Gentrification And Revitalization

Gentrification the process of neighborhood change that results in the replacement of lower income residents with higher income ones.
Revitalization
• The process of enhancing the physical, commercial and social components of neighborhoods and the future prospects of its residents through private sector and/or public sector efforts. Physical components include upgrading of housing stock and streetscapes.
• Commercial components include the creation of viable businesses and services in the community.
• Social components include increasing employment and reductions in crime.
Reinvestment
• The flow of capital into a neighborhood primarily to upgrade physical components of the neighborhood, although reinvestment can also be made in human
capacity.
Characteristics of Communities Targeted for Gentrification
• Fiscal problems
• Crime
• Neglect
• Low Income
• Failing schools
• Aging
• Segregated
Contributing Factors
1. Rapid Job Growth
-During the gentrification wave of the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, researchers argued that center city job growth was a key ingredient for gentrification in inner city areas
- Rapid job growth continues to be a key factor, but it no longer appears that such growth must be concentrated in the heart of downtown to trigger gentrification. More recent experience in some places suggests that job growth along a city’s periphery can be a strong a factor in the gentrification process.
2. Tight Housing Markets
-Housing market dynamics appear to play a critical role in producing gentrification.
-Constrained supply
-Relative affordability
-Lucrative investment potential in high risk neighborhoods
-Large rent gap
3. Preference for City Amenities
-Certain demographic groups traditionally have preferred to live in urban neighborhoods with easy access to amenities, including vibrant culture and street life, ethnic and racial diversity, distinctive and often historic architectural styles, and close proximity to downtown entertainment and cultural venues.
-The presence of these amenities helps to identify which city neighborhoods are most likely to gentrify.
4. Increased Traffic Congestion and Lengthening Commutes
-Frustrations with increasing traffic congestion and long commuting times were expressed as factors contributing to gentrification. As metropolitan populations rise and infrastructure ages, commutes (and therefore hours away from home) lengthen, congestion increases, and overall quality of life declines.
5. Targeted Public Sector Policies
-While economic forces seem to drive gentrification, government policies of the past or present can either facilitate or impede gentrification.
Cities use a range of policy levers to revitalize neighborhoods or accomplish other goals, including direct investments, tax expenditures, and zoning regulations.
6. Tax Incentives
-These include tax credits and abatements for new city homebuyers, tax
-Credits for historical preservation, below market land sales, and land bank purchases (i.e. first-time homebuyer tax credit which appears to have been a factor in a large number of recent home purchases).
-Public Housing Revitalization: Another direct policy lever that may have the indirect effect of increasing gentrification is the federal HOPE VI public housing revitalization program.
-Consequences of Other Federal Policies: Anti discrimination policy and NSP
-Local Economic Development Tools: Cities utilize other economic development tools to spark revitalization, such as the construction of transit facilities, convention centers, and the disposition of city-owned property.
Characteristics of Communities After Gentrification has begun
• Significant Shift in Demographic makeup
• Restore fiscal health
• Public safety improvements
• Housing stock quality
improved
• Improvement in the commercial corridor
• Ethnic diversity
Consequences of Gentrification
1. First Stage
• Newcomers buy and rehab vacant units, causing little displacement and resentment.
2. Second Stage
• Knowledge of the neighborhood and the rent gap spreads, displacement begins to occur, and conflict erupts.
3. Third Stage
• Prices escalate and displacement occurs in force, new residents have lower tolerance for social services facilities and other amenities that they view as undesirable
Consequences of Gentrification
1. involuntary or voluntary displacement of renters, homeowners and local businesses;
2. increasing real estate values and equity for owners, and increasing rents for renters and business owners;
3. increasing tax revenue;
4.
greater income mix and deconcentration of poverty
5. changing street flavor and new commercial activity;
6. changing community leadership, power structure and institutions;
7. conflicts between old and new residents; and
8. increased value placed on the neighborhood by outsiders.
Cases of Gentrification
-Boston, Seattle, Chicago and Portland.
-Less rapid, but significant, levels of gentrification are occurring in Atlanta, Washington, D.C. and Denver
CRITICISM OF GENTRIFICATION
• Dislocation (displacement) – forced movement of residents from places that are being gentrified due to issues related to affordability
Equitable Development
• We define equitable development as the creation and maintenance of economically and socially diverse communities that are stable over the long term, through means that generate a minimum of transition costs that fall unfairly on lower income residents.
Gentrification in
-San Francisco
-Atlanta
-Cleveland
-Washington, DC
Housing Discrimination Using Housing Policy to address Discrimination
