D.C. has the highest ‘intensity’ of gentrification of any U.S. city, study says

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Where did all the African Americans go? I keep wondering this.

Are they going to PGC? Where are they going?

One thing that bugs me a lot about articles about gentrification is when they talk about residents being forced out or displaced and are missing some simple demographics...people are not immortal. When I moved to Petworth the vast majority of my neighbors were African Americans who owned their homes and were elderly. A lot of them had owned their homes solince the 1960s or 70s. Many of those neighbors have since passed away, and some have moved into nursing homes or in with their kids. The gentrification is happening here mainly because of the aging of the neighborhood. Nearly all of these houses are gutted and flipped when they sell.

TL;DR - Yes there's normal turnover but there are subtle ways in which gentrification pushed it along.

There's some basic truth to that but the overall picture is more complicated. On my block, a neighbor died and her kids who lived in another state sold the house and made good money. Another neighbor bought his first house across the river in the credit crazy housing boom and moved out. There was obvious turnover that occurred based on normal life occurrences.

But there were also subtle pushes that occurred due to the housing boom. One neighbor failed to pay his real estate taxes on time for the house he grew up in. I think that had happened before but in the past they just paid the taxes when the property was put up for sale. But this time, due to gentrification pressures, there were companies out there taking advantage of people. This company bought the lien and started adding penalties in the thousands of dollars and there was no way the family could ever pay it off. (This kind of thievery was covered in the WaPo) They moved to Prince George's and lost the family home.

Another neighbor was living in the house he was born in and found his brother had taken out a loan based on the house (also part of the housing financial boom, credit was easy to get) and had not paid it back. That neighbor was forced to move. However, it was probably for the best. He was disabled and didn't have running water or electricity and he was able to get into public housing. Public housing sucks but not sure it's worse than living in a house with no utilities.

Other neighbors were flooded out in that bad rain years ago and they told me that they thought their landlord was taking their time making repairs because they wanted them to move. They were paying around $750 a month rent. It was also during the housing boom so they were able to buy their first house across the river in Benning Ridge area. They resented the landlord's behavior but they did buy a house as a result. But their old rental house is now renting for $1975.

Anyway, turnover is normal but there were ways in which some of my neighbors had to move when they didn't want to move. It was a combination of their own and others' mistakes or bad behavior but a lot of that was brought on by how attractive the housing market was at the time. Now I know I couldn't afford to buy in my neighborhood and my kid definitely couldn't afford to buy here. I like my new neighbors but I also really liked the neighborhood the way it was when we first moved here. It's since lost some of the warmth it had back then. But change happens!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A lot of AAs haven’t made out like a bandit, their opportunity for generational wealth via real estate was actually ripped from them. Plenty of forclosures and developer low balls are responsible for the houses transferring ownership. I know of a few cases some years back of elderly people losing their home for not being able to pay their rising property taxes on time because of a limited income. The paper actually did a story on a widow who lost his house due to a tax balance less than $2 in a hot neighborhood.

How many of these versus the ones who did make a lot of money selling grandma's old house? Hmm? A few cases of people who didn't make money doesn't mean anything. Look, millions of whites lost houses to foreclosure too, or live in dying mill towns or Appalachia where their house is worth peanuts and people ignore those when talking about generational wealth via real estate. Right now in DC there's a big shift of black homeowners selling to white homeowners either themselves or via flippers and most are walking away with plenty of money.

I have no idea whether that's true or not. Are you making an assumption or can you cite an article supporting that?

[Anonymous]

In some of these neighborhoods, middle and UMC AAs left for the Gold Coast or suburbs decades ago, leaving poor/working class AA families behind. These families were often not homeowners, and so it was unfortunately easier to push these folks out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In some of these neighborhoods, middle and UMC AAs left for the Gold Coast or suburbs decades ago, leaving poor/working class AA families behind. These families were often not homeowners, and so it was unfortunately easier to push these folks out.

The laws in dc are very pro-renter. How does this work?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A lot of AAs haven’t made out like a bandit, their opportunity for generational wealth via real estate was actually ripped from them. Plenty of forclosures and developer low balls are responsible for the houses transferring ownership. I know of a few cases some years back of elderly people losing their home for not being able to pay their rising property taxes on time because of a limited income. The paper actually did a story on a widow who lost his house due to a tax balance less than $2 in a hot neighborhood.

why is people not knowing how to manage something somebody somebody else fault

+1 Getting really sick and tired of these types of excuses being used as examples of gentrification. Many of these people don't know how to manage finances and that is not anybody else's fault. Those with higher incomes shouldn't be tasked with figuring out how to help grown adults that never learned how to budget.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Where did all the African Americans go? I keep wondering this.

