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

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I agree with the folks who say that we have to build more/denser housing supply in the form of large buildings, but I think that we also need to find ways to build more housing that's similar in character to rowhouses/small multifamily. Not townhomes that are still in car-dependent separated developments (what's built now), but actual walkable and transit-oriented mixed use urbanism. The problem is that zoning makes it almost impossible to increase density in a lot of suburbs or in more suburban neighborhoods, and there's no land to build anymore of this kind of housing in already-urban neighborhoods. So a lot of lower-income folks, many of whom don't have cars or can't afford them, are displaced into neighborhoods that are built around cars in a way that systematically reduces their access to social services, social networks, etc.

Apartment/large building living is a very poor substitute for even attached home living for a lot of people. Clearly more people will need to choose to live in large buildings in the future if we want to keep close-in areas affordable. Not everyone will be able to afford to live in as close proximity to downtown as they might prefer. But even setting aside the loss of proximity associated with displacement by gentrification, there is a real loss of lifestyle associated with with being displaced from classic rowhouse neighborhoods. Meanwhile, the supply of that kind of housing is actually declining pretty rapidly, leading attached house prices to rapidly outpace inflation with little end in sight. It's not hard to understand why even people who don't appear to be financially harmed by gentrification might be unhappy about that loss of lifestyle.

Correct. We need both denser housing around transit, and denser housing in current single-family more suburban areas.
We also need denser housing in row home areas.
Steps we should take:
- Make it easier to build high around metro stops. We’re actually doing ok at this in some areas of DC. But in too many cases local opposition blocks construction or reduces height.
- Upzone single family suburban areas to build more densely
- upzone row house areas to allow pop ups or replacing two story row houses with 4 story row houses.

Answer is really: build more housing everywhere. More more more. Upzone everywhere. There is a huge supply crunch.

Oh, hi developer! Please don't include me in your "we need" pop-ups. Also, please stop with the phone calls and mailings. I'm not selling my house to you.
However, there's a big artery 2 blocks away, that happens to be very close to metro, and it's full of boarded 2-story buildings already zoned to be massive multi-units. So let get on that first - build all the 6 story buildings 2-5 blocks from metro that can be built.

PP here. Not a developer. At all. Just a YIMBY.

If we want lower priced homes in the DMV there is one big step we can take: upzoning, which will increase supply. Supply supply supply is the biggest problem. You don’t get to complain about pop ups and also complain about high prices or rents. Because they’re two sides of the same coin.
Height is still a problem in DC- look at the building near eastern market that got two floors chopped off of it because abutters complained to the zoning board.

ggwash.org
City lab
Strongtowns.org
All have more good things to read.

Can someone explain why we need unfettered population growth in DC? Not everyone who wants to graduate college & move to DC deserves a low-priced apartment in a great part of town.
I love that the GGWash crowd will decry the concept of "induced demand" when it comes to building roads and highways, but refuses to see development as a type of "induced demand" that lures people to the DC region. We have enough jobs, and enough people. Let the prices rise so that demand cools, and we can preserve the current quality of life with turning the city into Manhattan.

Speaking as an economist, there are two problems, really variants on the same problem. Both of them arise from the fact that allowing housing prices to increase is a transfer of wealth from potential homeowners to existing homeowners.

The first problem is about productive efficiency. If our hypothetical goal is to maximize the productive output of our economy, then we want the people to live in DC who have a comparative advantage in combining their own labor and knowledge with other local inputs (the labor and knowledge of others who live here, natural resources, etc.) to produce output. Of course, some of our local inputs exist in many other cities, but many of them just don't, especially because we're the seat of the Federal government which is fixed here. In a highly stylized model of the economy, when housing supply can adjust so that prices remain constant, people move to the city if they would prefer it to their next best alternative city. That means that the people who are unusually good at making use of DC's resources generally move here, because they can make more money here. But when prices rise because housing supply is fixed, some of those people instead decide to move to places were housing costs are lower, even though they would actually be more productive if they chose to live here. They are, in essence, misallocated. So, allowing housing prices to increase rather than building more housing is really not just a transfer of wealth to current owners, it actually reduces the amount of output in the economy, i.e. the amount of wealth to go around. This is what economists call a deadweight loss.

