Why aren't Middle Class/Upper Middle Class blacks taking advantage of "gentrification"? Or Are they?

[sang_bleu]

Its not just blacks that are getting pushed out.

 

[How Sway?]

Quite a few New Yorkers have benefited from gentrification, they cashed out and moved down south ..

 

[Wild self]

Most middle class blacks live in the south or dmv area. And those areas have upper middle class black suburbs

Exactly. Gentrification is a monster that black folk never bothered capitalizing on due to our ignorance on not owning shyt when it was cheap

 

[YvrzTrvly]

The sad part about all the gentrification thats taking place across the country is this...regardless of race. It simply destroys the reason to even have communities with different cultures, ways of living.

You see all the hipsters taking over Philly, NYC, New Orleans...and these places start losing their initial value of offering different things to different people. My family was originally from NoLa and I loved visiting them and experiencing the shyt that I couldn't up here in the Central Jersey burbs...now I head down there and its basically the same shyt...Starbucks, whole foods...wtf man. There is literally no point in hitting up Brooklyn anymore, NONE. Northern Liberties Philly? Might as well be called White Bread lane.

Its almost become an infinite loops of classicism/culture smashing. Soon all we have is a culture that would be the equivalent to the nasty bland gluish paste that RoboCop ate.

 

[CashmereThoughts]

Quite a few New Yorkers have benefited from gentrification, they cashed out and moved down south ..

for one person that owns a a brownstone in BK that cashed out theres 3 families that have to move out of that brownstown and cant afford the area anymore. property tax increases have hurt many home owners as well. this aint really benifiting new yorkers. mostly rich people who are able to capitolize many of which live in india or china.

 

[mcdivit85]

Well, first of all, there really is no "black middle class." As @marcuz aptly stated, most blacks that would be considered middle class are a paycheck or so away from being back in the same neighborhood as the poor blacks. Most are one generation from that poor black neighborhood anyway.

Now someone may think that is being defeatist, but that's not the case. Report after report from BLACK sources and publications have confirmed this over and over again. Blacks are middle class simply based on their job. Whites are middle class based on inherited assets that they received as a birthright in the form of real estate, business proceeeds, investments, etc.....not too mention their job.

As Dr. Claud Anderson has said, "Whites are already born with 90 percent of what they need to succeed. All they need is a scheme and they'll get the rest."

Now circling back to the gentrification subject, since the "black middle class" is not a truly credible force, the question posed by OP is mostly moot. They generally don't have the resources nor the capital to invest as much as white counterparts.

I agree with the notion of the OP however. Even further, I would love to see these gentrified by blacks instead of whites. Raise the property value of the neighborhood, improve the cache and still keep it black. That would be the creation of BLACK COMMUNITIES instead of black neighborhoods.

I believe this can be done via pooling resources via financial vehicles conducted through black organizations. For all the fluff that black organizations partake in, outside of some community service, they don't really do much at all.

What if all the frats and sororities came together to start a fund where money from their events are pooled to buy property in downtown ATL, have it remodeled and sold at reasonable prices to black tenants?

What if all the black churches in Brooklyn decided to do the same and take back BedStuy and Greenpoint?

I believe this can be done NOW. But how many of us come together for anything other than parties or fights or marches?

Peace

 

[BezO]

Victims of gentrification simply lack some combination of knowledge & capital. I'm witnessin' it now in DC.

I Copped somethin' right before prices started risin' in my new neighborhood knowin' investment was on the way. I work in real estate / affordable housin' and am also on my way into the real estate investment game, so I watch listings everyday.

Existin' residents that own property either lack knowledge or capital to take advantage. Investors are offering longtime residents below value cash and they're takin' it. Folks who've paid off mortgages or inherited homes only see the immediate value of the cash offered, not realizin' the POTENTIAL, or simply lack the resources to capitalize. So, it's not always a force out.

Many Blacks with the resources are short sighted. Fact is, even well off Black neighborhoods are not as valuable as the white equivelent. Basically, racism. But instead of investin' long term, we're buyin' property in neighborhoods that have already turned over. Basically, well off Blacks have proven to be more conservative, even when they do invest.

But I do see a few of us takin' advantage. I would say 1 of 5 flipped homes in my neighborhood are purchased by Blacks. Too low in a predominantly Black city. And even that 1 of 5 is gettin' in towards the back end. They won't see the return of those gettin' or stayin' in homes with more equity.

Only folks really FORCED out are renters.

Those of us that know must share the knowledge. I tell everyone I know about 1st time homebuyer programs and how to pick neighborhoods. And I will be collaboratin' with folks once I'm on the investment side.

 

[mcdivit85]

none of this matters regarding my topic. As I mentioned, you have cities like ATL giving up to 50k down on homes, so you aren't even putting money down or have to "save". Just need above a 620 Credit score.