Are they going to PGC? Where are they going?

One thing that bugs me a lot about articles about gentrification is when they talk about residents being forced out or displaced and are missing some simple demographics...people are not immortal. When I moved to Petworth the vast majority of my neighbors were African Americans who owned their homes and were elderly. A lot of them had owned their homes solince the 1960s or 70s. Many of those neighbors have since passed away, and some have moved into nursing homes or in with their kids. The gentrification is happening here mainly because of the aging of the neighborhood. Nearly all of these houses are gutted and flipped when they sell.

TL;DR - Yes there's normal turnover but there are subtle ways in which gentrification pushed it along.

There's some basic truth to that but the overall picture is more complicated. On my block, a neighbor died and her kids who lived in another state sold the house and made good money. Another neighbor bought his first house across the river in the credit crazy housing boom and moved out. There was obvious turnover that occurred based on normal life occurrences.

But there were also subtle pushes that occurred due to the housing boom. One neighbor failed to pay his real estate taxes on time for the house he grew up in. I think that had happened before but in the past they just paid the taxes when the property was put up for sale. But this time, due to gentrification pressures, there were companies out there taking advantage of people. This company bought the lien and started adding penalties in the thousands of dollars and there was no way the family could ever pay it off. (This kind of thievery was covered in the WaPo) They moved to Prince George's and lost the family home.

Another neighbor was living in the house he was born in and found his brother had taken out a loan based on the house (also part of the housing financial boom, credit was easy to get) and had not paid it back. That neighbor was forced to move. However, it was probably for the best. He was disabled and didn't have running water or electricity and he was able to get into public housing. Public housing sucks but not sure it's worse than living in a house with no utilities.

Other neighbors were flooded out in that bad rain years ago and they told me that they thought their landlord was taking their time making repairs because they wanted them to move. They were paying around $750 a month rent. It was also during the housing boom so they were able to buy their first house across the river in Benning Ridge area. They resented the landlord's behavior but they did buy a house as a result. But their old rental house is now renting for $1975.

Anyway, turnover is normal but there were ways in which some of my neighbors had to move when they didn't want to move. It was a combination of their own and others' mistakes or bad behavior but a lot of that was brought on by how attractive the housing market was at the time. Now I know I couldn't afford to buy in my neighborhood and my kid definitely couldn't afford to buy here. I like my new neighbors but I also really liked the neighborhood the way it was when we first moved here. It's since lost some of the warmth it had back then. But change happens!

These are poor examples of whatever point you're trying to make. How is it anyone else's fault that half of these people couldn't manage their finances or were fleeced by their own family?

[Anonymous]

Historically, some black families were actually fleeced not by their own families, but were displaced by the city. Check out the history of the Reno neighborhood near Tenleytown.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Historically, some black families were actually fleeced not by their own families, but were displaced by the city. Check out the history of the Reno neighborhood near Tenleytown.

Is this happening now?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Where did all the African Americans go? I keep wondering this.

Are they going to PGC? Where are they going?

We aren’t going to pay 700k to live on a row house floor or pay $1m to live in a shitshack just to be around wealthy non-brown people.

I live in south Arlington simply for the diversity. Sadly it’s becoming less diverse as more people who are paying 50k over list move in.

We're in south Arlington too, for much that same reason. Sadly the day is coming when DC will no longer be very diverse at all. Within the next 10-15 years it's likely to be the place you go when you DON'T want diversity, and will be surrounded by UMC white residents. The diversity will have all moved out to the suburbs, and the idea of what's truly "hip" or "urban" will have dramatically changed. Absent a complete about-face on zoning and building density, I think there's no stopping that train.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Historically, some black families were actually fleeced not by their own families, but were displaced by the city. Check out the history of the Reno neighborhood near Tenleytown.

Is this happening now?

This is happening all over the D.C. area, not just in D.C. proper.

Fairfax County used tax rates to force stubborn farming families to move on. McNair Farm in Herndon is a good example. The farmer was forced to leave his farm because he could not afford to pay the ridiculous taxes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A lot of AAs haven’t made out like a bandit, their opportunity for generational wealth via real estate was actually ripped from them. Plenty of forclosures and developer low balls are responsible for the houses transferring ownership. I know of a few cases some years back of elderly people losing their home for not being able to pay their rising property taxes on time because of a limited income. The paper actually did a story on a widow who lost his house due to a tax balance less than $2 in a hot neighborhood.

why is people not knowing how to manage something somebody somebody else fault

+1 Getting really sick and tired of these types of excuses being used as examples of gentrification. Many of these people don't know how to manage finances and that is not anybody else's fault. Those with higher incomes shouldn't be tasked with figuring out how to help grown adults that never learned how to budget.

