Anne McC wrote:
What is gentrification? I hear the term alot. It gets tossed around whenever someone starts talking about cleaning up the neighborhood or making improvements like the changes in this ordinance.
I apologize in advance for the length.
People are confused about gentrification, obviously, that's why it gets thrown around. Here's the definition I use: When a blue/pink collar working class neighborhood is no longer affordable for the working class people who have lived in it for years and their children cannot afford to live there once they grow up, that's gentrification. Ergo, the entire neighborhood gets dispersed, leaving it to the wealthier, the only ones left who can afford it.
For example, in Phillips, particularly, houses were built 100 years ago on 22' lots. They were 16' wide "shotguns." Some of them had no basements. Some got very poor care for whatever reasons. Those have been coming down. However, it's no longer legal in Mpls. to build on a 22' lot, nor is a 16' house legal. That means, if I have a shotgun, but the one next door has come down, no new house can be built. Either the city splits the lot between two neighbors, or it becomes a walk through and reconnaissance opportunity for every schmuck casing the area with an illegal agenda.
If all the rules for new housing starts incrementally cut out more and more blue and pink collar families, the neighborhood defaults to the gentrifiers. Next thing you know, some guy with bigger dreams wants to buy out the shotgun in good repair so he can build a bigger house because he has more money. The city, always greedy for more cash, starts raising the taxes cause these houses are 'so much nicer, newer, wider, more upscale than the housing already in situ'. Even if Joe or Jane Lunchbox can amass a bigger lot, the materials and amenities have so skyrocketed it means he/she can't afford to build. They move away from Mom and Dad who live one street over. Coincidentally (?) we're spending wads of cash to retrofit the Sears Tower to 16' wide condo/lofts.
McLaughlin's train, now a reality, is only the first baby step toward having a real transportation system, something we have not had to date because, for the most part, we have allowed the heavy rail trains to go to pot; then rely on the auto and the airplane to carry us here and there.
The same is true with regard to garages, off street parking, large numbers of windows, etc. All of those things discourage the strivers among the populace. Windows are expensive to buy and cost in heat, space for cars is expensive, but the bus has been cutting service for 30 years. It means the inner city is getting gentrified to move the working class away to the burbs where it's expensive to live during and after an oil war, a war that has been pretty much predictable since the 70s.
The people who are being driven out of the neighborhoods are the strivers, the very people you want to have in a city. They cost less in police and emergency services because they live frugal, quiet lives, having no other choice. They go to work, their kids go to school. They pick up their trash and that of others. It defeats any large or small attempts (NRP or foundation adoption, urban 'renewal') to bring order out of the chaos left by red lining, the building of interstate highways through cities, and other initiatives that were not always well thought out (interstate highways) or abandoned (Pilot City, NRP) before they could reap even one generation of benefits.
I agree whole-heartedly with Eric Oines' take on vinyl siding. Beyond that, it does not perform well in this climate from what I have observed. However, it does not help to put the burden on the end user. Vinyl as a material should be stopped at the point of manufacture. The way Mpls. is dealing with new construction feeds gentrification; stopping production of vinyl does not need to, and better, though inexpensive materials come to the fore.
Gentrification is another form of urban removal. It is not surgical in usage, but scatter shot and guaranteed to build more walls among residents rather than making community more possible. If the house next to me goes down and a new buyer comes in and creates a 32' wide palace, then suddenly my abode is seen as no longer up to snuff. The pressure is on me with my tiny income to spiff up in ways that cost a fortune. Because I'm next door suddenly my taxes go up once the cost of construction finds its way onto the tax rolls. Time goes by and the city decides to repave the street and socks me with a gargantuan bill that I cannot handle.
How do I feel? I've put 30 good years into the neighborhood and done my fair share of keeping it in order, helping to bring order back after city , state, and federal benign and deliberately mean neglect, but now it's a different story.
Someone with heavy pockets can buy me out and I'll make a lot of money. True. Doesn't mean squat compared to living among my long time neighbors. We know each other, we know who to trust about what, we can, at times, work together in spite of ourselves, we try not to cause any trouble for police, inspectors, etc.
And yes, some new people moving into the neighborhood have promoted gentrification. And some long timers have gone along with it, too late realizing that they've helped create a monster. Now many folks around here cannot even remodel because it requires permits and each remodel associated permit results in a rise in taxes. They might could put vinyl or aluminum siding on the house to make it look better, but the taxes make it foolish to do.
I'm saying, and brought up the subject, because the whole system we use to judge and contend with city life and infill and intact neighborhoods is cockeyed and serves no one's interests well.
Ann asks for an affordable middle ground. The question has always been affordable for whom? If my city council member subscribes to gentrification, and what I have heard from his mouth and observed him to do leads me to say that he does subscribe to gentrification, then I have no avenue of redress for what is a substantially unfair burden. If my neighborhood organization agrees with the council member, another avenue of defense of the value of community dissolves. If I were the only one, it would be a small thing. However, gentrification adversely affects a whole lot of people in my neighborhood and the surrounding neighborhoods. So I'm harboring a great big negative attitude toward some of my neighbors and the mayor and the council who are OK with gentrification.
There is a lot of blame to go around, but in the midst of it R. T. is a disaster for those of us trying to navigate these rough waters without salaries like his family has. His morph of MCDA into CPED only compounded the issue by a big digit number squared. The council, the park and rec board, the library board likewise. Of course the gov. and the pres. have made it clear they don't give a rat's patootie about anything but their privilege and their ability to flaunt it and lord it over others. It's not just a class issue, but one of a lot of people who are all crass, no class.
WizardMarks, Central
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