Gentrification In Urban Areas
Cities and suburbs was a sociology class where I have learned issues like suburbanization, neighborhoods, culture and poverty, gentrification, deindustrialization, segregation, downtown redevelopment, and housing. Not only did I learned what these terms mean, but also how they have affected us every day. Professor Rosenblatt has given my classmates and I a chance to apply our knowledge through a neighborhood project. The town that I picked was called Wheaton. Through my field research, I think the best ways to raise the quality of life for everyone in the city are: make it more affordable to rent (subsidize), change people’s mentality on integrated neighborhoods through proper marketing techniques and advertising, funding (financially support
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disadvantage communities), and don’t relinquish to private investors.
Wheaton is a Northwest suburb that is twenty-nine miles west of Chicago. I moved to Wheaton back in 2005; it is a town that I grew up in, my home, which was why I picked it for my neighborhood project. Through my field research, I learned that as of 2016 and 2017, the total population of Wheaton is 52,894 with a racial makeup of 87% White. Due its homogeneity, I feel that this town has it easier, in many ways, than places where more integration happens. Wheaton has gone through what we called suburbanization, where city folks started to move away from the urban areas to a more secluded, serene, clean neighborhood where houses are bigger, less poor and black citizens, less crowded, so on and so forth. Furthermore, suburbanization resulted in red-lining, where African Americans cannot move in and get a loan to buy houses in nice neighborhoods because of their skin color. As I learned from reading Jackson’s (1987) Crabgrass frontier: The suburbanization of the United States, I think the three most important aspects I took away are about the Home Owners Loan Corporation (HOLC), how Federal Housing Administration (FHA) aggravated racism and classism, and the Edgemoor Terrace paved ways for suburbanization and mass-production. The HOLC is an important aspect, because it transformed how Americans buy their homes; the law worked so well that we are still using it eighty-four years later. Second, the FHA worsened the issues of racism and classism; it is interesting to see how even through an intangible concept, people can still manage to be racist and classist. This aspect of the book is important because it created “red lining,” which is still happening. We can see how some neighborhoods are getting more funds to build better/newer playgrounds, schools, parks, etc. Overall, just to make/keep the neighborhood looking wholesome. The subtlety in how these laws are/were carried out, clearly demonstrates the marginalization of people of color and people of lower economic status. Third, the Edgemoor Terrace is an important feature, because it gave ways to suburbanization, mass-produced, homogenous-looking homes, and affordability in owning a house. This help drives consumption and pushed the United States out of the Depression. Because of suburbanization, we can see how the culture of consumerism came about.
Unfortunately, suburbanization divided people into categories of who’s rich, who’s poor, who’s white, who’s black; it marginalized people of color at a fair chance of owning a home; city life started to die as jobs and people moved away from the city; crime rates rise and the list just goes on and on. I think one of the best ways to improve the city life is to put more funding into public housing, or subsidize rent, remodel old apartment buildings, public education, public libraries, public parks, etc. As I learned from class, when the government financially support the community, everyone’s lives and living condition improves, drastically may I add. However, I must emphasize that you should not leave the community-improvement-project into the hands of private sectors/investors.
This brings me to my next point, gentrification.
Gentrification is a process where old, often rundown, neighborhoods are taken over by affluent, young Caucasian folks, property values are raised, radically, and low- and working-class families and small businesses gets push out. Private sectors often would jump into these vulnerable towns as they see it as an opportunity to exploit the weak and poor. Not only that Smith (1992) pointed out that gentrification has been romanticized to the public audience to view the theory as “the cowboy taming the West” to steer people away from the predicaments at hand, which is to push the homeless, working- and lower class away using violent tactics to make room for the young, affluent whites. People think that by having the middle- and upper-middle class in these poor urban communities will “civilize” the people in the community. Yet when in reality, they are doing more harm than good. The homeless now have nowhere to stay or sleep. The community can’t use their park how they want to. And instead of putting funds into the shelters or build more homeless shelters, the government think that it is a wiser decision to build condominiums and extravagant buildings than to help the
poor.
