Vox: In defense of the "gentrification building"
Posted Feb 14, 2022, 1:23 PM UTC
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do people really prefer camden's abandonned crack houses and urban blight over it's current development?
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Yes.
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enlightened centrist take: reform zoning, build more housing, but make it not ugly as sin
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Based.
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I know I'm being ridiculous, but the vocal fry in Vox videos drives me crazy.
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Just say you hate women smh
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I hate women
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wtf you just ruined vox for me
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[deleted]
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I remember years ago listening to a podcast that talked about people's negative reactions to vocal fry, I didn't understand what the big deal was.
I still don't.
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Interesting video. Another example of not judging a book by its cover.
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This is why I'm suspicious of a lot of anti-gentrification activists. A lot of times, they're just NIMBYs under a different alias.
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I don't understand, those buildings look sick as fuck. I would love to live in a place like that. Who thinks this is ugly? Shit's clean.
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based
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I don't think the argument of "Multi family housing built as cheap as possible is good for poor people" is especially interesting.
The video doesn't really specify the context for "Affordable" and what this means, what % of these developments do actually become affordable housing, how much of a long term solution a 5 over 1 building is, or why it would be preferrable to traditional multi-family housing solutions. The only real angle seems to be that it's preferrable to suburb development which, sure, but this exact same line of argument is probably stronger at justifying building soviet housing blocks all through New Jersey.
Also pet peave but the argument of "But in the past, people thought that new things were bad then too, and now we don't mind them" is always vapid and doesn't adress people thinking these buildings are ugly at all.
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These buildings are pretty weird and ugly. Just hire some European architects.
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How does modern european multi-family housing look like?
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I dunno they don’t look that much different from American apartments if I’m honest.
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Let's be honest. Gentrification is about pushing out undesirables, so we can make an ugly place prettier for ourselves. That's what it's always been about.
Please don't ever delude yourself into thinking that gentrification does anything to help those that you are pushing out. The ugly place is just being moved somewhere you don't have to look at, until that place gets gentrified rinse repeat. To the contrary it makes their lives worse off.
Sometimes a place needs to be gentrified, so as to not have a slum in the middle of a city, because it IS an eyesore. It's not comfy to walk around and having to avoid a specific area of town, because it is dangerous etc. But please just don't think you're not harming the people living there, or that you're not just doing it to move them somewhere else where they won't trouble you directly.
EDIT: Obviously, i'd want there to be state help to the people to improve their situation so they actually can afford moving, and give them some time off so as to not unduly stress them, also help with finding new jobs if necessary, new schools for their children etc. (the last part is a good example of the real unavoidable costs of moving, it's just nearly impossible to not have negatives like this when forcefully moving someone)
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So sad to see all the highly upvoted takes while yours is downvoted. I grew up incredibly poor, and in a very poor neighborhood. I'm slightly better off now, but my parents are still in a bit of a rough spot. While I was growing up we got pushed out of various areas which were once affordable but now are not. I've recommended moving states several times to my mom but her and my dad have lived their entire lives in California, and for them it sucks to have to just pick up and move.
I'm mixed race and appear white myself but all the top comments just seem like gated community middle class white kids.
I can agree that if all these social programs like rent control, housing assistance, etc. weren't so poorly managed then maybe this wouldn't be a big deal at all. But as it is now, the housing/rental assistance system, even in California, is hot garbage. Can't even imagine how shit it is in a place like Iowa or something.
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I dno, i think it might be worse in california than in iowa.
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[removed]
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The what?
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just watch the video
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I've never had anyone describe to me why gentrification is bad. Like my friends will tell me how it pushes out minorities or poorer people out of an area. It's just like, okay? Should places never be improved? I don't understand.
TL;DR you are broke and a minority in a crime ridden shithole part of town that everyone avoids and the only new business ventures are predatory loan companies. Then a bunch of awesome san francisco style stuff gets funded and built essentially to cater to suburbanites who want that sanitary urban vibe but now you need to leave because the property tax is unaffordable and the corner store where you got like 1/3rd of you groceries is shut down/sold.
People only gave a fuck when it wasn't for you anymore.
My counter is that yeah this is kindof a bummer but while that area had some community it was shitty for a reason and you are materially benefiting from having to leave on a number of levels.
Here's the counter counter: Sometimes they are predatorily offered insanely below market value for their homes at the threat of fines or worse. Mayor Pete caught flack for this.