The second problem is intergenerational, and it's in some ways a more insidious problem. Letting housing prices rise is a wealth transfer from younger people to older people, because existing owners tend to be older. Younger people are still in a position to develop their human capital (e.g. education) in order to take best advantage of the opportunities available to them. But, by making housing more expensive in cities like DC, you make it less attractive for those young people to get the education that would make them more productive in places like DC in the future. Later on, when those people are older, they are less productive because of their lower human capital, and it is much more difficult for them to adjust. So, in effect, high housing costs in places like DC can have very long-lasting impacts.

There is some pretty good suggestive evidence that this is part of what's going on in America with our growing urban-rural divide and our declining rates of migration. In essence, it's so expensive to break into a city like DC that people just stay home, where they make much less money and they have fewer opportunities. That's a potentially large loss, because some of those rural kids might otherwise do great things one day. The problem here is potentially even worse, because DC has such a unique economy that can benefit from unique talents.

Hi Matt Yglesias!

[Anonymous]

I'm AA who has been in DC since 1991. Sometimes I feel like it's our fault too. I bought my first house in Brookland for $142K - renovated. All of our friends told us we were crazy bc we could buy in PG and get a huge house. We kept telling them that DC was a better investment.

At the time, black people didn't want to live in those smaller houses when you could get something 4x bigger in PG. Fast forward, I now own a difference house in Brookland, a new house in Ft. Totten and my ex lives in Colonial Village.

We watched the tea leaves and wanted a good investment. We couldn't convince our friends to do the same and now they complain about being priced out of the market.

[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.

I would normally agree with this, but the problem for me is that these are mostly elderly people. We should be protecting them more. We aren't talking about younger people making bad decisions. The elderly get scammed all the time and most jurisdictions do try to watch for this.

[Anonymous]

I try to get my black friends to buy EOTR. They don't want to. I remind them that when I moved to DC, Shaw was the HOOD! It's only a matter of time.

[Anonymous]

We will unfortunately have to leave DC for more space, but will rent our home purchased in 2008 EOTP.

Moving to PG is really our only option, but the taxes are giving us some pause.

Our younger kids of the opposite sex are sharing a room and as they age, this becomes an issue.

We both were born and raised in DC and graduated from DCPS and have parents who still reside here, and we are in tight communication on their taxes etc. Will will make sure their homes are lost due to the lack of knowledge.

[Anonymous]

PP here,

We will make sure their homes are NOT lost...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm AA who has been in DC since 1991. Sometimes I feel like it's our fault too. I bought my first house in Brookland for $142K - renovated. All of our friends told us we were crazy bc we could buy in PG and get a huge house. We kept telling them that DC was a better investment.

At the time, black people didn't want to live in those smaller houses when you could get something 4x bigger in PG. Fast forward, I now own a difference house in Brookland, a new house in Ft. Totten and my ex lives in Colonial Village.

We watched the tea leaves and wanted a good investment. We couldn't convince our friends to do the same and now they complain about being priced out of the market.

I'm 13:12 and share your same story almost as we bought in 2008, but my pre-marital home was in PG County while I was single and I still rent it out til this day. I decided to move back to the city as I saw the prices heading north and going above my budget so I made the leap and glad I did.

My college and HS friends school all bought in PG and although they have single family homes, their homes haven't appreciated much. We are considering a PG move, but will keep our DC property.

[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.

“Urban” is a code word for crime and other social ills.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I agree with the folks who say that we have to build more/denser housing supply in the form of large buildings, but I think that we also need to find ways to build more housing that's similar in character to rowhouses/small multifamily. Not townhomes that are still in car-dependent separated developments (what's built now), but actual walkable and transit-oriented mixed use urbanism. The problem is that zoning makes it almost impossible to increase density in a lot of suburbs or in more suburban neighborhoods, and there's no land to build anymore of this kind of housing in already-urban neighborhoods. So a lot of lower-income folks, many of whom don't have cars or can't afford them, are displaced into neighborhoods that are built around cars in a way that systematically reduces their access to social services, social networks, etc.

Apartment/large building living is a very poor substitute for even attached home living for a lot of people. Clearly more people will need to choose to live in large buildings in the future if we want to keep close-in areas affordable. Not everyone will be able to afford to live in as close proximity to downtown as they might prefer. But even setting aside the loss of proximity associated with displacement by gentrification, there is a real loss of lifestyle associated with with being displaced from classic rowhouse neighborhoods. Meanwhile, the supply of that kind of housing is actually declining pretty rapidly, leading attached house prices to rapidly outpace inflation with little end in sight. It's not hard to understand why even people who don't appear to be financially harmed by gentrification might be unhappy about that loss of lifestyle.

