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gentrification is wrong too


Trigger Mike

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my neighbor sent me a notification of the pending protest in our town where they want us to come out against "police brutality, injustice, systemic oppression, gentrification, black on black crime and racism". I had to look up gentrification.  I found out it is when you buy a run down property , especially in a run down area and fix it up and make it fit middle class standards and rent it out for higher rent and thus change the culture of an area.  

 

My first rental I bought was vacant for 5 years and needed lots of repairs, and I had a friend who lived in squaller in a trailer with holes in the walls, no heat during 25 degree winter, creepy neighbor looking at his 5 year old daughter and other issues.  I bought the run down house, fixed it up and rented it to him .  Then after he left over 2 years later I fixed it up even further like new and rented it out for even more.  I guess I am guilty of gentrification.  

 

The house at the end of my driveway went into foreclosure.  Termites had eaten one entire front wall, cheap metal roof leaked.  I fixed it up and made it new.  Guess I gentrified again.  How can fixing up a house or neighborhood be bad?  How can making your town look better and help people live in nice houses be wrong?  I figure if I take care of the house , the my tenant will also, if I don't care, why should they.  

 

I remember living north of Atlanta before the housing crisis, and older homes made in the 60s and 70s were being sold as the old people that lived there went to a muring home or elsewhere, and developers replaced them with houses worth over 700,000 on much less land.  It greatly improved the area and tax revenue and crime fell.  I didn't have a problem with that.

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It’s typically not bad. In some historically ethnic neighborhoods they developed a culture of their own that were neglected by mainstream society.

 

Yuppies do at times come in and sort of suck up the atmosphere where the neighborhood sometimes becomes outpriced for the original residents. Sometimes culture and the mom and pop feel disappears from the neighborhood.

 

I wouldn’t say you did anything bad. It’s just tricky.

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16 minutes ago, Whiskey Hicks said:

It’s typically not bad. In some historically ethnic neighborhoods they developed a culture of their own that were neglected by mainstream society.

 

Yuppies do at times come in and sort of suck up the atmosphere where the neighborhood sometimes becomes outpriced for the original residents. Sometimes culture and the mom and pop feel disappears from the neighborhood.

 

I wouldn’t say you did anything bad. It’s just tricky.

 

I was trying to figure out how to explain it, but I believe you sort of nailed it. The town I went to college in has become increasingly gentrified, losing much of the flavor and appeal of the small town atmosphere I found attractive, particularly in the downtown area.

Another concern with gentrification is that as the property values go up, the original residents are sometimes forced out, because they can no longer afford the property taxes and other costs.

Fixing up one home and making it better is not a problem, and I do believe that often if one person starts to fix up their place, others will also, at least to some extent. This is less gentrification and more civic / community pride.

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well gee, I've seen that all my life.  I recall a deacon when I was young that had a farm near the church and made homemade wine for communion and he died and Kroger moved in.  I recall farms and houses and a mall opened and it became typical retail and restaurants that surround a mall.  Land went from pricing by the acre to pricing by the foot in a short time.  

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They had a big issue with this in parts of Atlanta.  Grant Park is an area that has lots of old Victorian homes that had fallen into disrepair over the decades.  In the 1990's, young professionals started buying up the $70,000 houses and fixing them up.  Suddenly, it became very fashionable to fix up a house in Grant Park.  Now many of the restored houses go for $700,000+.  The tax assessments went up on surrounding properties which were occupied by elderly and/or minorities.    The substantial tax increases forced a lot of them to sell.  It changed the whole composition of the area.

 

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37 minutes ago, Sgt. C.J. Sabre, SASS #46770 said:

It all sounds like CAPITALISM to me.

Socialism will watch communities degrade but capitalist buy it and clean it up and makes life better and makes money doing it.   

 

If I buy a run down home, I will not rent it unless I would live there.   I sometimes rent high and if I feel bad about someone having problems,  I drop the rent to where they can afford it.   A friend once told me if I have a clean tenant,  do what I can to keep them.  Lower rent is better than no rent.  My wife disagrees but I rarely listen.  Having policed in Atlanta,  I wish the entire area was gentrified. 

