Gentrification is the battle-cry of leaders who have failed their people
When I first moved to my house near Howard University, locals would stop and stare at me, people wouldn’t sit next to me on the bus, and a couple "brave" souls called me "white boy", "opportunist", and one person even threw something at me.
What had I done?
Generally, the thought was that I had invaded a neighborhood and my presence was interfering and unbalancing it. Crying "reverse racism" is obvious, but there must be something deeper. Did my fixing up my house and improving my property interfere with a way of life (as more than one person told me that it did)? What balance did I upset by getting the city to prevent dumped trash from accumulating the alley, to board up a vacant home, and to get barrels of dangerous chemicals removed out from a vacant lot? The accusations couldn’t have been consensus since I befriended the Section 8 family two doors down – all three generations of them including: the out-of-work father, his continually pregnant daughter, her and her pot-smoking siblings and cousins, and all of the seven unwashed and malnourished children that lived there.
Someone said that my actions were causing old people on fixed income to lose their house. Let me get this right … previous leaders of the community desire crime and dilapidation in order to make sure that their senior citizens have a place to live? A common response to that has been that has been that my actions raise property taxes, which people on fixed incomes can’t pay. So if these senior citizens own their house, why don’t they get a reverse mortgage and live well on the new wealth their appreciating house has provided them? Well, one economist rebutted that this would not allow the house to be given to the owner’s offspring. But if the offspring are to get the house, why don’t the offspring pay the increasing property tax? It is a lot less expensive than paying a mortgage! In return I was told that the offspring may not have sufficient income to pay even this amount. Isn’t that the fault of the people and their previous leadership?
What am I not getting?
Please drop science on this nooblet.
Set me strait so that I may understand.
December 12th, 2005 at 8:22 am
Well, are the people in question minorities? I’m assuming so since they have pointed out that you’re a white boy.
The obvious answer is: they’re minorities and it’s traditionally extremely difficult for minorities–particularly blacks in DC–to pull themselves up out of poverty. Whether or not you believe in institutional racism or not is another question entirely, as is whether or not you think it truly plays a role in cycles of poverty. Individual life choices obviously come into play, too, however, I think it would be difficult to prove that EVERY person in your neighborhood has made poor life choices. But you never know.
Regardless, if you don’t understand, you’ll need to read a lot more than anyone is likely to be willing or able to get into in a blog comment. Try reading up on the history of minorities in America and then review social policy in DC from its inception in 1800 through the present day. That might get you started.
December 12th, 2005 at 8:29 am
That isn’t to say the leaders of such communities couldn’t have done better. I simply don’t know enough about the Columbia Heights/Mount Pleasant/Howard U/Shaw areas to say either way.
December 21st, 2005 at 6:10 pm
The economist in question would reply that
(a) no doubt the city has failed lots of people. The bifurcated economy in DC is part of the story (lawyers and computer programmers get paid globally-priced wages that tend to rise, janitors and service people are paid locally-priced wages that tend to fall and become less stable) , the Marion Barry-esque patronage jobs as welfare is part of the story, and the flight of good African-American (professional) role models from city neighborhoods to the suburbs is also part of the story of late;
(b) Just think, “many people with limited financial literacy.” Reverse mortgages being tools for those with good credit and all.
(c) Fault isn’t such a useful way to think about this…It just depends on whether you subscribe to a lassier-faire, pro-competitive, everyone for him/herself perspective (which is fine), or to a view that community continuity has some value that is separate from and enhancing of each individual.
(d) DC is such a mess when it comes to caring for the poorest that I’ve always said, “Let it gentrify! Maybe Maryland is capable of taking care of the displaced better than the District of Corruption.” Note that many displaced from New Orleans to Houston don’t want to go back…But then, when the granma on the corner who can’t afford her property taxes is the only social control around, letting it gentrify could get ugly!
-the ex-economist in question…