Gentrification

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May 5, 2002
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www.karliehustle.com
#1
It's happening in several major cities simultaneously.

Thoughts as to why?

From Bed Stuy, Brooklyn to East Oakland, shit is changing and fast.

What becomes of the culture of a city long-term when you push out the poor, and often, Black residents?

How has gentrification hurt or benefited you?
 

GHP

Sicc OG
Jul 21, 2002
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#3
Big Gentrification in Phoenix ever since the economy began to turn around. They have been revitalizing historically sketchy areas for the last 5 years or so. I see it as a good thing because I remember downtown Phoenix was just a place where people went to work and went home, the whole area was dead after 5pm aside from the homeless crazys walking the streets. Now there is a ton of bars, restaurants, nightlife, and people out spending money and helping the economy.

Not unlike the last season of South Park, real estate investors have been revitalizing old Phoenix neighborhoods and re branding them as historical districts. Alot of these area were historically shitty but the revitalization efforts have turned a lot of these areas around with the extension of the city's lightrail system. I just closed on a home in North Central Phoenix close to an area called Cristown that is experiencing a big makeover, alot of people are sipping the kool aid buying into to these rehabilitated areas making the neighborhoods progressively better by increasing the number of employed young professionals moving into these areas.

If it wasn't for these revitalization projects I probably would have ended up moving back to a go nowhere neighborhood in the West Valley where housing is more affordable. Many people will eventually get priced out of living out of Central and East Phoenix and end up moving to the West Valley as result of the revitalization efforts happening in the salvageable parts of Phoenix. The cost of living in Phoenix is very affordable compared to the Bay Area or New York and most can afford to comfortably live here in a 2 income household.
 
Apr 25, 2002
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#4
I think theres a lot of layers and reasons we are seeing so much gentrification.

1. We've now gone a generation or more of people who don't marry in their 20s which means there's more people living single. Additionally, the people living single aren't focused on children and families, so they want to be closer to leisure activities.

2. Americans work harder than ever. More Americans want to live closer to their work or near reliable transportation than have a nice home in the suburbs.

3. Its our capitalist economy at work. Those with the money have the power to live where they want, and the expense of other people.

4. The demographics you see in major American cities reflect a global economy. NY, LA, SF, etc. are permanent destinations for corporate executives and investors from Europe and Asia. So Joe down the street doesn't only have to compete with Frank down the street who has more money than him, but Ming from Bejing who is a billionaire. So when Ming buys the SoDoSopa $1M condo from Southpark, Frank buys the house Stan lives in, and Stan and his family move out of town.

5. To kind of build on that, as we've built free trade the past 30 years, we didn't put in the proper safety nets to take care of people at home. There wasn't job training when manufacturing went away. Today, when you look at highly skilled white collared jobs, American schools don't prepare citizens to take those jobs. Despite computer science and engineering and life science driving the economy we don't even teach kids how to use Excel and read data in high school. If we do, its not to a proficient level.

So what you actually see in major cities are workplaces where the most elite Americans from Ivy League or Stanford / UC schools compete against the most elite Indians / Chinese / Asians / Africans etc. I work for a global consulting firm in San Francisco. At least 30% of our employees are not from the US. So when we all take a picture together, its really cute. We talk about diversity and how great we are at it - but the reality is the black and latino and asian people you see in the picture are actually from very wealthy families across the globe and not from America.

As important as race is in a lot of things we're seeing a global gap between "haves" and "have nots" opening wider than it ever has been. That disproportionately affects certain races more than others, but it affects the whole country as well. I'm not going to digress too much more on this point except to say if you look past all the bigotry and ignorance of the Donald Trump campaign, one of the underlying epiphany's of his constituents are that America has left them behind. I wouldn't compare the plights of his constituents to minority America but they realize they've been voting Republican for their whole lives and the entire time the Republicans have just taken advantage of them and not prepared them for the way the world has changed.

6. There is an American idea that is basically "be who you want to be" or "You can be anything you want in life" etc etc. I don't necessarily subscribe to that being true, but I think there is something be be said that not everybody wants to be a business consultant or a lawyer or an accountant or a doctor, etc. But if Americans don't choose those jobs, someone else will.

We need children to be better prepared for what they want to do in life earlier - because across the globe other kids are training to be engineers by the time they are 15. There's a little bit of personal responsibility for people and families to lead their children in a direction to success because the government sure as hell isn't going to do it.

7. The cost of living indicator that is driving most people out of major cities is housing. So you have an explosion of people wanting to move to major cities, but you don't have a supply to match that explosion. In fact in major cities, governments and people are actually blocking some housing.

Its all a really complicated framework in my opinion, and I only figured I would share so much since I grew up in SF and I have lived in the Mission now for over a decade. If you read anything from major newspapers to the New Yorker, my neighborhood is considered the epicenter for gentrification. I remember how it was in the 90s, and it was different than the 2000s when I moved in, and now is different than it was 4 years ago. On one hand, many long time residents are happy that its much safer, unemployment is the lowest in the country, and longtime business owners are seeing better revenue. And on the other hand, a lot of community centers, restaurants, and cult bars that catered to a certain person have dissapeared. Theres a certain "sterilization" you see in the businesses that replace them: expensive small plate restaurants with $15 cocktails. As to whether you believe it helps or hurts, I've been blessed with rent control, or else I would have left long ago.

But personally one thing I believe from seeing it happen in front of me is it really can't be stopped.
 

GHP

Sicc OG
Jul 21, 2002
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#8
^ care to elaborate on your thoughtful and educated series of posts?

I personally think the "War on Poverty" is some "cracker shit" designed by democrats who secretly want to keep the lower economic class dependent on the government in an effort to control them. Social welfare programs hurt more people than they help by enabling people into a perpetual state of hand to mouth by mother government. It irritates me to death that people with no jobs and no aspirations to find work can play the system and live and eat better than many middle class people working for their money. I'm sure alot of people on this site may have differing opinions on the subject but that is how I see it.
 
Apr 4, 2006
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www.myspace.com
#10
It's happening in several major cities simultaneously.

Thoughts as to why?

From Bed Stuy, Brooklyn to East Oakland, shit is changing and fast.

What becomes of the culture of a city long-term when you push out the poor, and often, Black residents?

How has gentrification hurt or benefited you?
You mean capitalism....

Er some places are shitty holes then people create businesses and then "minorities" get offended for turning their shit holes into busiensses?

Or does it mean how people dress?

hahahhahahhahahahhahahha..

I call it faggot shit..

Lets translate this idea into English: "I want my hood to be ghetto shit because ghetto shit is culture"..

Fuck...