-Discrimination includes acts that introduce barriers that deny access to housing, constrain choices or increase costs.
-Renters vs. home buyers
Discriminatory
Treatment
-Disparate treatment – where individuals are treated differently in the real estate market because of their status as a racial or ethnic minority or other membership in a protected class (women, elderly, disabled). (explicit acts)
National Association of Real Estate Brokers (NAREB)
-Established Business Practices
- In, NAREB published a textbook entitled "Principles of Real Estate Practice” (1922)
-It was used to train real estate brokers. The textbook emphasized "the purchase of property by certain racial types is very likely to diminish the value of other property.“
-The next year NAREB published two additional texts. One book stated that black families were a threat to property values. The other text declared "foreigners" were the most undesirable type of residents. -NAREB's code of ethics (1950)
-The realtor should not be instrumental in introducing into a neighborhood a character of property or occupancy, members of any race or nationality or any individual whose presence will clearly be detrimental to property values in the neighborhood. Racially Restrictive Covenants
-Private agreements among property owners that prevented blacks and other minorities from owning property in a particular subdivision.
Consequences of Racially Restrictive Covenants
-Limited Mobility
-Established landlord monopolies, and higher rents
-Disincentive to investment
Discriminatory Impact
-Disparate impact – minorities might fare worse than similarly situated whites not because of explicit acts but because of “the universal application of an apparently neutral policy or practice that excludes a disproportionate share of protected class members.” (institutional)
Specific Discrimination Practices
-Redlining – Occurs when mortgage lenders refuse to provide loans to people within particular geographic areas.
-Steering – Occurs when real estate agents steer minorities into neighborhoods that are predominantly minority.
-Statistical discrimination - When actors in the real estate and mortgage markets make judgments about individual customers based on generalizations about their race or ethnicity.
Impacts of Redlining
-Disinvestment in Commercial Corridors, 2. Disinvestment in Residential Areas, 3. Intense Segregation by Race and Class, 4. Encourages Urban Blight
Residential Segregation Segregation
-Whether two or more groups tend to live in the same neighborhoods or different neighborhoods. One of the most important ways in which neighborhoods differ is in their racial composition.
Population Properties
-Evenness involves the differential distribution of the subject population.
-Exposure measures potential contact.
-Concentration refers to the relative amount of physical space occupied.
-Centralization indicates the degree to which a group is located near the center of an urban area.
-Clustering measures the degree to which minority group members live disproportionately in contiguous areas.
How do we measure segregation? -evenness dimension: dissimilarity index- most popular measure
-exposure dimension: isolation index
-concentration dimension: delta index
-centralization dimension: absolute centralization index
-clustering dimension: spatial proximity index
Index of dissimilarity
-The most commonly used measure of neighborhood segregation is the index of dissimilarity. This is a measure of the evenness with which two groups are distributed across the component geographic areas that make up a larger area.
Isolation Index
-The exposure measure, the isolation index, describes “the extent to which minority members are exposed only to one another,” and is computed as the minority weighted average of the minority proportion in each area. It also varies from 0 to 1. (Massey and Denton, 1988, p. 288)
Delta Index
-A measure of concentration which also varies from 0 to 1, measures the proportion of a group’s population that would have to move across neighborhoods to achieve a uniform density across a metropolitan area. (Massey and Denton, 1988, p. 288)
Centralization
-Absolute centralization examines only the distribution of the minority group around the metropolitan area center and varies between -1 and 1.
-Positive values indicate a tendency for group members to reside close to the center, while negative values indicate a tendency to live in outlying areas as compared with the reference group. A score of 0 means that a group has a uniform distribution throughout the metropolitan area.(Massey and Denton, 1988, p. 288)
Clustering Measure
-Spatial proximity, basically measures the extent to which neighborhoods inhabited by minority members adjoin one another, or cluster, in space.
-Spatial proximity equals 1 if there is no differential clustering between minority and majority group members. It is greater than 1 when members of each group live nearer to one another than to members of the other group, and it is less than 1 in the rare case of the minority members live closer to majority members (Massey and Denton, 1988, p. 288).
Trends in Segregation (income)
-The affluent are more segregated from other Americans than the poor are. That is, highincome families are much less likely to live in neighborhoods with middle- and low-income families than low-income families are to live in neighborhoods with middle- and high-income families. This has been true for the last 40 years.
Consequences of Segregation
-Segregated housing patterns not only separate white and minority neighborhoods, but also help create and perpetuate:

• stubborn disparities in employment,

• education,

• income, and

• Wealth