In praise of gentrification

In light of last week's New York Observer article about gentrification in Prospect Lefferts, I thought I'd post this 1978 essay by James Greene. This piece appeared in THE (original) BROWNSTONER, a newsletter published beginning in the late 1960s by the Brownstone Revival Committee.

While the Observer article was sloppy and narrowly drawn, comments by its critics (PLGers and non) tended to be just as shallow. Perhaps some day a local journalist will write something intelligent about gentrification. In the mean time, here's Greene, writing at at a time when the very word "gentrification" was relatively new. The article isn't perfect; it doesn't deal with race at all (an important oversight). But it points the way to showing that—then as now—attacks on gentrification are ridiculously simplistic.

- - - - - -

Attack from a New Quarter: Urban Gentrification
by James Greene, 1978
(Reprinted in THE BROWNSTONER, April 1985)

Individually or in groups, the people attempting to revitalize our cities' declining neighborhoods have long faced several natural enemies: negligent city agencies, indifferent or conflict-ridden legislators, and extreme political groups who see the brightest change for revolution in promoting decay and poverty. We can deal with these.

But now comes opposition from a new quarter. The sociologists, whose past recommendations to politicians helped lay waste our urban landscapes, have invented a new field of study which permits them to question this madness of community improvement. It is termed gentrification--movement of the "gentry" into lower-class neighborhoods, disturbing cohesiveness and generally such devotion to keeping the covenant intact resulted in raising hell with the social "balance" of the slums. The concern with gentrification began in Britain, where sturdy brick houses occupied for generations by the "working classes" are being bought and refurbished by the upper-middle class.

Now, "gentrification" studies are being launched in the United States. Ironically, it is not the improvement of neighborhoods that is studied, but the assumed deleterious impact of improvement--displacement of the poor, reduction in the number of housing units, creation of new "social pathologies." Consequently, neighborhood revitalization programs are being asked to defend themselves.

REALITIES OF DECLINE

A number of facts about the decline of neighborhoods in New York confound the assumptions of these studies. First is the fact of decline itself: the housing in most "gentrifying" neighborhoods was constructed for middle- and upper-middle class owners. It was only later that these homes were bought by investors and converted to lucrative housing for the poor. Houses designed for 10 people housed 30--at no increase in assessment and hence no increase in taxes.

Second: police, fire, sanitation, and educational services designed for a district population of 20,000 then were required to service a population of 60,000. To cover these costs city income and sales taxes were raised, though not to the point of paying for the new level of services. Municipal borrowings, increased to cover demand for capital investment, often were diverted to fatten on-going social services (rent subsidies, welfare, hospitals, etc.) depleted by congested districts.

The predictable third: Rising taxes and a deteriorating city climate prompted large segments of the middle class and eventually their employers, to flee beyond the city limits.

IMPETUS TO DECLINE

The consequences of rapidly increasing taxes while real estate taxes remained relatively stable amounted to a massive transfer of funds from the public treasury to private owners of rental property. The (politically acceptable) solution was to impose rent controls. They fell on landlords who were exploiting the poor--and on those who were not. With rent controls, real property taxes could not be raised by much--but the demand for public services multiplied and was given a big push in the 1950s. "Acceptable" density then provided for a minimum of 80 square feet per individual (one 8x10) room, or 153 square feet for a family of two--or more.

Rentals for this "space" were left to either the imagination of the landlords or the diktats of the rent control authorities, few of whom, of course, lived in the neighborhoods. Since the rentals in many cases were paid under public assistance programs, they were part of a closed system of mounting taxes and social costs and increased income for realtors. Realtors could hardly look for appreciation of property values and correctly assumed steady deterioration to abandonment.

Within such a system, the idea of a housing policy for lower income groups was meaningless. It only meant constantly less space for more money from sources that proved, in the dark year of 1975, to be exhaustible.

BREAK IN THE SPIRAL

Neighborhood revitalization and renovation has admittedly ruptured the closed system. Against public money it puts private money at risk; against absentee landlords it puts owner occupancy; against regulated tenancy and rentals it puts a small but growing open market. It has indeed forced some poor people out of 153 square feet into publicly supported housing of larger dimensions. And with fewer poor people, many districts have an income mix for the first time in decades.

The lower income groups in many of the city's neighborhoods may be the unschooled, unskilled, unemployed. But there are also students, artists, writers, etc. who accept marginal incomes to pursue overriding interests and confound census takers and sociologists because they are "gentry" without acceptable statistical credentials.

Whatever else "gentrification" has done, it has thinned out neighborhoods to match available and affordable public services. From a citywide point of view these developments spell a gradual upturn toward solvency, yet to be reached. Against this complexity of factors, the sociologists' new view of the revival process seems singularly simplistic.

Comments

[bboy]

Thanks for the article, Carrie-- I hope that PLG can continue to improve economically without losing its class and racial diversity and fabulous Caribbean food (and wonderful Caribbean people like my family)

Other neighborhoods seem to manage it (Brighton Beach, Chinatown, etc.) - but the redliners do not seem to like the scary-colored people of PLG.

I hope our little corner of Brooklyn is not homogenized, and stays vibrant and friendly. It has never been a 'slum' and as such is in no danger of having its 'social balance' disturbed by middle class people who have been here for at least 50 years.

[Bob Marvin]

I agree with "bboy" EXCEPT that middle class people have lived here for a LOT more than 50 years--actually since the neighborhood was first developed in the mid-1890s. Granted, you had to be UPPER middle class to afford those $5,000--12,000 row houses, but the RICH bought $20,000--$30,000 houses in the Heights, the "Hill" orv Manhattan.

