Displacement mapping

Submitted by Amanda Fritz on August 31, 2007 - 9:22am.

The Mercury and Bus Project held a forum a couple of weeks ago on "Gentrification". I noticed when viewing Matt Davis's photographs on Blogtown that all three speakers and the majority of the audience were not people of color. Isn't at least part of the problem of gentrification about displacing minorities?

It's been a while since that event, but displacement is an issue that's been festering for decades, and few signs of improvement have been documented. Matt said in his report, "[Metro President] David Bragdon [who was moderating] began by asking: “Well, isn’t gentrification not such a bad problem to have? There’s a lot of inner city housing in other cities in the country, and nobody wants to be there. But in Portland we have an intentional strategy to revive our inner-city neighborhoods. The question is, isn’t managing the signs of growth and prosperity a whole lot better than having to manage decay?""

That may be your question, President Bragdon, but it isn't mine. I think perhaps one of the reasons concerns with gentrification and displacement persist is that many people, particularly politicians, tend to blow them off. "Gentrification = neighborhood improvement = increased property taxes = more revenue, more affluence" often seems to be the philosophy, with the "tough luck to those forced out" left unspoken.

To me, the question is about the people who don't profit from growth and prosperity; why that is that? And what can and should be done to correct historical and new inequities, particularly with respect to people of color who suffered and continue to suffer disproportionately from them? It seems to me having at least one Portlander who's experienced those inequities on the panel of speakers would have promoted a more progressive discussion of both questions and answers.

In contrast, the Tribune published an interesting article by Jennifer Anderson recently on displacement, including profiling a person directly affected by rising property values in an urban renewal area. Even rarer, the Trib published a follow-up article the following week, telling the response to the evicted man's plight and offering some additional perspective. Good work, Jennifer and the Tribune.

People who are concerned about shifts in who can afford to live where in the Portland metropolitan region, and which services are provided in different neighborhoods, may be glad to know the Coalition for a Livable Future's Equity Atlas is finally printed and available. It shows changes in census information over ten years between 1990 and 2000. It contains both maps and analysis, such as: "Home ownership rates by all communities of color have declined in the region since the 1970s. Areas with the highest gap in home ownership between communities of color and whites are distributed throughout the region, thus it is not only a Portland problem." It's a fascinating book, and a helpful tool for anyone wanting to understand facts and trends on gentrification and displacement, before leaping into questions and solutions. You may purchase it on line for mailed delivery here.

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"'The question is, isn’t
Submitted by Michael5000 on August 31, 2007 - 1:29pm.
"'The question is, isn’t managing the signs of growth and prosperity a whole lot better than having to manage decay?' That may be your question, President Bragdon, but it isn't mine." Fair enough, but it IS a reasonable question. People who are against gentrification often pretend that community stability is an inherently good thing. Sometimes community stability is just a great big poverty trap. I think about those dying little Midwestern and Southern towns that so many of our grandparents and great-grandparents came from. As economic forces made it impossible for people to afford to live in those places -- through loss of income, rather than increase in rent, but the result is the same -- communities were torn apart by a gradual exodus. Sad? Sure. But for many of those who left, it was the best thing that ever happened to them. Certainly we their descendents breathe a sigh of relief.
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In 2001, I moved to the
Submitted by karichisholm on August 31, 2007 - 2:37pm.
In 2001, I moved to the Alberta Street area. Highly aware that my partner and I were the classic middle-class white people moving into an that traditionally had a large African-American population, I tried to take notice of the neighborhood around me. One day, I said hello to the neighbor across the street - a sixty-something African-American woman. She told me she'd lived there for 35 years. I said, "Wow. You've certainly seen a lot of change around here in recent years." I was alluding, gently, to my sensitivity as being part of the gentrification. She picked up on immediately. She laughed, and said, "Honey, don't you worry about us. This used to be a nice middle-class family-friendly neighborhood. But then it got run over by gangs and drugs and some not very good neighbors. I'm just glad we're getting young families back here again." Now, I'm sure there are all kinds of perspectives on gentrification - but let's not always assume that all change is bad, nor that race is the most important issue to all people of color. Sometimes I wonder if well-meaning white liberals can be over-sensitive or are overcompensating on issues like this. I know that I do.
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On the same thread as the
Submitted by aaron on August 31, 2007 - 3:49pm.
On the same thread as the previous commenter... I'm a liberal, gay, white guy who bought a house in inner Northeast about 5 years ago. I definitely struggle with the possibility that I am a gentrifier, which in the eyes of some, is one step above an arsonist. Sure, change isn't always bad. I guess that my view is that when relationships in a neighborhood are altered due to people being pushed out -- not leaving for better things, but leaving because they can't afford the place they once did -- that's almost never a good thing. Responding to the first commenter's point, I don't agree that the willful destruction of Midwestern and Southern towns has, in the end, yielded a net benefit: those towns, however poor, had citizens that were far more engaged with one another and society in general than our current society. Granted, that trend certainly wasn't entirely responsible for our societal shift toward individualism. Maybe it was even a minor part of it... but the neighborhood resident-relationships that are lost as a result of gentrification are precisely those that are most needed in society today. This is stuff that money just can't buy.
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the neighborhood
Submitted by Amanda Fritz on August 31, 2007 - 11:32pm.
the neighborhood resident-relationships that are lost as a result of gentrification are precisely those that are most needed in society today. That is an excellent point. I think it's partly why I'm troubled by some of the debates, and who tends to speak in them... and the framing of the issues in terms of buildings and streetscapes and suchlike. Thank you for phrasing it as you did, Aaron.
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