Educate me - why is gentrification bad?

[Anonymous]

Why just Ward 3, when there are wealthy people in other wards? And I know GGW has brainwashed people into thinking every Ward 3 resident is a mustache-twirling billionaire, but there are plenty of Ward 3 residents for whom a property tax increase would be a significant financial burden.

I agree that DC should bump up income taxes for the super-wealthy. But singling out based on geographic area is wrong.

+1000. Do you know what homes on Capitol Hill are selling for these days? Long-term resident of Ward 3 and I can't afford to buy a rowhouse on Capitol Hill at today's prices. Ward 3 also has a large number of senior citizens with many on fixed incomes.

Anyone that thinks the only wealthy people in the city reside in Ward 3 needs to educate themselves on the socio-economics of today's DC.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Let me beat everyone else to the punch.

NIMBYs will say gentrification is bad, but will use it as an excuse to oppose any new housing in their neighborhoods, which are *already wealthy*

YIMBYs will say gentrification is unavoidable, but that housing would be more affordable if only they just built more of it. This inevitably means flooding the market with *their* particular brand of housing, luxury single bedroom apartments geared towards high earning single transient young professionals. Among other amenities that white millennials like but nobody else uses.

This isn’t true. I am a white Gen X resident of an already wealthy neighborhood, and I’d like to see actually affordable housing built nearby, as much of it as possible, ideally paid for by the city government directly.

That's the rub, isn't it? Building affordable housing in already-wealthy, already-built-up areas is absurdly expensive, and no one wants to pay for it. The city can't pay for it by itself and developers don't want to pay for it because it's a money-loser for them.

Never once in GGW's constant prattling about this issue have any of their self-considered geniuses ever mentioned how to pay for such a scheme. David Alpert is rich. Maybe he should pay for it.

OK, so I'll amend this: We should raise property taxes in Ward 3 and income taxes on the highest incomes to pay for building more public housing in Ward 3. That's how to pay for it. I prefer building public housing because I don't like the idea of finding "market-based" solutions for public problems, and because developers always wind up finding ways to build less of it than they're supposed to.

Why just Ward 3, when there are wealthy people in other wards? And I know GGW has brainwashed people into thinking every Ward 3 resident is a mustache-twirling billionaire, but there are plenty of Ward 3 residents for whom a property tax increase would be a significant financial burden.

I agree that DC should bump up income taxes for the super-wealthy. But singling out based on geographic area is wrong.

Because I live in Ward 3.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Let me beat everyone else to the punch.

NIMBYs will say gentrification is bad, but will use it as an excuse to oppose any new housing in their neighborhoods, which are *already wealthy*

YIMBYs will say gentrification is unavoidable, but that housing would be more affordable if only they just built more of it. This inevitably means flooding the market with *their* particular brand of housing, luxury single bedroom apartments geared towards high earning single transient young professionals. Among other amenities that white millennials like but nobody else uses.

This isn’t true. I am a white Gen X resident of an already wealthy neighborhood, and I’d like to see actually affordable housing built nearby, as much of it as possible, ideally paid for by the city government directly.

That's the rub, isn't it? Building affordable housing in already-wealthy, already-built-up areas is absurdly expensive, and no one wants to pay for it. The city can't pay for it by itself and developers don't want to pay for it because it's a money-loser for them.

Never once in GGW's constant prattling about this issue have any of their self-considered geniuses ever mentioned how to pay for such a scheme. David Alpert is rich. Maybe he should pay for it.

OK, so I'll amend this: We should raise property taxes in Ward 3 and income taxes on the highest incomes to pay for building more public housing in Ward 3. That's how to pay for it. I prefer building public housing because I don't like the idea of finding "market-based" solutions for public problems, and because developers always wind up finding ways to build less of it than they're supposed to.

Why just Ward 3, when there are wealthy people in other wards? And I know GGW has brainwashed people into thinking every Ward 3 resident is a mustache-twirling billionaire, but there are plenty of Ward 3 residents for whom a property tax increase would be a significant financial burden.

I agree that DC should bump up income taxes for the super-wealthy. But singling out based on geographic area is wrong.

