Defining the Meaning of Gentrification

Gentrification
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Gentrification
Introduction
Gentrification involves the process of changing the characteristics of a poor urban area by wealthier people moving in, improving the residential house, and attracting new businesses. Most time, gentrification involves the displacement of existing inhabitants with new wealthier residents. To most people, gentrification is intrinsically harmful since when wealthier people move into the neighborhood, it is an indication that lower-income people have to move away or suffer from higher rents and loss of community. However, most studies have shown that in the long run, gentrification creates substantial benefits to residents of low-income neighborhoods and even causes slight displacement (Cortright, 2019). Therefore this paper will discuss whether it is true that gentrification makes neighborhoods safer and improves the lives of people who reside in the targeted neighborhood. Also, it will explain the pros and cons of gentrification and its effect on crime.
Gentrification makes neighborhoods and improves Lives.
City Observatory article captures a new study done by the Davin Reed of the Philadelphia Federal Reserve Bank and Quentin Brummet of the University of Chicago to disprove the prevailing negative view of gentrification (Cortright, 2019). According to this study, the negative perception of gentrification is fundamentally wrong since gentrification is beneficial for long-time residents. The study showed a slight distinction in out-migration rates between a gentrifying neighborhood and a similar neighborhood that was not gentrifying. The researchers expected that 60 % of educated, less educated residents would move out of non-gentrified low-income neighborhoods within a decade, compared to 66% of less-educated residents in gentrifying neighborhoods. Besides, people who left gentrified neighborhoods were not expected to move to worse neighborhoods than the destination of households moving out of the poor non-gentrified neighborhood. The researchers showed that the demographic composition of the gentrifying neighborhood, post-gentrification, remained highly mixed, constituting most less-educated renters and homeowners. The study also showed that less-educated renters who remained in the gentrified neighborhood did not experience high rents. Overall, Brummet and Reed's study portrayed that gentrification was a good thing for low-income residents, objecting to most research findings that denote gentrification's negative impact on the poor neighborhood. When related to this paper's readings and power points, it is appropriate for gentrification to be presented to the public to make neighborhoods safer and improve the lives of people who reside in a targeted neighborhood.
It is necessarily true that gentrification leads to changes in central and disadvantaged neighborhoods that improve people's lives and make the targeted neighborhood safer. According to Doucet (2009), gentrification can bring distinct changes to the character of a neighborhood. Gentrification can transform a run-down working-class and decaying area into a trendy, prosperous middle-class neighborhood within a short period. It can improve housing, services, shops, and amenities very profoundly and rapidly. Doucet implies that when gentrification is inclusive, its benefits are directed to the new residents moving in and long-time residents of the targeted neighborhood. For instance, the gentrification of retail areas of such neighborhoods can be inclusive to ensure that existing residents gain the benefits despite their socioeconomic background (Doucet, 2009).
Also, gentrification means an increase in access to goods and services. Thereby gentrification that results in the opening of new stores will highly be appreciated by the lower-income residents. Most poor neighborhoods have limited access to basic shops, leading to these areas being referred to as food deserts. Residents have access to less healthy fresh food and clean water in such neighborhoods than their affluent residents. Gentrification brings these services and basic amenities closer to the residents, thereby proving beneficial to the newcomers and the existing low-income residents.
Moreover, a poor neighborhood often lacks basic retail facilities like drug stores, pharmacies, and video rental shops. When gentrification arrives in these areas, it brings retail changes, and people begin to enjoy vast retail opportunities in the neighborhood. Ng (2016) postulates that when gentrification is done to ensure an equitable change in the neighborhood, it certainly improves the lives of long-time residents. The gentrification that benefits the existing community has to preserve the existing affordable housing and facilitate more excellent housing development that includes affordable housing. Government attains this type of gentrification by incentivizing more remarkable development of housing which eases pressure on overall housing affordability.
Another view of why it is necessarily true that gentrification improves the lives and safety of the poor neighborhood is that urban neighborhood is not static and eventually changes even without gentrification. Gentrification leads to rapid changes in these neighborhoods. Therefore, gentrification is a good thing for property owners in these areas that experience an increase in property value and alleviation of poverty. The decline in poverty is a more significant advantage for the residents. For legacy residents of the gentrified neighborhood, their lives significantly improve. Another study conducted by Dastrup & Ellen (2016) found that outcome for public housing residents in various gentrified neighborhoods. The researchers established that security improved in the public housing development in gentrified neighborhoods. The crime rate dropped in these neighborhoods, most residents were employed, income increased, and educational attainment level was also elevated.
All of these denote the positive impact of gentrification on long-time residents of targeted residents. However, gentrification remains a complex topic, with most studies exposing the negative effect of gentrification on the existing residents. The positive side of gentrification lies in commercial development, improvement of economic opportunity, increased property value for homeowners, and decreased crime rates, thus increasing safety. Conversely, the negative impacts are loss of affordable housing, increased house rents, and displacement of the low-income residents. An ideal gentrification program resolves most of the drawbacks linked to it and allows the process to benefit all community residents without displacement. However, most times, gentrification programs are not initiated with the collective goal of improving the whole resident inclusively. It is subtly incongruent to state that it is necessarily true to present gentrification to the public to make neighborhoods safer and improve the lives of people residing in targeted neighborhoods.
Pros and Cons of Gentrification
Pros of Gentrification
One of the pros of gentrification that proponents of gentrification are the visible change that the process brings to the infrastructure of the targeted neighborhood. Typically, areas targeted for gentrification are often deteriorating and old and have obscure amenities. Gentry is tasked with buying and restoring these infrastructures and consolidating adjoining property into a single lot. Another aspect of gentrification is a loft conversion that involves rehabilitation of mixed-used areas of abandoned, run-down apartment o industrial buildings to a hosing for incoming gentrifies. The outcome of this gentrification is the restoration and stabilization of neighborhoods that are in a declining phase. It leads to the renovation and upgrading of the existing homes.
The economic shift that happens when a targeted neighborhood goes through gentrification is always favorable for the local government. Affluent promoters of the gentrification process significantly add to the local tax base of such neighborhoods by making them more economically viable. The gentrifiers support local shops and businesses, thereby creating an economic shift in these areas. Besides, gentrification reduces vacancy rates and elevates the value of property in gentrified neighborhoods. As a result, a struggling community can experience an economic upheaval characterized by the restoration of interest in inner-city life as residences are made better. The gentrification changes also create positive feedback, thereby encouraging more investors into the area, subsequently leading to the development of the area and promoting economic growth.
An empirical research study done by Meltzer & Ghorbani (2017) indicates that gentrification increases employment opportunities for low-income neighborhoods. The researchers found that the employment opportunity for gentrification was localized, proving that incumbent residents of targeted neighborhoods experienced modest job gains in the gentrifying census tract. Besides, gentrification led to more consi...