Gentrification and the Changing Face of the American Population
BY RAHMI ELAHJJI
In February 2013, a New York Times article proposed using “organic dry cleaners as a barometer for gentrification” in some of the city’s previously dilapidated neighborhoods. While the article was certainly facetious in its assessment, a changed local culture is a reality for many gentrified neighborhoods not only in New York, but also across most of the country. The process of gentrification basically represents the opposite of urban decay, where city planners and local administrators publicize a previously depressed neighborhood to businesses that will in turn attract more affluent individuals, who then continue to attract more upscale businesses.
While gentrification is in itself not a particularly new phenomenon, it has only been researched as a sociological issue in the last 30 or so years. Gentrification within cities beyond the traditional Northeast megalopolis has provided rich fodder for this sociological research. New gentrification in cities in the traditional American South, the Southwest, and the West Coast shows a direct correlation with dramatic population growth among these urban centers, suggesting that gentrification has at least played a contributing role in encouraging internal immigration of Americans towards the South and West.
Cities like Houston, Tampa, and Atlanta have seen their populations boom in the past decade. What all three cities have in common is a substantial growth of younger professionals attracted to newly refurbished living spaces in previously diminished neighborhoods. In Houston, developers have taken aim at the city’s Third Ward, a historically African-American neighborhood that has been recently subject to the conversion of renters’ property to more luxurious townhomes and condominiums. Developers correctly predicted that the neighborhood’s vibrant local food and music culture as well as its very close proximity to the city’s central business district would attract a swath of more affluent consumers to the neighborhood. This influx of new residents has caused tensions in the neighborhood, due to the steadily increasing rents in the area. Several activists and opposition groups have lobbied to reduce redevelopment in the area as a means of preserving local culture.
A similar narrative holds for neighborhoods in both Tampa and Atlanta, with historically less affluent neighborhoods comprised of greater minority populations being renovated to attract more affluent residents, usually at the expense of former residents. Atlanta has seen 28 percent of its low-income housing tracts experience gentrification between 2000 and 2007. The same is true for 21 percent of Tampa’s low-income neighborhoods. Seattle, Portland, and San Francisco have also experienced comparable rates. These figures all suggest that cities beyond the traditional urban centers of the Northeast have experienced these demographic shifts.
Not only have these cities all undergone gentrification to some degree, they all have experienced substantial population growth since the 2000 census. The majority of the nation’s fastest growing cities all lie in the southern or western United States. At the same time the majority of the nation’s slowest growing cities lie in the Northeast or the Midwest.
While this substantial population shift cannot altogether be attributed to gentrification, gentrification has caused some changes in the demographic and economic makeup of these cities by attracting more affluent residents. These shifts also have considerable political implications, especially considering that many of the states that gained electoral votes in the last census redistribution were states in the southern and western portions of the country. Many of these states are home to the cities that experienced the most significant rates of gentrification in the time period.
Without delving too far into the debate on the sociological and moral issues surrounding gentrification and simply focusing on its political implications, it becomes apparent that changing the demographic and socioeconomic makeup also affects the political significance of a neighborhood. It is common knowledge among political scientists that participation in the political process, especially at the local level, increases with income. At the same time, issues that more affluent voters prioritize, such as recreation and tax breaks, differ from those that less affluent voters would prioritizes, such as social welfare and employment opportunities. From a political standpoint, gentrification represents a means of economic gerrymandering, where the demographic makeups of a neighborhood, district, parish, or other local division are manipulated to bring about some political consequences.
Political ramifications aside, there is no denying that when undertaken by city planners on a wider scale throughout an entire city, gentrification changes the demographic makeup of a city as well. It will be interesting to see how politicians respond to the shift of the demographic center of the country westward as well as how they respond to gentrification in confluence with other demographic issues such as immigration, and racial and socioeconomic tensions in these rapidly growing areas of the country.