Gentrification of Class Warfare in East Harlem Essay

The purpose for writing this essay is to demonstrate how gentrification is shaping the Culture and identity for Halrmites from the socio-economic perspective. Harlem has changed dramatically over the last two decades due to improvement in housing stock and outside investments into the community. However, in my essay, I articulated my ideas toward the economic aspect of gentrification because gentrification is driven by class, not race. My audience would be the lower income Harlem residents who have been displaced or on the verge of displacement because their wealth is not contributing to the economy. The people who have been preserving the cultural identity of Harlem for decades now forced to leave the community. I tried my best to connect a broader audience by explaining the deteriorated housing condition of Harlem and how it led to gentrification. This will help reader

Many opponents to gentrification argue that it will cause property taxes to go up and cause many families to struggle. Rising property taxes could occur, and may result in more struggles in the lower class and families that are already struggling, but these struggles are still just something that may happen but is not a guaranteed repercussion. There are many families that are trying to stay afloat and are barely doing so. Living paycheck to paycheck, a tax increase can be detrimental for some families. It will help improve communities and promote new businesses. Author of “Cities Mobilize to Help Those Threatened by

Gilbert Osofsky’s Harlem: The Making of a Ghetto paints a grim picture of inevitability for the once-exclusive neighborhood of Harlem, New York. Ososfky’s timeframe is set in 1890-1930 and his study is split up into three parts. His analysis is convincing in explaining the social and economic reasons why Harlem became the slum that it is widely infamous for today, but he fails to highlight many of the positive aspects of the enduring neighborhood, and the lack of political analysis in the book is troubling.

The authors, researcher at the Columbia and Rutgers University, explores the gentrification of Harlem as it has started taking effects on the indigenous residents. The causes of gentrification ranging from changing of lifestyles, participation of women in white collar sectors to rent gap conditions of housing stock,where potential value is perceived to be greater, explain how Harlem is gradually losing to the power of almighty dollars. The authors indicate that decline in housing quality due to tenant abuse, domestic violence and tax delinquency left Harlem in situation where intervention of outsiders was necessary. However, the outside influence and private investments gradually taking a significant tolls on the long term Harlem residents,

The young professionals or the college graduates are now back and cant afford to pay rent. Why because rent is increasing and the prices of co-ops and the brownstones continue to go up. Gentrification is now the new black as people and it’s now seen in almost every neighborhood in New York City. The bodegas and corner stores are now chic restaurants, bookstores, and gourmet shops are now all over town and booming. If more individuals restore several components within an area, then the process of gentrification will become more mutual in nature. However, the same process also banished many people from the vigorous working class communities. Gentrification was met with violent conflict from New York residents. Some were not happy with the new changes and wanted their old neighborhoods. But the young professionals were happy that their were changes in their neighborhood. There was a potential to raise a family of their own.

In the early twentieth century, East Liberty was a flourishing business district with affordable housing for its residents. Decades later, this neighborhood’s prosperity declined as residents began fleeing to other areas and businesses were forced to shut down. This left East Liberty in diminished conditions, like the conditions depicted in John Edgar Wideman’s story of Homewood in Our Time. Urban renewal efforts were quickly adopted for East Liberty, but these efforts failed. Today, the area is in a state of continuous revitalization, which is beneficial for the economy and some citizens, but African Americans don’t always benefit from these changes. Chris Ivy explores this division in his documentary Easy of Liberty. Failed urban renewal efforts of the sixties and continuing gentrification have transformed East Liberty’s booming business district into a racially divided neighborhood.

Gentrification is the process of renovating and improving a neighborhood so that it can be more appealing to the middle-class taste and is negatively affecting many neighborhoods all over New York City. The gentrification of low-income neighborhoods can bring down a neighborhood and is responsible for the displacement of families who can’t afford to live in the gentrified area anymore due to the price of rent being dramatically increased. Landlords tend to raise rent to cast out low income renters and make room for higher-income renters who are looking to move into the neighborhood. Some of the lower class residents who are basically forced out of their homes tend to move in with relatives, search for a place to go in one of the city’s remaining cheap areas, and can even go homeless if they have no family, friends, or anywhere to go.

