Gentrification in New York and the pushing out of minorities in once urban areas, causing minorities to suffer with the cost of living now becoming unaffordable able to the middle and lower class.
Introduction
Gentrification in New York City has caused painful experience to the middle and low-income minority residents who are unable to cope with rising cost of living and this makes them be marginalized economically and socially. The major aspects gentrifications are desirable and include the reduction in crime, investments in new infrastructure and buildings and increase in economic activity in the city. However, these benefits are only enjoyed by a few people in the neighborhoods while the minority established residents find themselves with the increased costs associated with these changes. This issue has led to conflict in the city along economic and racial fault lines since the change is viewed as a miscarriage of justice, where the wealthy and mostly white are hailed for bringing about improvements the place. However, for this to happen, the poor residents belonging to minority groups are pushed away by the increasing rents and cost of living. The effects the economic changes range from a reduction in racial minorities' proportion, size of the household and the replacement of low-income families by young and wealthier individuals. The increase in home prices and rents make the life difficult for the minority groups who encounter evictions as the rental units are converted to ownerships and luxury housing are developed. The issue of gentrification and how it has affected the minority in this area is discussed through various changes such as demographic and rent l relate to the increased cost of living. The benefits of gentrification can only be realized if a system is put in place that improves the economic status of minority residents so that they can afford the increased costs.
In 2014, Spike Lee expressed his contempt for the various forces of gentrification shaping the New York City. In his reaction to some reports on the benefits of gratification, he expressed how such arguments are out of touch with the plight of the minority residents. "Why does it take an influx of white New Yorkers in the south Bronx, in Harlem, in Bed Stuy, in Crown Heights for the facilities to get better?" "What about the people who are renting? They can't afford it anymore!" (Florida, 1). This criticism is a reflection the narrative of a flow of wealthy residents into this once-low-income and mostly minority neighborhood and pricing out the residents completely. Reports have found that most of the demographics changes that have been observed throughout the city especially in 2014 were majorly felt in the gentrifying residential areas of the city. The entire city has become more educated and comprising of many single person households or those households that do not have related adults. These shifts took place more in the gentrifying neighborhoods of the city than those not gentrifying and neighborhoods consisting of higher- income households. The observations also include a rise in white population even though there is a decrease throughout the city and a larger decline in the black population than in the whole city. Accompanying these changes is a decline in household income among the non-gentrifying neighborhoods while the average income remained constant among the higher-income neighborhoods (Austensen et.al 4). Even though these neighborhoods are becoming more integrated racially, are having improved faculties and reduction in crime rates and hence higher values for housing, the increased cost of rent is becoming a burden to the minority groups.
In various respects, the gentrification of New York City has become a prey to its own success as the upward rise of desirability and more rents and even values of property have eroded the very qualities that first attracted more people. With an improvement in the city, the benefits do not always come to residents who are already established and the increased cost of living is the biggest troubling effect (Smith, 1). The renters who belong to the minority groups are the most vulnerable to these effects. With an increase in rent, the tenants are cannot afford and are pushed out either through evictions, natural turnover or rent hikes. Hence, displacement has become a big issue in large cities and urban areas where there is an increasing pressure for an urban living. The cities are attracting new businesses, workers who are highly skilled, major real estate developers and even large corporations a combination which drive up the housing demand and cost (Zukin et al, 47). Due to such demands and increased costs, the neighborhoods who are mostly renters are under a lot of pressure to look for affordable locations. Therefore, the middle and low-income households are hard hit by the displacement. With a surge in real estate prices in cities like New York, there are sufficient reasons to believe the issue of displacement may become worse as time goes. A bigger issue is that even those neighborhoods that remain untouched by gentrification experience a persistence and deepening of poverty. For every neighborhood that has been gentrified, there are other areas in the surrounding that remain poor and the neighborhoods that were previously stable become or experience concentrated disadvantage. A reality that may be ignored is that the displaced minorities become pushed out of those neighborhoods considered as working class and people and investments are attracted in return (Smith, 1). Therefore, the neighborhoods that are most vulnerable due to poverty remain stalled in concentrated disadvantage and persistent poverty.
