Gentrification in DC
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Gentrification in DC Johanna Bockman Department of Sociology and Anthropology George Mason University Blog: Sociology in My Neighborhood: DC Ward 6 October 26, 2015
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Transcript of Gentrification in DC
Gentrification in DC
Johanna BockmanDepartment of Sociology and Anthropology
George Mason UniversityBlog: Sociology in My Neighborhood: DC Ward 6
October 26, 2015
Outline
• Definition of Gentrification• Data on Gentrification• Four Gentrification Myths and some of my
current research• What can be done?
Definition of Gentrification• Ruth Glass (1964): the replacement of working class
households by a “gentry,” by affluent middle-class households. • More generally, gentrification is the replacement of lower-
income residents and businesses with higher-income residents and businesses.– Gentrification reduces housing opportunities for
working-class people, and expands housing opportunities for middle-class people.
– It is part of a much larger economic, social, and spatial restructuring of the city for a new class, the gentry.
– This restructuring continues racial segregation.
1970 Census Tract - Average Family Income
www.socialexplorer.com
Capitol Hill
NWNE
SW
1980 Census Tract - Median Household Income (in 2000 dollars)
www.socialexplorer.com
ACS 2006-2010 Census Tract - Median Household Income
www.socialexplorer.com
%African American in 1980
%African American in 2010
%African American in 2013
DC Data• Population
– Today: 658,893; African American = 49%; White = 43.6%– 1980: 638,333; African American = 70.3%, White = 26.9%
• Income– Today: Median household income in DC = $65,830
• Today: Median household income in US = $53,046• Today: Median household income in Washington Metro Area = $109,200
– 1979: Median household income in DC = $16,211• 1979: Median household income in US = $16,841
• Poverty – Today: Poverty rate = 18.8% (US = 14.8%)– 1979: Poverty rate = 18.6% (US = 12.4%)Census Quick Facts, District of Columbia 2014: http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/11000.html; 1980 Census: http://www.census.gov/population/www/documentation/twps0056/tab23.pdf
Gentrification Myths
1. Gentrification is a new trend. 2. Gentrification is a DC trend. 3. Gentrification is a costless, positive trend. 4. Gentrification is inevitable.
1. Gentrification isn’t newFirst Wave: 1930s to early 1970s• 1930s: Georgetown• 1950s: Capitol Hill• 1950s and 1960s: Urban renewal in Southwest DCSecond wave: late 1970s to late 1980s• Washington DC “a city widely acknowledged as a
gentrification ‘hotbed’” (Lee, Spain, and Umberson 1985). • More corporate, more developers, public-private partnerships • Wealthier professional gentrifiersThird Wave: mid-1990s-now• Large-scale corporate developers of new build. • Wealthier business gentrifiers.
1. Gentrification isn’t new• My research on Navy Place and the Ellen Wilson
Dwellings.
–
1. Gentrification isn’t new. • Letter from Lydia Burklin, Friendship House, to John
Ihlder, head of National Capital Housing Authority, Aug. 16, 1935. “Since your visit here the other evening I have been thinking a good deal about our problem at Friendship House due to the increasing number of negroes in our immediately community. I also have been thinking of the possibility of developing a housing scheme for white people in Navy Place. The more I think of it the more eager I am that such an experiment be made. I believe it would change the character of quite a bit of the surrounding area.”NARA, RG 302 Records of National Capital Housing Authority, Records Regarding Alleys Considered and Not Considered for Reclamation. Box 4.
1. Gentrification isn’t new: Townhomes on Capitol Hill
Gentrification Myths
1. Gentrification is a new trend. 2. Gentrification is a DC trend. 3. Gentrification is a costless, positive trend. 4. Gentrification is inevitable.
2. Gentrification is global.
• In the 1970s and 1980s, cities experience severe fiscal crisis.– In 1975, NYC almost defaulted. – Federal government reduced funding to cities.
• Global urban strategy– Inter-urban competition: Cities compete with each
other for the new class and for corporate investments.