Correct. We need both denser housing around transit, and denser housing in current single-family more suburban areas.
We also need denser housing in row home areas.
Steps we should take:
- Make it easier to build high around metro stops. We’re actually doing ok at this in some areas of DC. But in too many cases local opposition blocks construction or reduces height.
- Upzone single family suburban areas to build more densely
- upzone row house areas to allow pop ups or replacing two story row houses with 4 story row houses.

Answer is really: build more housing everywhere. More more more. Upzone everywhere. There is a huge supply crunch.

The GreaterGreaterHogwash trickle-down argument is specious. The notion of building taller and denser to someone grow our way to affordable housing everywhere is a smoke screen for getting upzoning and special breaks for developers to build even more upscale flats and condos. Look at the rent controlled building in Cleveland Park which a developer has been emptying out of lower income tenants in order to build taller. This is a project supported by Ward3 Vision, yet the usual “urbanists” are strangely (but perhaps understandly) silent about this loss of truly affordable housing in a safer area with good schools and access to transit .

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I try to get my black friends to buy EOTR. They don't want to. I remind them that when I moved to DC, Shaw was the HOOD! It's only a matter of time.

This is something we are considering. What are the reasons you are giving your friends? It’s just so much poverty in the places we’ve looked. What parts should we be looking in?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:this happens all over the country as areas redevelop and become more desirable

it's really just a class thing

I wish there were more middle class and higher black folks coming back to DC vs PG county to make this less of a racial issue

We are a middle class (250k HHI) black family and would love to come to DC from our hot nova neighborhood. The areas we think are most similar to where we live now are way too expensive in DC.

It still comes down to racial wealth inequality. Its also ingrained in the housing system, down to racist lending practices and house appreciation rates still happening today. I truly hate it all, but have no way to escape it.

Same HHI here and we live in NW. We're white(ish) and wish that there were more AA famlies in our neighborhood. There's quite a bit of diversity, but not the AA presence that would make it slightly more representative of our city. PP, people like me and my family make do with smaller spaces and 1 or no car. If you really like the city, you can make it happen. We have such a nice, easy lifestyle and tight knit community that I am hell bent on making it work here despite not being able to afford a SFH.

[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.

I would normally agree with this, but the problem for me is that these are mostly elderly people. We should be protecting them more. We aren't talking about younger people making bad decisions. The elderly get scammed all the time and most jurisdictions do try to watch for this.

I think that the proliferation of reverse mortgages in the mid 2000's has a lot to do with the lack of intergenerational wealth transfer via real estate in the district. When we were looking for a house, we focused on estate sale / fixer upper type houses as we knew that we'd want to customize our home and did not want to pay a premium for renovations that we would ultimately rip out. What we found is that many, if not most of these homes had a reverse mortgage on them, some of which were at such a high value that the house was listed as a short sale. I don't know if I'd put this in the category of a scam per se, as the owners did receive a cash payout that was likely a much needed benefit in their golden years (and in the instance of our house probably paid for the newer roof, HVAC upgrades, plumbing work, etc...) but the result was that after satisfying the second mortgage, closing costs and real estate commission, the sole heir who inherited our house who was hoping to stay in the property walked away with only $30k. Not surprising considering that this was back in the wild west period of mortgage regulation that tanked the economy back in '09. Does anyone know if this practice is still as widespread?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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?

Guess you don’t understand the word “subtle.” Gentrification made it easier for these things to happening subtle ways. Subtle. Get it?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I try to get my black friends to buy EOTR. They don't want to. I remind them that when I moved to DC, Shaw was the HOOD! It's only a matter of time.

Shaw is still the good, just pricy with micro breweries

[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!

I agree with you - there have been many positive changes, but negative or sad ones as well. One of the things I liked the most about Petworth when I moved here was how everyone greeted people walking by on the sidewalk, or calling down to the sidewalk from their porches. Most of the newer residents walk right past without saying anything. I find myself saying hello to anyone over 50 and walking past the younger ones...sigh. I also couldn't remotely afford to buy a home here now, but have been very happy to be part of this community.