Towns like Englewood, Wicker Park, and Rogers Park have been affected by gentrification. Private sectors like Starbucks opened up, Whole Foods were built, CVS Pharmacy and Walgreens followed; small businesses lose their long-time customers to these corporations, then they would run out of business due to competition under a free market economy, where small businesses are at a disadvantage. It doesn’t stop there; private banks and property management companies would jump at the chance to do business, as well, by buying out and pushing out tenants that have been there for years, sometimes even generations. Next, private investors would remodel the interiors of these old houses and buildings (or build something new from the ground up), increase the rent (property value), and attract young, rich whites who are interested in being called trendsetters/pioneers/brave to moving into these newly renovated neighborhoods. What I am trying to say here is, when the government support underprivileged communities and give them more public funding, not only are you going to improve their living conditions, but you will also reduce crime rates and improve the physical outlook of the town. For example, Wheaton has been rated as one of the safest cities in America; the public high schools there are highly ranked in the state of Illinois; the Wheaton Public Library, repeatedly, was awarded as the top public library in the nation compared to other towns of their size; and the living conditions (living style) here is phenomenal. Even after 148 years, not much have changed in this town; economically, people in Wheaton are still prospering, the public enterprises maintained their beautiful physical appearances and reputation; life here is stable and mundane. Even during the recession period in 2007/2008, a minute amount of Wheatonites were impacted, which is impressive considering how residents of Illinois and Americans, as a nation, were affected.
Corresponding, through my Contemporary Sociology on Education class, I read about research on how important education is and how well schools are funded really affect the students’ lives. They will almost always churn out more high-quality students that are prepared for college. This reason then leads to higher education attainment, better jobs (well-paid), higher income, and better living condition. In this case, Wheaton’s wealth is largely due to the people’s high level of education and the amount of white collar jobs that they are able to attain: 58.42% of the population have a college degree, master’s and/or a doctorate degree, and 3.96% have a professional degree. 77.67% of the population have a white-collar job, which outcompetes blue collar jobs, unemployment, and among jobs (Simply Map web, 2016). Public schools in Wheaton is so impressive that we even have famous alumni: Edwin Hubble, Peter Roskam, The Blues Brothers, Harold “Red” Grange, and Sean Rooney.
As Marie Curie once said,
You cannot hope to build a better world without improving the individuals. To that end, each of us must work for his [or her] own improvement and, at the same time, share a general responsibility for all humanity, our particular duty being to aid those to whom we think we can be most useful.
Her quote on humanity perfectly summarizes the points that I made throughout this essay: we cannot neglect those in need. We must push for more public policies to fund underprivileged neighborhoods and communities in Chicago. As the mayor, you can subsidize rent and/or make policies to make rent more affordable for all Chicagoans. We must change the public’s mentality about integrated neighborhoods by reducing the amount reports on shooting in just certain areas where blacks are populated in; we can do it if we put in the energy and effort to find the proper marketing, advertising, televising techniques to make people less fearful of integrated neighborhoods. Funding, funding, funding! I feel like I can’t emphasize this enough, but throughout my course of studying sociology, endless researches have support my idea of how powerful, positively impactful public funding is to communities and to improve people’s lives. Last but not least, as the mayor, no matter what happens, you must not give in to private investors. They will likely exploit the people in these poor neighborhoods than help them.
disadvantage communities), and don’t relinquish to private investors.
Wheaton is a Northwest suburb that is twenty-nine miles west of Chicago. I moved to Wheaton back in 2005; it is a town that I grew up in, my home, which was why I picked it for my neighborhood project. Through my field research, I learned that as of 2016 and 2017, the total population of Wheaton is 52,894 with a racial makeup of 87% White. Due its homogeneity, I feel that this town has it easier, in many ways, than places where more integration happens. Wheaton has gone through what we called suburbanization, where city folks started to move away from the urban areas to a more secluded, serene, clean neighborhood where houses are bigger, less poor and black citizens, less crowded, so on and so forth. Furthermore, suburbanization resulted in red-lining, where African Americans cannot move in and get a loan to buy houses in nice neighborhoods because of their skin color. As I learned from reading Jackson’s (1987) Crabgrass frontier: The suburbanization of the United States, I think the three most important aspects I took away are about the Home Owners Loan Corporation (HOLC), how Federal Housing Administration (FHA) aggravated racism and classism, and the Edgemoor Terrace paved ways for suburbanization and mass-production. The HOLC is an important aspect, because it transformed how Americans buy their homes; the law worked so well that we are still using it eighty-four years later. Second, the FHA worsened the issues of racism and classism; it is interesting to see how even through an intangible concept, people can still manage to be racist and classist. This aspect of the book is important because it created “red lining,” which is still happening. We can see how some neighborhoods are getting more funds to build better/newer playgrounds, schools, parks, etc. Overall, just to make/keep the neighborhood looking wholesome. The subtlety in how these laws are/were carried out, clearly demonstrates the marginalization of people of color and people of lower economic status. Third, the Edgemoor Terrace is an important feature, because it gave ways to suburbanization, mass-produced, homogenous-looking homes, and affordability in owning a house. This help drives consumption and pushed the United States out of the Depression. Because of suburbanization, we can see how the culture of consumerism came about.
