually a pretty fantastic arrangement. Go visit some places that have no sizable middle class and you’ll see how the poor live – it’s not pretty.
Plumbing and gas pipes and fixtures, ductwork and bearing structures can with halfway decent maintenance last 150 years. At one extreme is brick and steel, which last almost forever, and then things like roofwork, furnaces, windows and electrical wiring have a shorter lifespan. A quick look at unrestored properties in Church Hill will show you that many if not most have not been properly cared for, and are nearing the end of their useful lives barring substantial investment of capital. (If the owner isn’t investing the $200 for a regular coat of paint to the window frames, imagine what the roof looks like, or the wiring.)
So in the U.S. and Europe well-off people make the initial investment in a stable and well-equipped dwelling, and then trade up at some point down the road. The poor then move in. In most countries there aren’t so many well-off people that the poor can simply move in – and so hovels and shacks are the norm. The only people really getting screwed in the equation are the well-off, who invest $100,000s to clean up what the poor have wrecked.
I’ve gone down the regentrification road – made some cash and lived in a slum for four years. I won’t do it again. It’s better for your health and your wallet to own a newer building, or an old one that’s been properly cared for throughout its existence.
also, Havoc, my “flower with teeth” icon is awesome. it’s been a while since i’ve seen it. that new mario soccer commercial makes me laugh every time.
sterling, interesting points!
i mean, sure poor people in poor countries are poorer than the ones here. and things need to be done for them. but i can’t buy into the idea that we should ignore our poor people bc they aren’t as poor as africans or whoever.
also, the number of people building anything that will last 150 years is miniscule.