Oh how ignorance and selfishness rule the day.
Unequal schools
School to prison pipeline
Redlining
Predatory lending
Just to make a few of the factors that affect some of the residents being pushed out.
It never fails to amaze me how people live in this selfish narrow bubble thinking that everything they got everything they had opportunities to get to learn to achieve those exact same things or readily available to every single other person. I guess this whole college scam didn’t open your eyes to how much the system is rigged . Hello everybody didn’t get what you got everybody didn’t get to have what you had and there are a lot of hard-working good people who are not Paul Manafort or June and Ward Cleaver whose very financial stability teeters on shaky ground .These are people who work hard whose families have worked hard , whose grandparents and parents , some of whom couldn’t even vote when they were coming up, some who were not allowed to live anywhere else could only work certain places, don’t have the luxury and the privilege of generational wealth and the gifting of a house down payment .
You can pound sand.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A lot of AAs haven’t made out like a bandit, their opportunity for generational wealth via real estate was actually ripped from them. Plenty of forclosures and developer low balls are responsible for the houses transferring ownership. I know of a few cases some years back of elderly people losing their home for not being able to pay their rising property taxes on time because of a limited income. The paper actually did a story on a widow who lost his house due to a tax balance less than $2 in a hot neighborhood.

why is people not knowing how to manage something somebody somebody else fault

+1 Getting really sick and tired of these types of excuses being used as examples of gentrification. Many of these people don't know how to manage finances and that is not anybody else's fault. Those with higher incomes shouldn't be tasked with figuring out how to help grown adults that never learned how to budget.

Oh how ignorance and selfishness rule the day.
Unequal schools
School to prison pipeline
Redlining
Predatory lending
Just to make a few of the factors that affect some of the residents being pushed out.
It never fails to amaze me how people live in this selfish narrow bubble thinking that everything they got everything they had opportunities to get to learn to achieve those exact same things or readily available to every single other person. I guess this whole college scam didn’t open your eyes to how much the system is rigged . Hello everybody didn’t get what you got everybody didn’t get to have what you had and there are a lot of hard-working good people who are not Paul Manafort or June and Ward Cleaver whose very financial stability teeters on shaky ground .These are people who work hard whose families have worked hard , whose grandparents and parents , some of whom couldn’t even vote when they were coming up, some who were not allowed to live anywhere else could only work certain places, don’t have the luxury and the privilege of generational wealth and the gifting of a house down payment .
You can pound sand.

But it is you pounding sand, think about it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Historically, some black families were actually fleeced not by their own families, but were displaced by the city. Check out the history of the Reno neighborhood near Tenleytown.

Is this happening now?

This is happening all over the D.C. area, not just in D.C. proper.

Fairfax County used tax rates to force stubborn farming families to move on. McNair Farm in Herndon is a good example. The farmer was forced to leave his farm because he could not afford to pay the ridiculous taxes.

Nice things in weak hands aren’t long for those hands. You can either step your game up or try to legislate human into being non-exploitive.

The person at the bottom of the Totem pole is cursed to carry the weight of those above them. You sound like you are tying to guilt people into being less heavy

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Where did all the African Americans go? I keep wondering this.

Are they going to PGC? Where are they going?

We aren’t going to pay 700k to live on a row house floor or pay $1m to live in a shitshack just to be around wealthy non-brown people.

I live in south Arlington simply for the diversity. Sadly it’s becoming less diverse as more people who are paying 50k over list move in.

We're in south Arlington too, for much that same reason. Sadly the day is coming when DC will no longer be very diverse at all. Within the next 10-15 years it's likely to be the place you go when you DON'T want diversity, and will be surrounded by UMC white residents. The diversity will have all moved out to the suburbs, and the idea of what's truly "hip" or "urban" will have dramatically changed. Absent a complete about-face on zoning and building density, I think there's no stopping that train.

What's gonna happen to all those "urban pioneers," who just had to have a DC address to prove how hip & liberal they are?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Historically, some black families were actually fleeced not by their own families, but were displaced by the city. Check out the history of the Reno neighborhood near Tenleytown.

Is this happening now?

This is happening all over the D.C. area, not just in D.C. proper.

Fairfax County used tax rates to force stubborn farming families to move on. McNair Farm in Herndon is a good example. The farmer was forced to leave his farm because he could not afford to pay the ridiculous taxes.

Nice things in weak hands aren’t long for those hands. You can either step your game up or try to legislate human into being non-exploitive.

The person at the bottom of the Totem pole is cursed to carry the weight of those above them. You sound like you are tying to guilt people into being less heavy

Whut? Have no idea what you're trying to say. Is this a translation from another language?