Counterintuitive

http://www.citylab.com/housing/2015/09/the-complicated-link-between-gentrification-and-displacement/404161/

Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, New York gentrification
nydailynews.com

Hello Everyone:

If you have been following world news lately, you might have come across a rather strange (for blogger) story about Cereal Killer Café in London, England.  This past Saturday night , rioters, supposedly "organized" by an anarchist group, threw bottles, burned police in effigy, painted "scum" on the window, and broke the windows of neighboring real estate office. (http//www.theatlantic.com)  The British media called it an anti-gentrification protest or anti-hipster crusade. (Ibid)  The reason yours truly brought this up because it highlights the negative impacts of gentrification: they displace long-time residents and businesses; bringing in younger more affluent residents and upscale businesses, like a café that charges five dollars for a box of cereal, that cater to them.

Qunicy Avenue
Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, New York
wirednewyork.com

This brings us to today's discussion on gentrification. Specifically, the link between gentrification and displacement.  Our guide will be Richard Florida's CityLab article, "The Complicated Link Between Gentrification and Displacement."  Lets begin with one basic fact, gentrification is not the ultimate tool of Satan.  Gentrification can lead to improved facilities and services.  However, in 2014 director Spike Lee famously expressed the irony of gentrification in New York,

Why does it take an influx of white New Yorkers in the south Bronx, in Harlem, in Bed Stuy, in Crown Heights for the facilities to get better?...What about the people who are renting?  They can't afford it anymore!

Mr. Lee's frustration reflects the all-to-familiar urban story, playing out across the United States: "As wealthier residents flow back into once low-income, often minority neighborhoods, long-time residents can be priced out.  However, Mr. Florida presents us with evidence that suggest that gentrification does not necessarily lead to displacement and can, in some cases, increase diversity.  It sounds counterintuitive but please read on.

A sign of gentrification
Whole Foods in Detroit, Michigan
detroit.curbed.com

Richard Florida wonders, "But exactly how does this dynamic play out, and is displacement inevitable?"  To find out the answer, Mr. Florida turned to a new working paper published by Federal Reserve of San Francisco titled Gentrification, Displacement and the Role of Public Investment: A Literature Review by Miriam Zuk, Ariel H. Bierbaum, and Karen Chapple of the University of California, Berkeley; Karolina Gorska, Anastasi Loukaitou-Sideris, Paul On, and Trevor Thomas of the University of California, Los Angeles.  (http://www.frbsf.org)  The review carefully analyzes gentrification and displacement over the past several decades.  In an aside Mr. Florida writes, "I wrote the review's insights on how public investment shape gentrification..."  The literature review's conclusions allows the us to better understand some of the questions connected to gentrification and displacement: "Just how extensive is displacement, exactly what kinds of people are displaced, and how do people and groups fare after they leave gentrifying neighborhoods?"

Hipster  bar in Detroit
urbanitenews.com

The earliest studies of displacement was conducted in the eighties and produced  wide ranging estimates of the number of people displaced by gentrification.  Mr. Florida cites a 1982 study, Residential Displacement: Extent, Nature, and Effects by Dr. Sandra J. Newman and Michael S. Owen, which "found that roughly 1 percent of all American, 5 percent of families, and 8.5 percent of urban families from their homes between 1970 and 1977 by either eviction, public action, sale or reoccupation, or changing state of their neighborhood.  (http://www.onlinelibrary.wiley.com) In 1983, Publius published a study, Revitalizing America's Cities: Neighborhood Reinvestment and Displacement by Michael H. Schill and Richard P. Nathan.  The study look at five cities (Boston, Cincinnati, Richmond, Seattle, and Denver), concluding that 23 percent of residents in these urban neighborhoods were displaced due to eviction, higher rent, or sale of the building they were renting between 1978 and 1980. (http://www.jstor.org)  A similar study in 2001, Does Gentrification Harm the Poor by Jacob L. Vigdor, Douglas S. Massey and Alice M. Rivlin, focused on gentrification in in the Boston area.  The study authors found evidence of greater housing turnover in gentrifying neighborhoods. (Ibid)

Sign of future gentrification
madamenoire.com

Richard Florida writes, "Perhaps the foremost student of gentrification is Lance Freeman of Columbia University."  Mr. Freeman's 2004 with Frank Braconi concluded "...that poor households in gentrifying neighborhoods of New York City were likely to move than poor households in non-gentrifying neighborhoods." This phenomenon may be due to the fact that there are fewer poor households in gentrifying neighborhoods.  However, the study authors concluded that, a neighborhood could go from 30% poverty population to 12% in as few as to years without any displacement whatsoever.  Mr. Freeman also concluded that "the probability that a household would be displaced in a gentrifying neighborhood was a mere 1.3 percent.  His 2007 follow up study, again with Mr. Braconi, studied apartment turnover rates in New York City neighborhoods and revealed "...that the probability of displacement declined as the rate of rent inflation increased in the neighborhood. Disadvantaged households in gentrifying neighborhoods were actually 15 percent less likely to move than those in non-gentrifying households."

