Gentrification By: Ximena Renteria
What is gentrification? Gentrification is the change of a district, neighborhood, and town. Gentrification happens through making space into a refined place for people of the middle-class to live and build businesses. In Los Angeles it is a very controversial topic politically and emotionally because not only does gentrification, redefine neighborhoods but it displaces people form their homes and businesses. Gentrification causes people from the working-class to lose there homes. This essay will explore how gentrification affects people in different neighborhoods ? Who is allowing gentrification to happen in areas like Boyle Heights? Finally this essay will prove why gentrification happens.
How does gentrification affect neighborhoods? The basic answer to this question would be that big corporations come in and build unnecessary commercial buildings and bring businesses to neighborhoods that members don’t want or can benefit from. What is beyond this answer? According to Malika Giddens from the Ithacan says: “It isn’t fun when you have to leave home because you cannot afford it anymore. The moment you stop recognizing the people around you always makes the place you call “home” feel unfamiliar Not too long after, I noticed the houses that looked run down for years, but still had faithful inhabitants, began to go under repair. There was more effort for our neighborhood to seem appealing. More white people moved across the street. My friends moved away one by one. Condominiums were quickly built. We became neighbors with coffee shops and art galleries.” What this is explaining is that this woman didn’t feel like she belonged in her community anymore because she didn’t fit in culturally because the drastic changes that were made to her neighborhood. Giddens also seems to be explaining that the diversity in her neighborhood changed when people of the white race started moving into her neighborhood. In this scenario gentrification affected this woman because where she was living became “unfamiliar”.
Who is allowing gentrification? Forbes magazine says: “The problem with American urban development patterns is that once a neighborhood has its amenities, new development grinds to a halt. Wealthier new residents have more political savvy than the old ones, and they use this to impose a protective NIMBY shield around the neighborhood.” What this means is that gentrification has its share of political agendas because if the new politicians that are coming in are pushing to change neighborhoods so desperately then wouldn’t that mean that the corporations and businesses are buying into these corrupted politicians agendas? This matters because our elected officials should be the voice for the working-class people because even though we work as a democracy today other voices matter more than others. Take Metro for example there company strives on building public transportation but what about if they want to build a new line? Metro has people that go out to communities where they are thinking on building a new line and convince them not to cause any problems with the city and in occasion makes community members sign a petition saying they agree with building, I think Metro plays a big role in gentrifying Los Angeles. The Los Angeles times explains: “ In those same years, rent and home prices spiked in Koreatown and Hollywood as dense new developments were built near busy transit lines. But the population in these areas fell, especially among people of color. ” This is important because people want to be in a urban area where it’s easy to save money so landowners increase the price on lands because they increase prices to an amount tenants can’t pay forcing them to move out.
Finally why does gentrification happen? Northwestern University says:“Poor neighborhoods close to rich neighborhoods experience larger increases in neighborhood income, larger increases in the educational attainment of neighborhood residents, and larger declines in the neighborhood poverty rate than do otherwise similar poor neighborhoods that are farther away from the rich neighborhoods.” So this is saying that gentrification is happening because the gentrifiers have more power over these low income communities.
Overall gentrification is not a good thing if it is displacing people or if it about something about pathetic like gaining power in a working-class neighborhood. There is people who can’t even afford to live in there own home anymore because the rent has gotten so high that the tenant can no longer afford it which makes the land owner raise rent and continue with this never ending cycle of corruption. Everybody even if you are in the working class believe it or not deserves a place to call home because it is a basic world life.
How does gentrification affect neighborhoods? The basic answer to this question would be that big corporations come in and build unnecessary commercial buildings and bring businesses to neighborhoods that members don’t want or can benefit from. What is beyond this answer? According to Malika Giddens from the Ithacan says: “It isn’t fun when you have to leave home because you cannot afford it anymore. The moment you stop recognizing the people around you always makes the place you call “home” feel unfamiliar Not too long after, I noticed the houses that looked run down for years, but still had faithful inhabitants, began to go under repair. There was more effort for our neighborhood to seem appealing. More white people moved across the street. My friends moved away one by one. Condominiums were quickly built. We became neighbors with coffee shops and art galleries.” What this is explaining is that this woman didn’t feel like she belonged in her community anymore because she didn’t fit in culturally because the drastic changes that were made to her neighborhood. Giddens also seems to be explaining that the diversity in her neighborhood changed when people of the white race started moving into her neighborhood. In this scenario gentrification affected this woman because where she was living became “unfamiliar”.
Who is allowing gentrification? Forbes magazine says: “The problem with American urban development patterns is that once a neighborhood has its amenities, new development grinds to a halt. Wealthier new residents have more political savvy than the old ones, and they use this to impose a protective NIMBY shield around the neighborhood.” What this means is that gentrification has its share of political agendas because if the new politicians that are coming in are pushing to change neighborhoods so desperately then wouldn’t that mean that the corporations and businesses are buying into these corrupted politicians agendas? This matters because our elected officials should be the voice for the working-class people because even though we work as a democracy today other voices matter more than others. Take Metro for example there company strives on building public transportation but what about if they want to build a new line? Metro has people that go out to communities where they are thinking on building a new line and convince them not to cause any problems with the city and in occasion makes community members sign a petition saying they agree with building, I think Metro plays a big role in gentrifying Los Angeles. The Los Angeles times explains: “ In those same years, rent and home prices spiked in Koreatown and Hollywood as dense new developments were built near busy transit lines. But the population in these areas fell, especially among people of color. ” This is important because people want to be in a urban area where it’s easy to save money so landowners increase the price on lands because they increase prices to an amount tenants can’t pay forcing them to move out.
Finally why does gentrification happen? Northwestern University says:“Poor neighborhoods close to rich neighborhoods experience larger increases in neighborhood income, larger increases in the educational attainment of neighborhood residents, and larger declines in the neighborhood poverty rate than do otherwise similar poor neighborhoods that are farther away from the rich neighborhoods.” So this is saying that gentrification is happening because the gentrifiers have more power over these low income communities.
Overall gentrification is not a good thing if it is displacing people or if it about something about pathetic like gaining power in a working-class neighborhood. There is people who can’t even afford to live in there own home anymore because the rent has gotten so high that the tenant can no longer afford it which makes the land owner raise rent and continue with this never ending cycle of corruption. Everybody even if you are in the working class believe it or not deserves a place to call home because it is a basic world life.