Because I live in Ward 3. (I hit submit too soon before, sorry for the double post.) My point is that some people do want more actually affordable housing in neighborhoods where they live -- as opposed to luxury condos for wealthy single somethings. And then someone else objected to my post saying the affordable housing should be paid for by the city. So for my proposed public housing in my neighborhood, I thought I'd suggest to have it financed by a tax increase on myself, to start. I am also not a mustache-twirling billionaire, I just think we need to find a way to change the current housing policies and politics in our city and our country.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Long term residents should benefit when property values go up, but a variety of government and private actions have prevented Black people in particular from building wealth, which means they don't own their homes.

Then neighborhoods become desirable and White people move in. And they transform the neighborhood they move into through not just displacement but also culturally - e.g. complaining about Donald Campbell's go-go music.

Until you fix the theft of generations of wealth from Black people gentrification will always just be perpetuating that theft.

So who owned the homes in the historical less desirable neighborhoods that have been gentrified over the last 10-15 years?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Everyone here says gentrification is bad but if given the chance (income, right circumstances, etc.), 3/4 would become gentrifiers or already are. So really at best it’s lip service and virtue signaling, at worst they’re the worst hypocrites. The city won’t do anything about because of the $$$$$ in taxes and there’s really no solution besides building high density, lower cost housing, which the gentrifiers mostly oppose. It’s a no win situation...

People who use the term "virtual signaling" as a pejorative are themselves virtue signaling. Fact.

[Anonymous]

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Gentrification only happens when long-term residents want to cash out. Why shouldn’t they be able to make more money via a home sake than they ever would working?

This is a very myopic understanding of gentrification. In many of the neighborhoods that have undergone or are undergoing gentrification, long-term residents are renters. They are pushed out by increasing rents or when their homes are torn down or renovated. They don't make any money out of the transition.

Also in my neighborhood, the pressures of gentrification led some families to be pressured out of their houses, when they made a mistake. For example, one family was late in paying their real estate taxes, which from the records I saw had happened before and they just paid them up to avoid losing their childhood home. But when the market got hot, a grifter company came in, bought up their lien and charged them thousands of dollars in penalties they couldn't afford so that they couldn't make up the extra. They lost their childhood home. Another neighbor didn't know that his brother had taken out a loan on their childhood home and he had to move because the brother defaulted on the loan. Again, this was during the hot real estate market before the crash in 2008 so it was easy for the brother to get the loan. There may have been some good things that happened out of this. The neighbor with the brother moved into public housing, which was better for him given that he was disabled and didn't have water or electricity in his home. But he did have to move out of the home he was born in and he would have preferred to stay there. At any rate, it's complicated. It's not like everyone made a bundle selling their homes to gentrifiers. And some folks feel a genuine loss that is not driven by the money.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Everyone here says gentrification is bad but if given the chance (income, right circumstances, etc.), 3/4 would become gentrifiers or already are. So really at best it’s lip service and virtue signaling, at worst they’re the worst hypocrites. The city won’t do anything about because of the $$$$$ in taxes and there’s really no solution besides building high density, lower cost housing, which the gentrifiers mostly oppose. It’s a no win situation...

Gentrification has allowed our inbound school to be renovated -- fixing broken windows, heating system that didn't work, removing asbestos, etc. The building was in a horrible state.

That's great! Are there still poor and working class kids in bounds who are benefiting from the repairs? Or has the neighborhood completely turned over so that it's mainly middle and upper income kids who benefit?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s not bad. It just is. Also, people of color are not displaced, just poor people (who mostly happened to be of color). Well-off people of color are fine. Correlation is not causation. Now, is being of color more likely to mean you’re poor? Yes, but it does not pre-ordain it. People of color that realize this tend to do better. Is it harder for people of color to make it? Yes, but nothing is pre-ordained.

At one time, lower Manhattan was checkered with farms, the area around the Met covered with shacks and fallow fields. Downtown Bethesda consisted of low-rent two-story shops until Metro; the area where the Apple store sits was a cement factory until the early '80s.

Things change. I can't afford to live in the neighborhood I grew up in, but my parents will make a pretty penny when they sell. Plenty of long-time black homeowners in my EOTP neighborhood paid $30k - $50k for houses now worth > $750k.