Furthermore, gentrification causes homelessness in several communities. When neighborhood undergoes renovation and improvement, various homes and business are lost. The renovation system tears down houses and apartments. The new facilities built are too expensive for previous tenants to continue living in them. The poor and middle-class living in this neighborhood lose their homes and jobs leaving them homeless. These individual ends up on the streets with nowhere to go due to the wealthy class taking over their communities. Another reason why these individuals end up on the street is due to high property taxes placed on them by the gentrification of their communities. The individual cannot afford to pay

As a New Yorker, the author bases his article in the big apple and starts it off by notifying the audience that New York residents are familiar with gentrifying all too well. Davidson continues on to state that “Gentrification doesn’t need to be something that one group inflicts on another…” (349), rather, he suggests that everyone be on the same page when it comes to developing their communities. Later on in the article Davidson brings up a vital point that Jonathan Rose, a “private do-gooder” developer presents, “…the key is to make sure that residents and shop-keepers in low-income neighborhoods have equity and a political voice, before a real estate surge” (352). The point the

Inequality has been the country’s timeless struggle. Throughout the course of the United States’ history, there have been processes that have given a certain group of people the upper hand in a circumstance, thus fueling inequality in our nation. An ongoing process that negatively effects the lower-class and benefits the upper-class is called gentrification. Gentrification has been defined as “the replacement of the low-income, inner-city working-class residents by middle- or upper-class households, either through the market for existing housing or demolition to make way for new upscale housing construction” (Hammel and Wyly, 1996, p.250). Gentrification is deleterious because it “revitalizes” areas where low income residents reside in, thus causing the displacement and allows affluent residents to flood the given area whilst changing the entire environment from its original state. In my paper, I will be discussing how the process of gentrification begins and what it entails, define longtime residents, and describe the feelings of displacement felt by these residents.

In 1976 the video states that the top ten percent of the country held forty percent of the wealth whereas in 1999, the top ten percent holds seventy three percent (look up now). This has resulted in the increasing poor have to start turf wars against the increasing rich as they start to be threatened by eviction because of the superiority the rich has over the working class with their influence of money. As a result of gentrification, those who have been evicted are now displaced, having lost their job at their local ma and pa store that has been closed down and they are left stranded in a place they have called home their entire lives most likely. Displacement will also have a negative impact on children, with the stress of being evacuated, potentially homeless, making grades drop and therefore with the possibility to continue the gap between the rich and poor by not succeeding in

In the 1970s ghettos came to be a place of social isolation because of the segregation between the Whites, and the Blacks. As a result, blacks were doomed to stay in the poor neighborhoods because of racial issues among the people. The ghettos were formed by the government putting the black people in communities such as “black belts”, “darkytowns”, “Bronzevilles”, or ”Nigger towns” that are surrounded by poorly impoverished and well educated middle-class blacks who were forced to move in these neighborhoods, ones that are set up for failure. The ghettos were kept because whites began to fear integration and they did not want Blacks to be near their sight. Gentrification reshape the ghettos by providing resources that will benefit the Blacks and also increasing rents, building new builds and how the whites were

In order to understand why developers targeted Harlem for gentrification, it is crucial to discuss the causes of gentrification. As the time has progressed people’s preference have changed. The inclination toward fewer children, higher divorce rate, women in the workforce and the postponement of marriage have encouraged people to settle in urban neighborhoods. Young women’s participation in the professional

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.

When the values of property rise, the original residents are affected both positively and negatively. However, they are affected more negatively as they are forced to vacate their homes as they can no longer afford the rent. This leads to displacement of more impoverished families. On top of that, they are forced to spend a lot on rent alone in case they stay. This might affect their finances, and they could end up bankrupt. Their health may deteriorate too because of depression as well as higher charges in the hospital. However, they may get advantages such as improved housing conditions and better security and environment.