Development
Gentrification east of the river, pt. 1: Organic and inorganic
At the East of the River Community Forum on Sustainability last week, old residents, new residents, black people, white people, middle class people, lower class people, students, professionals, retirees, childless, parents, grandparents, pastors, community leaders, and more discussed the theme, "Gentrification east of the river."
"Gentrification" is one of the most overused, misused, abused, over-utilized, misapplied word in the US, especially in DC. Nevertheless, it is always there during any discussion about change in the city.
We agreed that long-time residents have left and new people have moved in. We also agreed that communities, like life, are constantly changing. After much debate, we identified two types of change: organic and inorganic.
Organic change means change that happens in a community naturally. Some long-time residents leave an area because they want to leave. It could be for a job opportunity, need for change of scenery, wanting to downsize after the children leave the home, wanting more space for a growing family, desire to be closer to loved ones, and the list goes on. People move into a community for the same reasons some people move out, in addition to affordability and others. Organic change usually just happens. There is nothing specific that causes it.
Inorganic change is artificial change. There is a systematic and purposeful effort of some sort that is a catalyst and some times the force behind the change. For example, the redevelopment of Barry Farm from solely public housing to a mixed-income, mixed-use development is an example of an inorganic change. There is a specific plan that will intentionally change the landscape of that community. Some residents will return once the project is complete, however, there is a reality that some residents will be relocated to other parts of the District.
Are either of these types of change good or bad? Is one better than the other? And does it matter?
As my group learned after our 5-hour pow-wow in a corner, trying to pontificate an answer to these questions distracts from more important issues. One of those is "economic development," a theme I will address in the next part.
Cross-posted at Life in the Village.
 | Veronica O. Davis, PE, has over 9 years of experience in planning transportation, urban areas, civil infrastructure, and communities. She co-owns Nspiregreen, LLC, an environmental consulting company in DC. She is also the co-founder of Black Women Bike DC, which strives to increase the number of Black women and girls biking for fun, health, wellness, and transportation.   |
Comments
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by Canaan on Nov 8, 2010 1:15 pm • link • report
At what point does that change reflect an inorganic phenomenon. The blacks who flock to their old in town churches on sunday chose to leave (for the most part) judging by thier cars. I don't say there shouldn't be any less aggita about this change any more than fifty years ago when some of these neighborhoods where predominantly white, but to cast judgements on people exercising their right as Americans to live where they see fit seems divisive and mean spirited. Yes, greedy developers will strive to make money in the process, but unless we adopt a communist styled economy, greed is here to stay.
Let's try to help the people stay who want to stay, but there's no reason to castigate people when they chose to live where they want or insinuate some kind of conspiracy.
by Thayer-D on Nov 8, 2010 1:16 pm • link • report
If the current redevelopment plans for Barry Farm are inorganic, then what would organic change in Barry Farm look like?
I'm not sure such change is possible due to Barry Farm's very nature - it is a publicly owned housing complex. The current state of the facility is a direct result of public policy - that is, public ownership of the land and structures, rented out at subsidized rates, etc.
Change could take many forms. It could be a policy change - renting at market rates, for example. Perhaps the individual land parcels could be sold off one by one, with current renters getting the chance to buy first. Perhaps it stays as public housing, but the exact affordability levels change. Perhaps the demographics of people that rent the affordable apartments change, too.
The issue is - most of those changes aren't organic at all, they're public policy decisions. On the other hand, shifting demographics would likely be part of much larger social trends for the District as a whole.
So - if the land is sold off to a developer who builds market-rate units on the site, that would be inorganic change. But is it inorganic because of the type of change, or was the very nature of the public use (holding the site below its potential market value and use) inorganic in the first place?
As you note, this is a very difficult question to answer.
by Alex B. on Nov 8, 2010 1:49 pm • link • report
Now onto inorganic change. The City is going to redevelop Barry Farm into a mixed-use, mixed-income community. In order to redevelop, families will be moved out in phases so buildings can be torn down and rebuilt. Let's say that 500 families will move back and 500 families do not move back. Then 500 new people will move in. Therefore there was a "force" in place that has changed the community.
