By Henry Parr
Is gentrification still a thing? Earlier this week, Slate published a piece by John Buntin entitled “The Myth of Gentrification.” Citing quantitative studies, Buntin suggests that gentrification is exceedingly rare and beneficial to low-income residents when it does occur. “It’s time to retire the term gentrification altogether,” argues Buntin.
In support of his argument that gentrification is rare, Buntin looks to data that shows low-income residents move away from gentrifying neighborhoods at lower rates than they do form non-gentrifying neighborhoods. This comparative analysis leads Buntin to conclude that low-income residents in gentrifying neighborhoods are not leaving because of rents, but rather are staying despite them.
Buntin also argues that the fact that low-income residents appear to be staying in gentrifying neighborhoods at higher rates also suggests that they are enjoying benefits of gentrification. He further points to a 2010 study that showed that black high school graduates in gentrifying neighborhoods saw their incomes rise as the median income in the neighborhood increased.
But does Buntin’s argument really indicate that gentrification is rare? Does the fact that people leave non-gentrifying neighborhoods at higher rates than gentrifying neighborhoods really mean that low-income residents are forced out? Displacement does seem to be relevant to an analysis of gentrification, even if it occurs at a lower rate. As Kim Velsey at the New York Observer points out, there is considerable data that shows an increase in median income and white residents concurrent with a decrease in the black population of a number of neighborhoods in New York City.
Also, Buntin’s analysis doesn’t seem to consider how low-income residents in gentrifying neighborhoods face new and different costs that residents in non-gentrifying neighborhoods do no. For instance, low-income residents in gentrifying neighborhoods may be forced to move from gentrifying neighborhoods while residents in non-gentrifying neighborhoods may have more agency in determining whether they stay or leave. Additionally, while the low-income residents who do stay in a gentrifying neighborhood may have the benefit of lower crime rates they may have to live in more crowded housing in order to get the benefit.
Lastly, Buntin’s analysis fails to recognize what is most often criticized about gentrification, the loss of community institutions. Buntin doesn’t look to data that indicates what businesses move in with the influx of higher income residents and what happens to other commercial or cultural institutions. This may be because Buntin seems to look only at a sort of initial gentrification that Velsey states ignores the way in which gentrification occurs in subsequent waves.
Buntin’s arguments that gentrification is overblown isn’t novel. Criticism of Buntin’s piece is similar to that of earlier ones in that it ignores these certain aspects of gentrification that are perhaps harder to measure quantitatively. Perhaps Buntin is right in that it is time to reconsider just what gentrification means. Is it defined simply by who moves in and who moves out, and what their median income is? Or is it defined by how hip the neighborhood becomes? Buntin’s approach however, would seem to fall short of a comprehensive conception of gentrification, because for many New Yorkers the numbers he presents explain the reality that Williamsburg, Bed-Stuy, Harlem, and Fort Greene look nothing today like they once did.
Links from this Article
http://uar.sagepub.com/content/40/4/463.full.pdf+html
http://observer.com/2015/01/gentrification-may-be-complicated-but-its-not-a-myth-and-neither-is-displacement/
https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/blog/gentrification-no-myth
http://nymag.com/news/intelligencer/62675/
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/12/17/its-time-to-give-up-the-emptiest-word-in-urban-policy-gentrification/