As rents rise in New York City, the minority who are also the moderate and low-income families bear the most burdens, as the share of affordable rental units reduces sharply in the neighborhoods that have been gentrified. Research has indicated that average rents have increased by about 30 percent between 200 and 2014, and at the top of the list are the Greenpoint and Williamsburg neighborhoods. In these two neighborhoods, the average increase in rent was around 78.7 % between 1990 and 2014, in comparison to about 22.1 % rise in the entire city (Austensen et.al 5). Even in those neighborhoods that were not gentrified, the rent burden was being experienced by more households than in the past cases. In addition, income in neighborhoods that experienced the shift went up while in other neighborhoods such an increment was not largely observed. The rent increases are not the only indicator of such neighborhoods but also demographic changes also define them. The minority groups who are not educated and whose income cannot sustain the high rise in rent are forced to look for alternatives and end up moving to other low-income areas and this continues increasing the level of poverty in such areas. The rise in the rents also becomes a threat to the long-term diversity of the minority communities in the area (Austensen et.al 7). The loss in affordable housing units presents a problem to the minority community since most of them are uneducated and their income is not sufficient to serve the rents for the newly developed housing units.
The common story of gentrification across the American urban areas has been that gentrification is driven by white people belonging to the middle to upper middle-class individuals. These people move to the neighborhoods filled with minority groups and drive up the cost of living by paying for services and rents by higher amounts than can be afforded by the locals. They end up enticing businesses that provide expensive products such as coffee shops, restaurants and the older businesses providing affordable services are displaced so that they are no longer found in such areas. In fact, being among the people who drive gentrification should not attract compliments since kicking low-income earners out of their homes should not consider a value (Newman & Elvin, 25). However, the people who bring about changes are not only whites but also people belonging to minority groups like blacks who are educated are on a course of upward mobility. Even these minority people make enough money like the entrepreneurial and educated white individuals make which means that they have the financial ability to move to push out their fellow minorities from their residential areas. Most people belonging to minority groups like in New York City low-income neighborhoods are black people who find themselves as an inhabitant of neighborhoods that are undergoing transition and hence fall victim to the effects of these changes (Newman & Elvin, 27). The fact that few people in such groups had the opportunities to get enough education means that few hard the chance for an upward mobility. Also, those few who had the opportunity are able to earn more, move their childhood neighborhoods and contribute towards the increment in cost of living in these areas. Therefore, the minority people may feel that they are being economically and socially marginalized since they were not opportunities to prepare themselves for the future changes in residential areas that come with increased cost of living. The economic marginalization is not only driven by the movement of high-income earners white people but fellow black and Hispanics people who are educated and looking for comfortable living environments.
Gentrification may be considered a new form of colonialism which has deep economic, health and societal impacts to the minority people of color living in the low-income neighborhoods. Of course, some wealthy individuals move to these places and come up with programs that aim at alleviating the problems found here (Pearsall, 1013). At times they become leaders in initiating programs that can bring better amenities and public services and even beautification projects. However, when this may be good at first but the negative effect of gentrification on the cost of living may outweigh these benefits. While the real estate sector and the wealthy individuals have the right to purchase or rent in whatever area they wish, they should understand the impacts of their actions. As these neighborhoods are becoming improved areas which evoke memories or images of poverty , riots and burned-out buildings, those people who lived there through hard economic hard times deserve and should be allowed to stay in their residential areas and live in a community where their needs are supported and provided. The impacts of gentrification make it appear like as system of systematic displacement of minority people from areas that they can afford rents and other services (Zukin et al, 53). As the wealthier people are moving into these areas where low and middle-income minority can live comfortably, the landlords increase their rents so as to cash in from this wealth presented by this influx of high-income people. The low-income tenants are bullied by landlords to move out by use of cunning ways such failing to maintain the apartments or not renewing the lease. The tenants are allowed to pay for all the upgrades and repairs of the apartments when owners fail to do so, with an aim of bullying them to leave and rent these apartments at higher cost of rents. Even where these actions of by the landlords are illegal, the people living here cannot afford lawyers to press charges against these injustices. Therefore, the minority blacks and other people of color living in gentrified neighborhoods are placed between a hard place and a rock. The people cannot afford housing in other neighborhoods hence cannot move and the landlord continuously pushes them to the limit.