Unfortunately, suburbanization divided people into categories of who’s rich, who’s poor, who’s white, who’s black; it marginalized people of color at a fair chance of owning a home; city life started to die as jobs and people moved away from the city; crime rates rise and the list just goes on and on. I think one of the best ways to improve the city life is to put more funding into public housing, or subsidize rent, remodel old apartment buildings, public education, public libraries, public parks, etc. As I learned from class, when the government financially support the community, everyone’s lives and living condition improves, drastically may I add. However, I must emphasize that you should not leave the community-improvement-project into the hands of private sectors/investors.
This brings me to my next point, gentrification.
Gentrification is a process where old, often rundown, neighborhoods are taken over by affluent, young Caucasian folks, property values are raised, radically, and low- and working-class families and small businesses gets push out. Private sectors often would jump into these vulnerable towns as they see it as an opportunity to exploit the weak and poor. Not only that Smith (1992) pointed out that gentrification has been romanticized to the public audience to view the theory as “the cowboy taming the West” to steer people away from the predicaments at hand, which is to push the homeless, working- and lower class away using violent tactics to make room for the young, affluent whites. People think that by having the middle- and upper-middle class in these poor urban communities will “civilize” the people in the community. Yet when in reality, they are doing more harm than good. The homeless now have nowhere to stay or sleep. The community can’t use their park how they want to. And instead of putting funds into the shelters or build more homeless shelters, the government think that it is a wiser decision to build condominiums and extravagant buildings than to help the
poor.
Towns like Englewood, Wicker Park, and Rogers Park have been affected by gentrification. Private sectors like Starbucks opened up, Whole Foods were built, CVS Pharmacy and Walgreens followed; small businesses lose their long-time customers to these corporations, then they would run out of business due to competition under a free market economy, where small businesses are at a disadvantage. It doesn’t stop there; private banks and property management companies would jump at the chance to do business, as well, by buying out and pushing out tenants that have been there for years, sometimes even generations. Next, private investors would remodel the interiors of these old houses and buildings (or build something new from the ground up), increase the rent (property value), and attract young, rich whites who are interested in being called trendsetters/pioneers/brave to moving into these newly renovated neighborhoods. What I am trying to say here is, when the government support underprivileged communities and give them more public funding, not only are you going to improve their living conditions, but you will also reduce crime rates and improve the physical outlook of the town. For example, Wheaton has been rated as one of the safest cities in America; the public high schools there are highly ranked in the state of Illinois; the Wheaton Public Library, repeatedly, was awarded as the top public library in the nation compared to other towns of their size; and the living conditions (living style) here is phenomenal. Even after 148 years, not much have changed in this town; economically, people in Wheaton are still prospering, the public enterprises maintained their beautiful physical appearances and reputation; life here is stable and mundane. Even during the recession period in 2007/2008, a minute amount of Wheatonites were impacted, which is impressive considering how residents of Illinois and Americans, as a nation, were affected.
Corresponding, through my Contemporary Sociology on Education class, I read about research on how important education is and how well schools are funded really affect the students’ lives. They will almost always churn out more high-quality students that are prepared for college. This reason then leads to higher education attainment, better jobs (well-paid), higher income, and better living condition. In this case, Wheaton’s wealth is largely due to the people’s high level of education and the amount of white collar jobs that they are able to attain: 58.42% of the population have a college degree, master’s and/or a doctorate degree, and 3.96% have a professional degree. 77.67% of the population have a white-collar job, which outcompetes blue collar jobs, unemployment, and among jobs (Simply Map web, 2016). Public schools in Wheaton is so impressive that we even have famous alumni: Edwin Hubble, Peter Roskam, The Blues Brothers, Harold “Red” Grange, and Sean Rooney.
As Marie Curie once said,
You cannot hope to build a better world without improving the individuals. To that end, each of us must work for his [or her] own improvement and, at the same time, share a general responsibility for all humanity, our particular duty being to aid those to whom we think we can be most useful.
Her quote on humanity perfectly summarizes the points that I made throughout this essay: we cannot neglect those in need. We must push for more public policies to fund underprivileged neighborhoods and communities in Chicago. As the mayor, you can subsidize rent and/or make policies to make rent more affordable for all Chicagoans. We must change the public’s mentality about integrated neighborhoods by reducing the amount reports on shooting in just certain areas where blacks are populated in; we can do it if we put in the energy and effort to find the proper marketing, advertising, televising techniques to make people less fearful of integrated neighborhoods. Funding, funding, funding! I feel like I can’t emphasize this enough, but throughout my course of studying sociology, endless researches have support my idea of how powerful, positively impactful public funding is to communities and to improve people’s lives. Last but not least, as the mayor, no matter what happens, you must not give in to private investors. They will likely exploit the people in these poor neighborhoods than help them.