– Global hierarchy of cities.
Gentrification Myths
1. Gentrification is a new trend. 2. Gentrification is a DC trend. 3. Gentrification is a costless, positive trend. 4. Gentrification is inevitable.
3. Gentrification is costly• Individual costs
– homelessness– loss of community, mental and physical illness
• City-wide costs: a Divided City– Displacement and destruction of communities.– Reorganization of city for the wealthy.– Homogenization, the hollow city (Rebecca Solnit). – Revanchism: vengeful attitude by (often recently arrived)
professional middle class against those who have “taken our city from us”: African Americans, the working class, the poor, recent immigrants, and so on (Neil Smith 2002).
Revanchism: A Colonial AttitudeCapitol Hill Vigilantes:“If the ‘Hill’ is to be stabilized and preserved, that is just what we must become, and what we must remain.”
1963 Capitol Hill Restoration Society brochure, http://sociologyinmyneighborhood.blogspot.com/2012/08/capitol-hill-vigilantes.html
Gentrification Myths
1. Gentrification is a new trend. 2. Gentrification is a DC trend. 3. Gentrification is a costless, positive trend. 4. Gentrification is inevitable.
4. Gentrification isn’t inevitable
• Recognize that there is a political struggle over space in the city. • Governments, businesses, social movements, and residents have successfully
minimized displacement at some times (and not others).– In the early 1970s, Model Inner City Community Organization (MICCO) and other
programs in Shaw fought gentrification. – In 1974, Capitol East Community Organization (“local group committed to halting the
process of private urban renewal and preserving the rights of the renters in the community”) with the Adams-Morgan Community Organization approached city council members, who introduced Real Estate Transaction Tax of 1975, commonly called the Speculator Bill.
– Today: • Displacement-Free Zones (Dulchin 2003/2004)• Work with renters: http://righttothecity.org/cause/rise-of-the-renter-nation/• EmpowerDC working in Ivy City and Barry Farm: http://www.empowerdc.org/• OneDC: http://www.onedconline.org/• Work to change the Area Median Income (AMI) calculation from the regional AMI ($109,200) to the
DC AMI ($65,830), which would allow for many more affordable units for very low-income individuals and families. “What is AMI?”
4. Gentrification isn’t inevitable• Look out for gentrification language:
– Inevitability. – Territorial stigmatization.
• Chaos, hell • Urine, rats
– Stigmatization of the poor.• Culture of poverty arguments. • Concentrated poverty arguments.
• Recognize that DC residents have made this city a great city and should be able experience the benefits.
Suggested Readings• Dulchin, Ben. 2003/2004. “Organizing Against Gentrification, Fighting the Free Market: The
Displacement-Free Zone Campaign.” Social Policy 34(2/3): 29-34.• Fullilove, Mindy. 2004. Root Shock: How Tearing Up City Neighborhoods Hurts America, and What We
Can Do About it. One World Books.• Gillette, Howard. 1995.
Between Justice & Beauty: Race, Planning, and the Failure of Urban Policy in Washington, D.C. U of Pennsylvania Press.
• Logan, John R. and Harvey L. Molotch. 1987. Urban Fortunes: The Political Economy of Place. UC Press. • Marcuse, Peter. 1985. “
Gentrification, abandonment and displacement: connections, causes and policy responses,” Journal of Urban and Contemporary Law 28: 195-240.
• Sassen, Saskia. 2005. “The Global City: Introducing a New Concept,” Brown Journal of World Affairs 11(2): 27-43.
• Shaw, Kate and Libby Porter, eds. 2009. Whose Urban Renaissance? An International Comparison of Urban Regeneration Policies. Routledge.
• Slater, Tom. 2011. “Gentrification of the City” or “Gentrification and the Displacement Question.” • Smith, Neil. 2002. “New Globalism, New Urbanism: Gentrification as Global Urban Strategy.” Antipode
34(3): 427-450.• Steinberg, Stephen. 2009. “The Myth of Concentrated Poverty.”