Outcomes are worse for long-term renters. However, the city is 10000 better overall, by any measure, than it was in 1975.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Gentrification only happens when long-term residents want to cash out. Why shouldn’t they be able to make more money via a home sake than they ever would working?

This is a very myopic understanding of gentrification. In many of the neighborhoods that have undergone or are undergoing gentrification, long-term residents are renters. They are pushed out by increasing rents or when their homes are torn down or renovated. They don't make any money out of the transition.

Also in my neighborhood, the pressures of gentrification led some families to be pressured out of their houses, when they made a mistake. For example, one family was late in paying their real estate taxes, which from the records I saw had happened before and they just paid them up to avoid losing their childhood home. But when the market got hot, a grifter company came in, bought up their lien and charged them thousands of dollars in penalties they couldn't afford so that they couldn't make up the extra. They lost their childhood home. Another neighbor didn't know that his brother had taken out a loan on their childhood home and he had to move because the brother defaulted on the loan. Again, this was during the hot real estate market before the crash in 2008 so it was easy for the brother to get the loan. There may have been some good things that happened out of this. The neighbor with the brother moved into public housing, which was better for him given that he was disabled and didn't have water or electricity in his home. But he did have to move out of the home he was born in and he would have preferred to stay there. At any rate, it's complicated. It's not like everyone made a bundle selling their homes to gentrifiers. And some folks feel a genuine loss that is not driven by the money.

Being chronically late on property tax payments or defaulting on a mortgage are highly costly financial mistakes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Long term residents should benefit when property values go up, but a variety of government and private actions have prevented Black people in particular from building wealth, which means they don't own their homes.

Then neighborhoods become desirable and White people move in. And they transform the neighborhood they move into through not just displacement but also culturally - e.g. complaining about Donald Campbell's go-go music.

Until you fix the theft of generations of wealth from Black people gentrification will always just be perpetuating that theft.

But what makes the neighborhoods desirable? Isn't it when the "long term residents" with a predilection for crime and violence and other anti-social pathologies move out, so it's suddenly safe -- safer -- for families to contemplate removing the bars from every window and start a family, and for small businesses to open without fear of constant theft and violence?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Long term residents should benefit when property values go up, but a variety of government and private actions have prevented Black people in particular from building wealth, which means they don't own their homes.

Then neighborhoods become desirable and White people move in. And they transform the neighborhood they move into through not just displacement but also culturally - e.g. complaining about Donald Campbell's go-go music.

Until you fix the theft of generations of wealth from Black people gentrification will always just be perpetuating that theft.

But what makes the neighborhoods desirable? Isn't it when the "long term residents" with a predilection for crime and violence and other anti-social pathologies move out, so it's suddenly safe -- safer -- for families to contemplate removing the bars from every window and start a family, and for small businesses to open without fear of constant theft and violence?

DP. Unbelievable that I need to point out that there are also families who are Black.

[Anonymous]

What they won't tell you is that there was plenty of affordable housing in the 80s/90s but DC was so violent and the schools were so terrible you couldn't give it away. We had deficits because the city spent its way into bankruptcy and then they put a statue of the guy who was responsible for it (Marion Barry, Jr.) in front of the City Hall.

Why? Because they love Barry? That's what they'd tell you but the real truth is to remind them of just how bad DC can get.

DC Statehood? It will never happen. DOA.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s not bad. It just is. Also, people of color are not displaced, just poor people (who mostly happened to be of color). Well-off people of color are fine. Correlation is not causation. Now, is being of color more likely to mean you’re poor? Yes, but it does not pre-ordain it. People of color that realize this tend to do better. Is it harder for people of color to make it? Yes, but nothing is pre-ordained.

A lot of things in this country are pre-ordained but continue to believe otherwise.

You live your life your way, and I’ll live my life my way. You accept your lot in life, and I won’t.

[Anonymous]

I suggest watching the movie "Residue" to get a feel for what it looks like from someone else's view. I think it's on Netflix.

[Anonymous]

OP, unless you are diagnosed, F OFF