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What does It mean to gentrify some place?

by Daniel Cubias

I live in a gentrified neighborhood.

At least that’s what I found out recently, when I spoke to a longtime area resident who informed me that “the damn hipsters came in and ruined everything.”

He didn’t consider me an invader, even though I moved into the neighborhood just two years ago. I presume my Latino status prevents me from being one of those evil hipsters (well, that and the fact that my iPod doesn’t have a single Belle & Sebastian song on it).

Still, I was surprised to hear that my neighborhood used to have a golden age of authenticity. You see, I have a friend who grew up in my neighborhood, and he said that when he was a kid, “it was nothing but junkies and porno theaters.”

So has gentrification ruined my neighborhood or saved it? For that matter, how does an area get gentrified in the first place?

Well, the term refers to an “influx of middle-class or affluent people into deteriorating areas that often displaces poorer residents.” In essence, a humble, or even seedy area transforms from someplace that upscale people avoid to a neighborhood that they covet.

In theory, only white people can gentrify a place. Their motivation is either a sincere desire to improve a neighborhood, an insidious drive to ethnically cleanse an area, a misguided attempt to go slumming, or a simple craving for cheap rent – depending on whom you ask.

Many traditionally Latino neighborhoods have become gentrified in recent years. This is problematic for Hispanic residents who have built lives in these neighborhoods, only to be forced out by skyrocketing rents. In gentrification’s final stages, your local pupuseria becomes a Starbucks.

However, people who slam gentrification sometimes glamorize a neighborhood’s character. To such individuals, graffiti and crumbling buildings are not signs of blight. They are symbols of “authenticity.”

Hence, conflict erupts between those who want to sanitize and even anesthetize a neighborhood, and those who want to keep things unchanged, even if the place is a grimy dive.

But is this a false choice? Are our only options to either let urban areas dissolve into squalid pits, or to morph into rows of Disneyfied coffee shops?

Surely, just a modicum of urban planning can help preserve a neighborhood’s character while improving the quality of life for people who live there. To engage in black-or-white thinking (an American pastime) is to believe all newcomers are out to destroy a neighborhood, or that longtime residents are ignorant savages who must be saved.

It doesn’t have to be a war. Putting aside our prejudices and suspicions of other people’s motivations is the key to resolving the issues that gentrification creates. But then again, ditching our prejudices and suspicions is always good advice.

In any case, when I moved into my neighborhood two years ago, I thought it was a beautiful place. I still think that, and all the invading hipsters in the world haven’t changed my mind.

To learn more about Daniel, visit Hispanic Fanatic.

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Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are solely those of
the author and should not be understood to be shared by Being Latino, Inc.

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Posted on September 19, 2011 at 8:00 am in Comunidad, Lifestyle   |  RSS feed

4 Comments to “What does It mean to gentrify some place?”

    
  1. Kathrin P. Ivanovicrin
    September 19, 2011 at 8:17 am

    I think it is harmful to glamorize gentrification, without considering the historic consequences that we are living with. Gentrification is part of a long history of the intentional racial segregation and displacement of communities of color. I think beauty shouldn’t be the marker of whether gentrification was successful or not. We need to look at the socio-economic impact it has had on long-time residents. Has it driven residents out? Has it displaced other communities who have called it home?

    In West Philly, UPenn and Drexel have been at the forefront of gentrification. The neighborhoods have changed drastically, and I don’t mean “junkies and porno theaters.” Long-time residents could no longer afford their property taxes, and the city and developers were unwilling to institute tax abatement policies that would have kept them in their homes. The neighborhoods have become predominantly white and middle class, many of from surrounding universities.

    Gentrification is another way to pit communities of color against each other and divide working class and middle class folks, while predominantly white developers reap the financial benefits.

  2. NYVixen
    September 19, 2011 at 8:39 am

    I don’t see anything positive about gentrification when it displaces longtime residents usually elderly or people who live in rent controlled apartments or are low income people who cannot afford to live anywhere else. It takes away the authenticity of a neighborhood as well. Instead of building more affordable and median income housing to try and keep the community together they build housing that is out of the reach of many of the long time residents. I see the gentrified areas of bklyn like williamsburg and all of these so called hipsters. I don’t see the point in having all of this high end apartments, stores, etc. if they want all of that let them live on the other side of the bridge.

  3. Ricky
    September 19, 2011 at 12:23 pm

    I agree with the disagreeing comments. It’s sad seeing poor families pushed out and replaced with trendy trust-fund babies. Notice how the neighborhoods they take over all look the same: cafe, craft-beer bar, thai food, and an overpriced “ethnic restaurant.” Your words have influence, and you should watch what you write as it may influence other to think that our community doesn’t stand side by side against the destruction of our neighborhoods. Your neighborhood isn’t beautiful, it was created by destroying OUR neighborhood. And you should feel ashamed of yourself for referring to OUR neighborhoods as being full of junkies, while the poetry bars and $2,000 studio apartments in gentrified neighborhoods reek of pot.

  4. James
    October 17, 2011 at 9:45 am

    What does It mean to gentrify some place? In a nutshell, it means to rip the heart and soul out of a neighborhood. Here in L.A., neighborhoods like Silverlake have basically been ruined by gentrification. I would gladly take Silverlake circa 1988 over what it has become in 2011. Yes, I agree with the comment that gentrification creates an atmosphere of intentional race and class segregation when it rears its ugly head. I’ve seen it with my own eyes.