Gentrification In Research Paper

There has been a recent phenomenon throughout the United States of gentrification. As older parts of neighborhoods are occupied by new tenants with money, the neighborhood changes and loses its old character. Those who might have lived in those neighborhoods their entire lives are pushed out as rents begin to skyrocket and the surroundings begin to change. This has happened in many neighborhoods. One of the most well known is San Francisco, where technology companies have brought in new software engineers that have caused local rents to skyrocket and people to move out of the area. However, just as importantly has been the influx of new money to Brooklyn, where local neighborhood changes have forced people from their homes, traditional music to be replaced, and old businesses to go bankrupt.

In the constantly changing economy of cities, the growth of city housing is oftentimes neglected. In “Cities Mobilize to Help Those Threatened by Gentrification” Timothy Williams recounts how gentrification has evolved over the years. Mentioning how cities have changed in order to appease the younger professionals, Williams shows how the city itself is in jeopardy due to the tax increases. Slowly loosing their faithful residents as well as historic culture cities face a big deal. Williams gives quotes from faithful residents, “…long time homeowners are victims of the success story”, (Williams 346). In “Cities Mobilize to Help Those Threatened by Gentrification”, Williams uses his credible quotes and modern statistics to generate the reader’s emotions, with desire to change how city officials go about gentrification in culturally infused cities.

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.

Washington, D.C. is rapidly changing in front of the citizen’s eyes. It is becoming a victim of “The Plan,” a theoretical conspiracy plan construed by whites to take over D.C.’s real estate, physical space, and politics. Gentrification in Washington, D.C. can essentially be defined as a shift in the community to attract and accommodate newcomers at the expense of the current inhabitants. In Washington, four neighborhoods are currently in the process of gentrification: Barry Farm, Lincoln Heights/Richardson Dwellings, Northwest One and Park Morton. These particular neighborhoods were specifically targeted by the government for their high crime rates, significant population of impoverished citizens, and inclusion of a certain economic class.

It is no secret that homelessness is quickly becoming an epidemic in the United States, but the homeless population is not one secular demographic. For every person in the US living on the street, there is a unique story of how they got there; nonetheless, that is not to say that many of these stories are without some commonalities. Along with homelessness, there is another issue plaguing American cities, but this issue is much more covert, and exists under a guise of improvements like fancy apartments and trendy restaurants. Gentrification is defined as “the process of renovating and improving a house or district so that it conforms to middle-class taste” (Erikson); but what that definition fails to mention is the discourse it has on the

In today’s society, gentrification is considered a taboo not to be spoken of unless being attacked; however, Justin Davidson, a professional critic, challenges this notion and examines both sides of this custom. As an author, architecture and classical music critic, who won a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism, Davidson approaches the issue of gentrification with a unique style of neutrality that leads his audience to question all they thought they knew about gentrifying.

This is a picture of Downtown Hyattsville Arts District along the U.S. Route One corridor.This specific revitalized part of the Hyattsville Arts District is a very good example of urban renewal and is part of the Prince George's County Gateway Arts & Entertainment District. The district is just one district of many cultural districts recognized by the national organization, Americans for the Arts. According to Americans for the Arts: “Cultural districts are defined as well-recognized, labeled areas of a city in which a high concentration of cultural facilities and programs serve as the main anchor of attraction. They help strengthen local economies, create an enhanced sense of place, and deepen local cultural capacity”. In other words, these

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.

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 is not a new phenomenon. It’s merely the act of settling amongst a new area and establishing power, which is the same thing as immigration and colonialism. Colonization is an outdated word, and immigration is associated with people of color, so Gentrification is the modern term that’s being used to describe what’s currently going on, regardless of the fact that it’s

Smith insist that gentrification is actually a powerful intent within the urban regeneration strategies and to mount a critical challenge to the idea that gentrification is inoffensive even though the scale of the process becomes more threatening and the absorption of gentrification into a wider neoliberal urbanism becomes more tangible. The author finds ways that gentrification has evolved as a competitive urban strategy within the same global economy. This has resulted into the same process of capital centralization that has accentuated the contradictions between production and social reproduction which enhances the process of gentrification that works out differently in different places. The author mentions the fact that gentrification as

Gentrification has been a controversial issue both in urban planning and politics primarily due to the displacement of poor people by the rich folks (Shaw & Hagemans, 2015). Many individuals have viewed gentrification as an illegal act that should be avoided at all costs. On the other hand, another group of people believe that gentrification is the way forward to promoting growth and development. With such contrasting ideas, this paper is going to take a look at gentrification from a positive and negative perspective, its effects, and how it can be prevented or contained. Apart from this, the paper will also address the following questions.

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

Since the early 2000s, gentrification accelerated in various New York City neighborhoods. Data shown that about 29.8 percent of New York City has been affected by gentrification in low-income communities (Governing Data 1). This is over a 20 percent increased from the previous decade in New York City alone. Gentrification is a term used to describe displacement or renewal in urban neighborhoods as a result of increasing property values and rent prices. Gentrification has existed since the 1960s but has rapidly increased since then . Gentrification has now become a common and global controversial topic in many low-income neighborhood. Although, gentrification hasn’t always been bad from increasing job opportunities to lowering crime rates. Gentrification has impacted and transformed underprivileged districts in New York City. However, at the advantage of who ? Thus, gentrification has only increased average rates of poverty and infused neighborhoods with “white privilege”.

This paper published by geographer Chris Hamnett traces the popularity of research into gentrification and examines the competing theories of its origin and dynamics: namely David Ley’s humanist and demand-side theory and Neil Smith’s supply-side “rent-gap” theory. Hamnett argues that both theories provide an incomplete picture of this complex process, and thus a cohesive explanation of gentrification must incorporate ideas from both. This is argued through the critiquing the two differing viewpoints: examining their potential flaws and citing real world data from studies of other scholars. Additionally, Hamnett also the viewpoints of contemporary theorists to further his critique of the two theories, and to construct his proposed multi-dimensional explanation of gentrification. Despite its tight construction, the paper is limited by the lack of real-life data accessible to the author at the time of writing and the relative youth of the topic in the field of geography, both are points alluded to by the author. Nevertheless, the paper provides an interesting new framework of discussion to the field that reconciles and integrates two previously opposing viewpoints.