The Racism of Gentrification
There are many dimensions of gentrifications, racism being one of the main ones. Majority of the people that end up displaced by gentrification efforts is Black, Latinx, and poor people. When looking at the data of who is being physically displaced it often the communities of color that use public resources such as affordable housing, community gardens, and other public works. The gentrification process often starts with attacks on affordable housing. Throughout history, gentrification has been used to quell political resistance. Once gentrification has happened in an area it suddenly gets reframed as a need because of mismanagement of the people of color in that community. The blame for getting priced out of their community is blamed on the community members or the tokenized people of color in support of gentrification movements, instead of the white landlords.
It is important to not separate the racial elements of gentrification from gentrification itself. It is often framed as an economically or political move (which it also is) but keeping the racialized element of gentrification in the conversation, we can see the insidious nature of gentrification. Majority of the people that use the resources that “gentrifiers” decide are no longer necessary for a community. Gentrification is just the rebranded idea of settler colonialism. Settler colonialism is a form of colonialism where a nation-state gains new territories by having people move and create communities instead of military intervention. Gentrification does the same where it takes culturally meaningful places and replaces them with things of value to a new community (an often white community) and unmeaningful to the current community.
source:
Kent‐Stoll, Peter. “The Racial and Colonial Dimensions of Gentrification.” Sociology Compass 14, no. 12 (2020): 1–17. https://doi.org/10.1111/soc4.12838.
Economic Gentrification
Gentrification is often touted as an economic improvement for a community. It is promoted as a new way to bring money and people to the community. It is easier for the government to allow private entities to come into communities to change it “for the better” than provide better funded public works. People who view gentrification as purely economic, look at how a city was performing economically before the process of gentrification started, this means that New York City’s gentrification is very different than San Francisco’s gentrification.
After recessions there seems to be an uptick in the gentrification process because gentrification is always profitable. The government post-recession is also much more amiable to gentrification because it is a way to not spend the government budget but get the improvements they want.
source:
Hackworth, Jason. “Gentrification as a Politico-Economic Window: Reflections on the Changing State of Gentrification.” Tijdschrift voor economische en sociale geografie 110, no. 1 (2018): 47–53. https://doi.org/10.1111/tesg.12330.
The Burning of Buildings
The demand for places to live and storefronts is high but the supply is low. Landlords in many areas that are being gentrified have to come up with “creative” ways to keep up with the demand. In the 1970s in Spanish Harlem many of the Latino apartment dwellers were forced out their homes by landlords who burned their buildings down to collect the insurance money. Because the landlords not only were able to collect insurance money they were also able to sell their building to land developers (gentrifiers).
Specifically in San Francisco on Mission Street around 8,000 Latine residents were displaced from their home. With no plans to move them into affordable housing but making the area full of luxury apartments. Not just residents were displaced but places of cultural importance including Galería de la Raza, a protest that is portrayed within the show. On Mission Street in the 1970s, 146 apartment fires happened, some of those were deemed arson. This was the beginning of the many, many waves of gentrification in the Mission District.