Fo real tho? Might need to move

Mini mansion in downtown ATL

Peace

 

[Buckeye Fever]

nikkaz rather finance some dumb ass car for 600 a month, when they need to be lookin into property. I dont give a damn if it's just a lot. Look into it.

I remember when white ppl in chicago started buyin up the cabrini lots

 

[Black Magisterialness]

Apparently black people have trillions in spending power...but where does that go?

420 BILLION went to the black church alone...and where did that go?

I swear, it's like we collectively are still playing checkers while everybody else BEEN playing chess.

DON'T EVEN get me started on the Black Church Industry Complex...

 

[*L*E*G*A*C*Y*]

The sad part about all the gentrification thats taking place across the country is this...regardless of race. It simply destroys the reason to even have communities with different cultures, ways of living.

You see all the hipsters taking over Philly, NYC, New Orleans...and these places start losing their initial value of offering different things to different people. My family was originally from NoLa and I loved visiting them and experiencing the shyt that I couldn't up here in the Central Jersey burbs...now I head down there and its basically the same shyt...Starbucks, whole foods...wtf man. There is literally no point in hitting up Brooklyn anymore, NONE. Northern Liberties Philly? Might as well be called White Bread lane.

Its almost become an infinite loops of classicism/culture smashing. Soon all we have is a culture that would be the equivalent to the nasty bland gluish paste that RoboCop ate.

So true.

Vibrant diverse communities end up all looking the same. With the exact same stuff.

Yoga studios/Pilates studios
Expensive restaurants
Starbucks
Independent coffee shops
Pet centers
niche bars
whole foods
trader joes
art galleries

More proof that hipsters honestly don't have as far of a reach creatively as they would like to claim.

 

[*L*E*G*A*C*Y*]

for one person that owns a a brownstone in BK that cashed out theres 3 families that have to move out of that brownstown and cant afford the area anymore. property tax increases have hurt many home owners as well. this aint really benifiting new yorkers. mostly rich people who are able to capitolize many of which live in india or china.

I'm calling it.

Come 2025, NYC is gonna be majority rich white and asian people with some wealthy oil sheiks sprinkled in between.

 

[newworldafro]

Off one aspect alone if your rental properties are bought up and the price is raised beyond the ability for the tenants to pay what happens. Duh.

If most people in a certain area are renters under these conditions what's going to happen?

We just get shuffled around like dominoes

It's not enough upper class/upper middle class blacks to take over a big white area. Small area? Sure. Plus white people ain't having that shyt.

This unfortunately is somewhat of a reason. However, there are nieghborhoods, where if enough blacks came back, redevelopment could easily support a mostly black "gentrified" place.

Come to Houston and areas inside of the Loop are quite thoroughly being gentrified. However, here is a story about a black Texas state legislature that found a way to pause gentrification by obtaining money to landbank a huge swath of Third Ward (a historic black neighborhood) and where the HBCU Texas Southern University is located. Pretty interesting.

Of course, this keeps blacks here, but doesn't necessarily mean middle income/upper middle income blacks can move in certain parts too.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=112888084 (click link for audio)

http://www.governing.com/topics/politics/Land.html

Land Rush
Inner cities are becoming hot places to live. Does government have any business telling developers to keep out?
BY JOHN BUNTIN | MARCH 2006

Gentrification, a phenomenon normally associated with coastal cities such as New York and San Francisco, is now heading inland, transforming inner-city neighborhoods from Milwaukee to Raleigh-Durham to Albuquerque. It's even come to Houston, the three-beltway city that loves to sprawl. Since 2003, the number of Houston-area suburbanites "very interested" in moving into the city has doubled, according to sociologist Stephen Klineberg, who regularly surveys regional attitudes toward the city. Homebuilders are responding by blanketing neighborhoods close to downtown with three-story town homes and lofts.

Such development is no accident. In the past decade, the public sector has invested upwards of $8 billion in the central area Houstonians call "the Inner Loop," much of it geared toward making the city more enticing to affluent suburbanites. There's an eight-mile light rail line, new football and baseball stadiums, a museum district that's doubled in size, new downtown parks and fresh landscaping. Yet now that suburbanites are moving in, it's not just Garnet Coleman who's sounding the alarm. So are Houston's mayor, Bill White, and many members of the city council--particularly those who represent predominantly African-American and Hispanic districts.

COMPETING STRATEGIES
While Coleman pushes his rental strategy in the Third Ward, Mayor White is pursuing a plan focused on homeownership. White's idea is to foreclose on tax-delinquent properties in six poor, close-in neighborhoods. The city will then convert these properties to affordable, owner-occupied housing as part of a larger effort to address other local concerns from crumbling infrastructure to high crime. White calls this "redevelopment that is the opposite of gentrification."