For a person who has no understanding of the law or cannot hire a lawyer who can assist in navigating the legal system, telling them it is illegal to be forced out does not help. Part of the population consists of immigrants who have lived for long times in New York City and other urban areas and yet the little resources available in their communities that can help them. Some also have cultural, language and societal barriers that places them at a disadvantage while facing the developers or real estate firms. They people continue to face the high cost of living wrought by high rents demands and lack of access to the legal system that can provide a reproof for them. In addition, the local businesses that provide affordable goods and services to the low and middle-income areas suffer as large firms start extending to these areas that were previously undesirable. The businesses experience hard times serving two distinct kinds of clientele even where they try to obtain the right mix. Grocery stores may sell various products so as to attract the newcomers in the neighborhoods (Zukin et al, 47). However, the expected increase in profits is not realized since the wealthier residents do not have to buy in this business but can in places where they feel more comfortable. The businesses end up with poor performance hence they close down or fire their workers hence complicating the already hard financial conditions of these people. In addition, the larger businesses expanding to cater for the wealthier new residents increase competition to the older ones and this further strains the community. Older businesses are also affected by the increase in rent as much as they impact on low-income minority residents (Zukin et al, 53). The only companies that can survive such harsh conditions are the large ones.
Moreover, the poor New York neighborhoods are only places where the income level of the minority people can feel comfortable and at home. As the neighborhoods get gentrified, various activities like panhandling and even sleeping in public places get to be criminalized. The poor people living in the streets do so since they lack a way of earning a decent living, and pushing them away while not providing any support does not work to the best interest of the neighborhoods. The increasing cost of living does not help them to earn a decent living and the fact that gentrification is being driven by private does not help the situation. The new developments are driven by a desire for profits but are not community oriented. The communities living in the poor and low-income neighborhoods thrive on businesses that are socially conscious and whose benefits are felt by everyone. The local shops allow households to buy products on credit, while such families can comfortably utilize the public assistance money. Such an environment allows the low-income earners to thrive in a community which takes care of their basic human needs, but the arrivals of wealthier residents and constructions of new and expensive houses disrupt the system and make the place unaffordable for established minority residents.
Conclusion
Gentrification in New York City has caused the painful experience to the middle and low-income minority residents who are unable to cope with rising cost of living and this makes them be marginalized economically and socially. Those who propose gentrification considers its positive impacts while not paying attention to resulting the high cost of living that displaces the minority lower and middle incomes households. The benefits of gentrification in New York cities and other urban areas can only be realized if the minority groups are economically empowered to conformably afford life in these neighborhoods. That way they won't feel economically and socially marginalized.
Works cited.
Zukin, Sharon, et al. "New retail capital and neighborhood change: boutiques and gentrification in New York City." City & Community 8.1 (2009): 47-64.
Newman, Kathe, and Elvin K. Wyly. "The right to stay put, revisited: gentrification and resistance to displacement in New York City." Urban Studies 43.1 (2006): 23-57.
Austensen, Maxwell, Ellen, Ingrid. I, Herring, Luke, Garfunkel , Brian, Jush Gita K., Moriarty, Shannon, Rosoff
Traci Sanders, Stephanie, Stern, Eric, Suher, Michael, Willis, Mark A., Yage, Jessica. State of New York City's Housing and Neighborhoods. New York University. 2015.4-7
Pearsall, Hamil. "Moving out or moving in? Resilience to environmental gentrification in New York City." Local Environment 17.9 (2012): 1013-1026.
Florida, Richard. This Is What Happens After a Neighborhood Gets Gentrified. 2014.Available at: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/09/this-is-what-happens-after-a-neighborhood-gets-gentrified/432813/
Smith, Greg .EXCLUSIVE: NYCHA residents see little benefit from gentrification in their neighborhoods, report shows.2015. Available At: http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/gentrification-doesn-poor-report-shows-article-1.2393396