[bboy]

I always agree with what Bob Marvin writes. Except he is rather too kind to antiplgers. But I did write middle-class "at least" 50 years. And what I was referring to was mixed race and class. Although admittedly it wasn't stated too clearly.

[Charles Star]

Middle class, as ever, is in the eye of the beholder. The ceiling on "rich" is so high that most people feel comfortable raising the floor for the category so that it doesn't fit them.

These limestones are right next to the park and built to last. I don't think that the original purchasers of the limestones would have been considered middle class, even if they weren't Vanderbilts.

We can agree to disagree about whether the racial mix of PLG in the last few decades could be considered "diverse" in any part of the neighborhood except LM.

[bboy]

1. "Middle class, as ever, is in the eye of the beholder."

You can turn it into a semantic point if you like, C, but most of the houses in the single-family covenant were constructed for doctors, accountants, and lawyers. (And some on Parkside for Naval officers.) You and I may find such people rich, but that does not make them upper class.

2. "We can agree to disagree about whether the racial mix of PLG in the last few decades could be considered "diverse" in any part of the neighborhood except LM."
Our community district is about 3/4 black, and 1/4 white asian latino mixed and other (80, 90, 00 censuses). Not sure what you mean by diverse... you would like more white people and fewer West Indians, I assume. The NYTimes called us "diverse" but we can agree to agree it is a rag.

[Charles Star]

I don't think I'm the one making a semantic point. Upper class = rich in all places but the House of Lords. If the houses were for the professionals, they were not for the "middle class." If you want to disagree about the usage, fine, but this isn't the place. We agree on the facts.

As for your second comment, I think it is pretty gross. It isn't fair to say I "would like" more of any particular kind of person. The diversity that the census indicates to me that we have separate communities inside the community district, not a single diverse community outside of LM: a Caribbean community and a Hassidic community. As I said, the only diversity appears to be inside LM.

That or the 25% white people spend a lot of time indoors and only come out for the census.

[Bob Marvin]

Charles,

I think one thing WE might have to agree to disagree about is whether the diversity that you say is limited to LM spills over into many other PLG blocks. IMO it does that in the rest of the PLG HD and numerous blocks as Parkside (w.of Bedford, Chester Court, Ocean Ave. and others including(possibly) your own block of Hawthorne. YRMV.

I agree that Crown Heights South has two separate communities, but Crown Heights South is VERY different from PLG, even if we are in the same CB.

[Charles Star]

I don't disagree that it spills over into the Historic District, though if you are restricting the analysis to historic homes, I don't know that you are changing my point very much.

And while Crown Heights South is very different from PLG, it comprises much of the census area that bboy was relying on. If the white people in CHS are taking out of our Community District the neighborhood begins to look a lot more like the Caribbean community that my eyes tell me that I'm living in.

I don't know how to make clear that I'm not making any judgment about the community except rebelling against the touchy-feely label of "diverse." I am a white guy who lives in a Caribbean neighborhood. What's wrong with that?

[carrie]

The kind of radical diversity that people keep imagining -- blocks with african americans, asians, latinos, west indians, and white people, etc. living in harmony -- is largely fantasy. This isn't only because people tend to prefer living among people like themselves, but because diversity in that sense isn't sustainable.

If you have blocks of made up of all kinds of people, from all different cultural backgrounds, and those people actually remain in place, they'll tend to lose their cultural distinctiveness and adopt traits of mainstream popular culture. In order for people to preserve cultural traditions and keep them alive and thriving, they need to be among a community that also practices and shares those traditions and values.

A place that truly promotes diversity would be one where distinct communities lived cohesively in areas consisting of perhaps a few blocks. The areas would be small enough so that people within them had to interact with others outside the community, but large enough to for people in the group to have support.

People who lived here in the '50s describe the neighborhood as divided ethnically block by block - the blocks had a cohesive distinctive character and the neighborhood was diverse. That isn't what we have now, or have had for some time.

As for where PLG stands now, I think Charles' assessment is right: it's a Carribean community that is now seeing gentrification. I do think that Lefferts Manor is unique, though -- not in the ethnic sense... but that it's a discrete community, a suburban enclave smack dab in the middle of a working-class city.

[Sharon]

http://www.nhi.org/online/issues/117/Rose.html

The above article is about work done by the Fifth Avenue Committee in Park Slope to combat myriad negative effects of gentrification.

If you are talking about creative positive changes in the community while ensuring that the folks living in the community in recent history can stick around to benefit from those changes, then you are not talking about _gentrification_, but about "community controlled development", which is a challenge, but completely possible if a community is organized.

The changes that I see people wanting in Across the Park and to a certain extent, this blog, will certainly bring mass-displacement of long-time residents (and already are) unless mitigated by other community organizing.

There is simply no way that you can have the lattes and sit down chi-chi spots and expect for folks who have stuck it through the hard times here magically be able to be able to pay the rent increases. Displacement will happen unless you get together as a community and organize on issues like housing to protect seniors, single parent families, working families. Which I don't see any folks doing on Across the Park. It's certainly less sexy than standing around moaning for Gorilla Coffee to move in, but it is necessary work.

Those double macchiatos and pilates classes come with moral responsibilty...if, that is, you put your money where your mouth is and you care about maintaining your community.

I remember the Stay Free gentrification issue...you've really come a long way, haven't you.

[Charles Star]

Thanks for the article and the comment, Sharon. The introduction of the term "community controlled development" into my lexicon is welcome, and the idea of it is much closer to what we are hoping for in PLG, even if we used the much blunter term "gentrification" and occasionally joined in the whining about coffee shops and the like.