This. Someone PLEEEAASE tell me the problem.
I tend to personally have a +/- view on gentrification. But to think of a few "negatives"... Poorer people have less flexibility in their budget and have more to lose. Let's say your housing cost is 800/mo and it increases to 1000/mo cause of the demand increase in your area... That's $200 less going into disposable income every month that you had never accounted for not going into savings, investments, business opportunities, etc. And then you have to weigh is it worth it to move? Moving isn't cheap either probably a few grand to move all your furniture, take time off of work, and likely move way further out which increases your transportation cost, travel time to work, school districts for your kids or transportation of them etc.
Coming from the context that most American wealth is accumulated by property ownership, I think it's potentially positive for low income home OWNERS depending on how much more you make out of the sale of property and becomes your "big payday" and can greatly be +EV even after moving and transportation costs, but a mostly negative for low income RENTERS who get all those negative externalities of moving without the positives of a property value increasing and the sale of that. The main issue is that most low income people are renters and not owners... Proportionately it probably hurts most low income people, but can greatly help some
So it is mostly bad because of lack of affordable housing? Aren't there a ton of policy options to fix that? Like rent control, building more affordable housing and also improving services in more affordable areas?
Yeah more likely a supply issue and NIMBY policies and some zoning laws that need to be revised. Im not a fan of rent control but we probably need less single family zoning, and yes to more public services.
But that's off the topic of gentrification itself. Which does have some positive effects in the area too. But gentrification =/= housing supply issue although they are highly related or even causal
This just makes the problem worse for everyone except the lucky few that got their units rent controlled. It especially hurts the other poor that want to move there or didn't get the rent controlled units. Add in that rent control units don't provide any incentives for the existing developers to build up and you are hurting these rent controlled renters when they eventually want to move to somewhere else in the area.
Good luck find an economist that likes rent control that doesn't work very closely with the market (its extremely rare for rent control to be something that works with the market).
I mean I don't necessarily see it as an issue, but I don't value things like suburbia or necessarily where I live.
But even I can see that it might be systemically not the best way to go about improving areas if we aren't also putting consideration into negative externalities.
If you see the other POV as "we should never improve areas" then of course it'll never make sense to you.
Did you guys never see the Hey Arnold movie? Some neighbourhoods have an identity or historical meaning that makes people attached to it. It can also be an inheritance thing, someone’s family has been there for generations or something and they can no longer afford it.
Not saying I disagree with gentrification but there are arguments to be had.
Isn't the "character of the neighborhood" thing typically used as an excuse for NIMBYs? I can totally understand good cases for this; I live in a part of the east coast with a lot of historical areas, first settlements kind of places. I can see places like those having a good reason to preserve the cobblestone roads and shit. But I don't care about a neighborhood's favorite shopping mall or something like that, I'd rather have housing for people.
It’s not an excuse, it’s something you have to argue against since it brings up a moral dilemma.
Hypothetical/example: A whole group of Chicano families in some Texas city neighborhood slowly start moving out. Less and less cookouts happen with dancing and music. Less and less corner stores owned by familiar families selling traditional goods close down. Older and lesser used churches begin to get demolished.
So yeah, it needs answers as to what’s going on.
NIMBYs don’t really see nuance to this situation so regardless of the true cause of gentrification, they believe the racist outcome means the issue starts and stop with “racism”. It’s not a housing issue. It’s not a zoning issue. It’s not even from the adjacent socioeconomic issues. They believe it’s just a purely xenophobic force to replace culture, and the socioeconomic differences derive from things like this.
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Well we want all the smelly poors to be in predictable areas so we can avoid them.
I am generally pro-gentrification, but you basically just said ‘No one has ever described this to me,’ immediately followed by ‘So they described it to me but I didn’t care.’
People view it as bad because it is bad for those people.
IMO, the best solution is to gentrify but make it mandatory for developers to include a bunch of subsidized housing.
The problem is it’s almost always a short term medium negative but a long term massive positive.
If you are a low wage worker and you get priced out of a rental unit because rent is raised all around you. You will have to relocate out of an area and find a new job (which when you are paycheck to paycheck it’s very difficult).
Eventually, the market will settle and either affordable rent will happen due to abundance of housing OR wages will increase to match the new area.
That’s why policies in that regulate max % rent increases per year allow for the control of the negative effects of gentrification. Unfortunately Landlords found an omega loophole with that and that policy was rendered useless by any LL who took advantage of it with new tenants.