Essay On Gentrification

Gentrification is the process of renovating and improving a house or district so that is conforms to middle class taste. The term is often used negatively, suggesting the displacement of poor communities by rich outsiders. Often people who are displaced cannot find affordable housing, and this can lead to homelessness. Gentrification is hurting Colorado families because 1.) it causes prices increases for Denver metro rents, 2.) it displaces and breaks up families, and 3.) offers no affordable housing options for those displaced. () Definition.

The Philadelphia Coalition for Affordable Communities defines Gentrification as “The transformation of low-income and working class neighborhoods, driving up housing and other real estate prices and causing the displacement of long-term residents, businesses, and institutions.”

“Words are not passive; indeed, they help to share and create our perceptions of the world around us. The terms we choose to label or describe events must, therefore, convey appropriate connotations or images of the phenomenon under consideration in order to avoid serious misunderstandings. The existence of different terms to describe gentrification is not an accident, neither is the plethora of definitions for it” (Palen & London, 1984, p. 6). SAY SOMETHING Peter Marcuse (1999) argues that, “how gentrification is evaluated depends a great deal on how it is defined” (p. 789). Defining gentrification properly is necessary for anchoring an analysis of neighborhood change, particularly in light of recent scholarly efforts to replace the term (to describe the process) with less critical names like: ‘urban renaissance’,

Gentrification is damaging neighborhoods because it forcibly displaces the lower income residents on the streets to make room for luxurious more expensive apartments. The term gentrification means to conform to middle-class taste, which is exactly what is happening to places like the Mission District, Placita Olvera Street, East Los Angeles, and many more urban areas. Not only are our neighborhoods being gentrified, but also so is our food.

Over the years, gentrification has been given many definitions from simply referring to, “…instances of new arrivals who were buying and bidding up old housing stock”, (Sanneh, 2016) to, “…disinvested areas of the city that are now experiencing rapid and significant increases in land and real estate values” (Jennings, Terrell, Douglas, Barnett & Harding, 2016, pg. 9) and many more. As noted previously gentrification is occurring throughout the world and the Midwest is not immune. The process of gentrification tends to go like so: visitors stumble upon a disinvested area that they take an interest in. Whether because the rent is cheap or the area is vibrant, they fall in love and decide to pack up their home and relocate. This scenario, from one point of view, can be seen as a story of a person deciding to broaden their horizon and see what other parts of the world has to offer. While the other point of view may see this as a possible financial burden, a cause for the major changes in the place they call their home and the likelihood of displacement.

Webster’s Dictionary defines gentrification as “the process of renewal and rebuilding accompanying the influx of middle-class or affluent people into deteriorating areas that often displaces poorer residents.” This sounds frightening to lower class citizens. However, Justin Davidson, author of “Is Gentrification All That Bad?” claims “Gentrification doesn’t need to be something that one group inflicts on another; often it’s a result of aspirations everybody shares.” Gentrification does not need to be the rich pushing the poor out. It can be the rich and the poor working together to make their city a wealthier and safer place to live. Gentrification improves communities by allowing more economic growth for all.

First, let's start with what gentrification is. Google defines it as “the process of renovating and improving a house or district so that it conforms to middle-class taste”, but the image Gentrification usually evokes when brought into discussion is hipsters moving into a run-down but charming neighborhood and transforming it into something completely different. What is a hipster? Some may call them the fairy godmothers of the once neglected area, and others may refer to them as the monsters that are displacing families to make an artisan beard oil shop, but we’ll touch on that later.

Like most gentrification it works to push out crime or negative nowhere lands and replace when with more fluorescing “attractive” places for people to be. It is not attracting young people who desire to open up small businesses and see a revitalization or repurposing of a space that was once considered to me far less desirable (Casey 4). With a racialize history and a differing option of how things should have been done, it becomes a challenge to approaches the new while not displaying the old (Casey 8). This is often much easier said than done. Gentrification works to change a space, often the result of an urban revitalization (O’Brian & Szeman 274).

Gentrification. More than a word but a statement that there is something new in town. A statement that allows one to see that there would be changes that will tear some families down but build some up. It had originated during times where blacks had been moving up on the ladder and was not wanted. Around the 1960’s there had been powerful upgrowing black businesses that many do not know today due to gentrification. Many things have kept culture alive in the district during the times of gentrification such us the music but things that people love. Teenagers and adults all over the globe, but mainly in the district have felt the empowerment and movements of Muhammad Ali. A man who had been more than a boxer, someone who fought in the ring and his people.

The term Gentrification was coined by a British Sociologist Ruth Glass to describe the movement of middle class families in urban areas causing the property value to increase and displacing the older settlers. Over the past decades, gentrification has been refined depending on the neighborhood 's economic, social and political context. According to Davidson and Less’ definition, a gentrified area should include investment in capital, social upgrading, displacement of older settlers and change in the landscape (Davidson and Lees, 2005).Gentrification was perceived to be a residential process, however in the recent years, it has become a broader topic, involving the restructuring of inner cities, commercial development and improvement of facilities in the inner city neighborhoods. Many urban cities like Chicago, Michigan and Boston have experienced gentrification, however, it is affecting the Harlem residents more profoundly, uprooting the people who have been living there for decades, thus destroying the cultural identity of the historic neighborhood.

Beginning in the 1960s, middle and upper class populations began moving out of the suburbs and back into urban areas. At first, this revitalization of urban areas was "treated as a ‘back to the city' movement of suburbanites, but recent research has shown it to be a much more complicated phenomenon" (Schwirian 96). This phenomenon was coined "gentrification" by researcher Ruth Glass in 1964 to describe the residential movement of middle-class people into low-income areas of London (Zukin 131). More specifically, gentrification is the renovation of previously poor urban dwellings, typically into condominiums, aimed at upper and middle class professionals. Since the 1960s, gentrification has appeared in

Viewing the complex matter of gentrification succinctly, it helps to uncover how multifaceted it is; in that gentrification involves the oppression, marginalization, displacement of vulnerable populations, particularly, the poor, and the black who are often already negatively impacted by the effects of classism, and racism. Gentrification threatens to erode the communities and livelihood maintained by these set of people because their displacement becomes a precondition for the total transformation of the area.

Gentrification. What comes to mind when you hear this word? What connotations are associated with this term? Most people associate this word with a negative connotation, while others believe it to be positive. However, gentrification is an inevitable process that cities go through and it brings about positive and negative changes because it can improve the lifestyle of the residents of the communities, but it can also result in the displacement of lower income residents, and spurs socioeconomic conflicts between long-time residents, new-time residents, and even the government in the city.

Gentrification is a planned or unplanned process where wealthy individuals "displace" poor individuals from their areas of living by purchasing the property and later upgrading it through modernization and renovation (Brown-Saracino, 2013). Ruth Glass coined the term Gentrification in her book London: Aspects of Change in reference to the influx of wealthy individuals to poorly inhabited areas in central London in 1964 (Brown-Saracino, 2013). These rich individuals were referred to as “gentry” hence the term gentrification.

According to Dictionary.com, “gentrification is the process of renovating houses and stores in urban neighborhoods to fit the middle or upper-income families, raising property value, but often displacing low-income families.” Gentrification has been an idea since the 1960s and had an effect on countless cities and neighborhood communities. Gentrification was first used by Ruth Glass in her book London: Aspect of Change in 1964, she noted that ¨gentrification can progress rapidly until all or most of the original working-class occupiers are displaced, and the whole social character of the district is changed.” Nonetheless, gentrification has helped revive many cities and revolutionize them, especially with technological