Mars Bar before and after
huffingtonpost.com

In his 2009 paper for Urban Studies, Neighborhood Diversity, Metropolitan Segregation and Gentrification: What Are the Links in the US?  Mr. Freeman "found that gentrifying neighborhoods are becoming more racially diverse by tracking neighborhood change from 1970-2000..."  Mr. Freeman also concluded "...that changes in educational diversity were the same for both gentrifying and non-gentrifying areas.  (http://www.usj.sagepub.com)  Be that as it may, while some of the residents were forced to move during the study period, gentrifying neighborhoods, overall, had more income, racial, and educational diversity than non-gentrifying neighborhoods.

Everything thus far seems to run counterintuitive to the idea that gentrification leads to displacement and loss of diversity.  Yet, there are studies that suggest that gentrification can  reduce displacement.  Richard Florida states that, "Neighborhood improves like bars, restaurants, waterfronts...can and sometimes do encourage less advantaged households to stay in the face of gentrification.  Citing the 2006 paper, The Right to Stay Put, Revisited: Gentrification and Resistance to Displacement in New York City, by Kathe Newman.  Ms. Newman found "...displacement accounted for only 6 to 10 percent of all moves in New York City due to housing expenses, landlord harassment, or displacement by private action (e.g condo conversion) between 1989 and 2002." (Ibid)  Further a 2011 study, How low income neighborhoods change: Entry, exit, and enhancement by Ingrid Gould Ellen and Katherine M. O'Regan demonstrated "...that neighborhood income gains did not significantly predict household exit rates.  What did predict outmigration was age, minority statue, selective entry and exit, and renting as opposed to buying." (http://www.sciencedirect.com)

CBGB
Photography by James and Karla Murray
New York City, New York
therealdeal.com

 In March 2010 Journal of Urban Economics, Terra McKinnish, Randall Walsh, and T. Kirk White published the study Who gentrifies low-income neighborhoods? (Ibid) The paper focused on the affect of gentrification on black residents-discovering that the impact varied based on level of education.  By analyzing about 15,000 census tract between 1990 and 2000, the researchers found that the higher level of education, the greater benefits from gentrification.  Specifically, "one-third of the increase in income among gentrifying neighborhoods during this period came from the progress of this specific demographic."  Naturally, this makes gentrification more attractive to African American middle class households.  In a statement of the obvious, gentrification can have a negative affect on less educated African American households through displacement.

Gentrification protest
mrswestaphg.weekly.com

Another truism is that displacement can and is a big issue in places where gentrification is occurring at a rapid pace.  Richard Florida's CityLab colleague, Tanvi Misra, reported on similar research by UC Berkeley's Urban Displacement Project.  The study, Regional Early Warning System for Displacement (http://www.urbandisplacement.org), shows a strong connection between gentrification and displacement in a rapidly gentrifying city like San Francisco.  Specifically, over one-quarter of the city's neighborhoods (422 out of almost 1,600 surveyed) are at risk for displacement.  Lead author Karen Chapple wrote, by 2030, San Francisco, Oakland, and many other Bay Area communities may realize that their neighborhood has turned the corner from displacement risk to reality. (Ibid)

There is no doubt in blogger's mind that displacement is becoming a huge issue in "knowledge hubs and superstar cities' where the demand for urban living is growing in leaps and bounds.  It does not take an endless recitation of studies to understand that these places are attractive to new businesses, educated and skilled workers, developers, and large corporations who all combine to drive up demand and the cost of housing.  The end result is that long-time low- and middle-income residents feel pressured to find more affordable housing.  The larger issue are the neighborhoods that are untouched by gentrification; where concentrated poverty persists and grows.  Bottom line, gentrification and displacement are symptoms of "the scarcity of quality urbanism.  The driving force behind both is the far larger process of spiky reurbanization-itself propelled by large-scale public and private investment..."  The task ahead is creating more inclusive cities and neighborhoods that can accommodate all the city dwellers.