"It's good that there are people who want to live in city limits, but we don't want to destroy the character of a neighborhood," White argues. And, he adds, "Unless we do something aggressive...the market will build in concentric circles around [the downtown] employment center."

What concerns both White and Coleman and most critics of gentrification is the prospect of Third Ward residents getting priced out of their own neighborhood. Recent research, however, suggests that worry is overblown. Studying gentrification's impact in Boston, Duke University economist Jacob Vigdor found that an influx of affluent newcomers had, if anything, merely contributed to Boston's socioeconomic integration. "There is no evidence to suggest that gentrification increases the probability that low-status households exit their housing unit," Vigdor concluded. Columbia University economist Lance Freeman found the same thing last year in a study of New York. In fact, Freeman found that residents of gentrifying neighborhoods were less likely to move than residents of non- gentrifying neighborhoods.

Those studies haven't tempered fears that the Third Ward is on the brink of upheaval and the perception among policy makers that something must be done to tame it. What Houston is discovering, however, is how slippery an issue gentrification can be. The Third Ward today is awash with developers, politicians, neighborhood activists and longtime residents. Each possesses a financial, political or personal stake in what the Third Ward is to become. And each, in distinct ways, is working at cross-purposes. Not only do they disagree on how to solve the Third Ward's gentrification problem; they can't even agree on what the problem is.

Is gentrification, despite what the academics say, really a problem of displacement? Is it a natural and unavoidable consequence of market forces, or does it result from specific policies? Is it a problem of low wages or one of high-priced real estate? Does it require government intervention? That such a debate is playing out in Houston- -a city famous for its lack of zoning and its developer-friendly ethos--is a testament to the passions and confusion that gentrification arouses. What really seems to be at stake is something quite nebulous: the character of a neighborhood. And in Houston, as in many cities, that is inextricably linked to questions of political power and race.


THE POWER BROKER
Garnet Coleman shares most of Lowe's concerns about what's happening in the Third Ward. His hands, however, lie closer to the levers of political power, and his stake in the neighborhood is more deeply personal. "Third Ward is my home--it's not for sale," Coleman says. "A hundred years in my family. It's a very different point of view."

The key to Coleman's approach is money--money to buy land and take it out of circulation. To get it, Coleman is utilizing a quasi- governmental authority, deploying tactics that would make the legendary highway and bridge builder Robert Moses proud. If Moses manipulated the back channels of power in New York for the cause of promoting development, however, Coleman is doing the same in Houston in order to impede it.

Coleman's vehicle is an urban investment tool known to most cities that use it as "tax increment financing." In Houston, the arrangement goes by a different name--"tax increment reinvestment zone" or TIRZ. The idea is that as a depressed area redevelops, the resulting increase in property taxes pays for more improvements in the neighborhood. Houston's city council has designated 22 such TIRZs in different neighborhoods, each with its own governing board. Typically, their goal is to spruce up sidewalks, lighting and landscaping, in hopes of attracting even more development.

One TIRZ, in a neighborhood known as Midtown, is acting a little differently. Midtown is a once run-down area of commercial warehouses just east of the Third Ward. It's now transformed into a thriving neighborhood of apartments, shops, restaurants and nightclubs. The board of the Midtown TIRZ is divided between Coleman loyalists and appointees of Mayor White. The board has chosen to use almost all of its revenues--$10 million in the past five years--to purchase and then "bank" land in the Third Ward. "If you look at Midtown, that was all publicly induced--ain't none of it affordable," says Coleman. "Why can't we do the same thing for people who need an affordable place to live?"

It's a decidedly unorthodox arrangement, one whose very existence seems to be something of a secret. Coleman declines to say how much land the Midtown TIRZ has banked in the Third Ward. He'll say only that he wants the land to be used for low-income rental housing, with deeds held by local churches and CDCs that could borrow against the value of the land in order to build more affordable housing. "Low- density rental is the only way for it to be affordable," Coleman argues. "You keep the character of the neighborhood while providing affordable housing."

In order to save the Third Ward, Coleman seems intent on freezing its current character and demographics in place. An essential part of his plan is to attach restrictive deeds to the rental properties to ensure that they are never sold to private developers or converted to condos. But is it really possible for a neighborhood to resist change? Fifty years ago, much of the area that Coleman now sees as his patrimony was a largely Jewish neighborhood. Only in the 1960s did the area become predominantly black. What Coleman is trying to do is keep it that way. He seems to enjoy the challenge. "Everyone said it couldn't be done," he crows, with obvious relish. "I said, 'Watch me.'"

 

[CashmereThoughts]

I'm calling it.

Come 2025, NYC is gonna be majority rich white and asian people with some wealthy oil sheiks sprinkled in between.

its heading in that direction. it cant get too extreme you cant have a city of all rich people its takes poor workers to support that.

 

[☑︎#VoteDemocrat]

All the black people I know with bread are the "gentrifiers"