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1 hour ago, Trigger Mike said:

well gee, I've seen that all my life.  I recall a deacon when I was young that had a farm near the church and made homemade wine for communion and he died and Kroger moved in.  I recall farms and houses and a mall opened and it became typical retail and restaurants that surround a mall.  Land went from pricing by the acre to pricing by the foot in a short time.  

 

Not quite the same thing. That would be more "urban sprawl." 

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47 minutes ago, Sgt. C.J. Sabre, SASS #46770 said:

It all sounds like CAPITALISM to me.

 

To an extent it is, I suppose. Now, I'm no economist, but it seems it could arguably be the residential equivalent of "vulture capitalism," creating a situation where those who can't afford to keep up can lose significantly, including savings, without even knowing they are in the game.

 

Imagine a situation where after, paying off your mortgage, you retire and are living on a fixed income. Suddenly, property values, prices in the area, and property taxes start going up, including those on your home, and you realize you need to sell, because you simply can't afford to stay. I know, you're saying, "but with no mortgage, it is pure equity in the home. You can find something similar elsewhere." But can you? Since your home is "dilapidated" compared to the standards of the other homes, and you need to sell, you may not see the price you want. Then you have to find a home that is cheap enough to be covered by that money you have. Maybe a nice house, in a nice neighborhood, maybe not. A mortgage is likely out of the question, because of that fixed income. Mortgage, property taxes, etc...  If you couldn't afford just one, why would you be able to afford both. Sure, there are winners and losers in capitalism. But being a loser when you didn't have a chance at being a winner, or even breaking even... I see it as hitting especially hard the elderly and working poor, who have no real way of competing.

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Well said, Doc and others.

 

My wife and I live in a historic urban neighborhood that came to life in the 1880s to 1920s.  Its culture has run the gambit from urban middle/upper class to downtrodden rental properties to the current diverse, revitalized, and renovated community.  

 

There are complex issues around such efforts in a community, and we actually see both sides and try hard to navigate to the greatest good.

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8 hours ago, Whiskey Hicks said:

It’s kind of like if a Starbucks replaces the hardware store your grandad took you to.

And in the next generation you are going to have grandparents taking their grandkids to Starbucks for coffee. Everything comes full circle (even bellbottoms)… eventually there will be a hardware store where the Starbucks used to be and all those grandkids are gonna go to the hardware store and look around and scratch their heads and ask what is all this stuff for?

 

:o

 

 

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I could be mistaken, but when they talk about gentrification, I believe they are talking about going into a low income area, buying up the properties and renovating them and then pricing them above what the original population could afford... which eventually forces all of the low income families out of the area.

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One of the best examples of gentrification I can think of is Santa Fe.

Some families that have lived there for literally hundreds of years have had to leave their ancestral homes because it has become trendy to the rich and famous to own a home there.

For many,property  taxes have risen to a point that those of low to middle income cant afford to keep the home that generations of their families have been raised in.

Seems like many urban areas went through this back in the seventies.Back then they called it "Urban Renewal".

Choctaw Jack 

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So, making improvements to your home, your life and equity is wrong? 
 

That all takes hard work, dedication and commitment. That’s not fair. Not everyone can commit to that.

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The only thing holding Santa Fe back is all the heroin addicts and vagrants laying  around, the out in the open drug dealing and trafficking, and the lack of a police presence.
 

Of course I see that in Decatur Ga everyday too.

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The whole issue with property values rising and causing people to be forced from their homes is something that will become an issue in more places even without gentrification.  Was a big issue in California in the late 70’s and prop 13 was passed to deal with it.  It caused a lot of unintended problems.  People ended up getting stuck in big houses because they couldn’t afford the taxes on a small one.  
 

I expect this will be an issue all states will have to address eventually.  When property values rise much faster than inflation it’s easy to force people out of their houses.   It’s happening now in Colorado.  The house I bought 20 years ago has doubled in value and so have the property taxes.   Luckily my income has gone up more. 

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7 hours ago, Dantankerous said:

And in the next generation you are going to have grandparents taking their grandkids to Starbucks for coffee. Everything comes full circle (even bellbottoms)… eventually there will be a hardware store where the Starbucks used to be and all those grandkids are gonna go to the hardware store and look around and scratch their heads and ask what is all this stuff for?

 

:o

 

 

Notice that I didn’t make any valid judgments about it, just an observation that’s it’s not a simple issue. 

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