Gentrification is the steady and consistent influx of upper-class households into low-income neighborhoods, usually with the displacement of residents in those low-income areas. Gentrification, as we see in modern-day America, is a system designed to crush the hopes and dreams of low-income Americans, and the government is complicit in this practice.
Studies show that the displacement is "negligible," and most residents benefit from the influx. Research conducted by Quentin Brummet of the University of Chicago and Davin Reed of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia revealed that 70% to 80% of residents move due to usual reasons, and about 5% move due to gentrification. They rationalize this '5%' as negligible but ignore the sad reality of underestimating the effects of scaling. This 5% amounts to hundreds of thousands of people. These people have families, livelihoods, and roots in a neighborhood.
Many point to the economic benefits of gentrification and how it attracts community investment, better schools, and promises of a higher standard of living. What they neglect to mention is that with higher standards come higher taxes. Property taxes, rents, and mortgages experience a surge in price due to the influx of higher-income families. Low-income families are unable to keep up with the increased cost of living.
Proponents of gentrification claim that it leads to unity and prosperity among people of different socioeconomic backgrounds, particularly among whites and people of color. Nothing could be further from the truth. The idea that gentrification promotes unity has been around since the 1950s and 60s, when the government felt that white families moving into black communities would reduce racial tensions.
As previously stated, this only led to low-income families moving to another neighborhood because of the increased cost of living. This had a domino effect wherein residents moved out, and the community looked nothing like it did. The high-income families 'resettled' as the low-income families also resettled.
Furthermore, the belief that communities cannot escape poverty without gentrification is also misleading. In the early twentieth century, as Jim Crow laws were being enacted and segregation was in full effect, many minority communities could create wealth within themselves. Tulsa, Oklahoma, is an example of a once-poor community attaining enviable socioeconomic status under Jim Crow. The community had medical doctors, lawyers, engineers, accountants, and a functioning government. The idea that wealthy households need to move to low-income neighborhoods to improve the lot is erroneous.
The government needs to take a more active role in limiting such movement by ending exclusionary zoning laws for one. These laws allow municipal governments to purge communities of their residents in a bid to 'revitalize' or 'rejuvenate' their inner cities.
