The Negative Effects Of Gentrification

Gentrification has been a big topic throughout the years. Gentrification is when the high and middle class population come into a poor neighborhoods and reclaim them. During this process an abundance of homes are rebuilt and the poorer class are being replace. Gentrification has extremely negative effects on inner city communities that are generally populated by African Americans. These communities suffer from the effects of gentrification for years by losing their homes and businesses to a higher class of people. Many areas that have and are being gentrified are African American communities because of the poverty most people of color live in. When a neighborhood has abandoned buildings or old factories, landlords come in and turn them into …show more content…
Their research defines gentrification as “the process of white people” supposedly claiming back or “reclaiming the inner cities by moving into” African American communities (94). Not only are these white people coming into these African American neighborhoods reclaiming them, but they are breaking up the culture asset of these communities as well. When gentrification occurs, the thought of a community transforming because now the communities are profit driven instead of culture driven. When a community is culture driven it means that the local businesses are owned and supported by the local community members. To add, there is a lot of community communication with a culture driven neighborhood. The lack of communication with the new and remaining old members of a gentrified neighborhood shows the culture shift in the community as well. When looking into African American communities, there is always a sense of unity between all the neighbors, but as the community starts to change members, it starts to notice disperse. Historically, this is shown in the communities of people of color within New York City and is acknowledged by Patricia Valoy in her Everyday Feminism article. According to Valoy, “the truth is that new developments and fancy coffee shops will never replace the social network that helped local residents survive.” They also talk about …show more content…
It is understood that by moving higher and middle class people into these low income areas it makes the neighborhoods a “safer” area. In an editorial entitled “Bring on the Hipsters,” the Economist, a weekly newspaper, claim that gentrification puts “pressure on schools, the police and the city to improve” (2). Although people can argue this is true, there is no evidence that this happened in all areas that have been gentrified. The problem is that cities should not have to move people out of their houses to improve the areas safety and schools. Once these old local members move into new communities they should not have to deal with the same crimes that might have been going on with their old communities. The safety and education system should be the same in all neighborhoods such as African American, low, middle, and high class. The Economist goes on by saying when raising the prices on property, it “also generates more property-tax revenue, helping to improve local service.” This makes it affordable to build “subsidized housing for the poor” (2). Understanding the points that The Economist is making but, there is not documents that show that more subsidized houses are being made to support the lower class community. Lastly, if these house are being built up but not taken care of then who is to say that gentrification will not happen to these “new” areas as