To simplfy organic change is change that happens because of a choice. Inorganic change is change that happens because something forces people out (aka displaced) from their residence.
The purpose of this is to examine the two main reasons why communities change. I'm not making an argument for either as gentrification. I will provide a definition for gentrification in a later in the series.
by MIss V on Nov 8, 2010 2:12 pm • link • report
Maybe it even cures cancer.
by Redline SOS on Nov 8, 2010 3:11 pm • link • report
People couldn't CHOOSE to leave and be replaced, because as public housing market rate people (i.e. gentrification) would be blocked from moving in....inorganically.
by John on Nov 8, 2010 4:28 pm • link • report
All... I apologize for all my typos... I was trying to multi-task too many things at once.
by MIss V on Nov 8, 2010 5:28 pm • link • report
Off the top of my head, it's hard to think of an inorganic change since the practice of redlining has been outlawed and the policy of massive public housing projects has been rejected.
I look forward to the remainder of this series.
by Fritz on Nov 8, 2010 6:53 pm • link • report
by transatlantic on Nov 8, 2010 7:21 pm • link • report
Calling such displacements "organic" or "inorganic", like people are vegetables, does yourself and your readers disservice because it veils the underlying reason. Such as: family turnover; redevelopment; zoning changes; eminent domain takings for a large project; etc. It also contains a none-too-subtle bias -- everybody know organic vegetables are better. Obscuring the root fogs your own thinking and de-focusses the debate.
I suggest you revise your terminology to "internally driven turnover" (=organic) and "externally driven displacement." (=inorganic). Or something else that is neutral. I am not sure that all externally driven displacements are a bad thing.
by goldfish on Nov 9, 2010 12:15 am • link • report
by MIss V on Nov 9, 2010 12:35 am • link • report
Perhaps these matters also need to consider direct and indirect. A brand new employer is totally exogenous, yet the resulting market-driven influx of residents is less direct than a public housing complex being rebuilt.
by Jim Titus on Nov 9, 2010 6:05 am • link • report
Gentrification makes neighborhoods safer. Improves property values. Improves city services.
Maybe it even cures cancer.
I figure you are being facetious, however, except for that last line, you gave the sad truth. City leaders(mostly black) jump into action(to provide more adequate services, improve neighborhood infrastructure, etc) as soon as a significant measure of gentrification(whites moving in) happens. Many people want to think that we are now in a post racial time in America, but it ain't necessarily so.
by KevinM on Nov 9, 2010 7:54 am • link • report
We've had 40 years of government policy specifically designed to shape neighborhoods and the city generally as primarily a haven for the very poor, with the middle class and above barely tolerated, primarily as a source of revenue.
Once you have that as stated and unofficial government policy for 40 years I'd say the whole ball of wax is so skewed that we could have 40 years of 'gentrification' and we'd just only be getting back to some balance.
by Hillman on Nov 9, 2010 9:59 am • link • report
Police crackdowns on drug trafficking, or cleaning out crack-houses or implementing and enforcing "clean or lien" regulations that speed up re-occupation of foreclosed and abandoned housing are all a type of gentrification that most people would agree with, if not support.
The public policy debate here is about what I coined as "gentri-placement." Gentrification PLUS DISPLACEMENT, in other words.
And, as someone with 36 years in the urban ( and transportation)planning profession, I have a "sugar simple" yardstick for most forms of gentrification, ESPECIALLY when it is what you might call "transit-oriented gentrification."
If my mother can live in the area on her retired US Government worker's income after all the Good Works have been done, then it is gentrification. If she cannot, then it was gentri-placement and was something that should have been avoided.
Harold E. Foster; AAG—ProfGeog; AICP
Acting Executive Director
The Amériças Institute
Petworth
Washington, DC
by Harold Foster on Nov 9, 2010 11:09 am • link • report
by Thayer-D on Nov 9, 2010 11:33 am • link • report
by David Alpert on Nov 9, 2010 11:35 am • link • report
I for one can generate absolutely no sympathy for the "hardworking white-collar people who only make a few hundred thousand dollars a year" and are getting squeezed out of their desired neighborhoods. Geez, that's just poetic justice as far as I'm concerned. After all, nobody making a few hundred thousand dollars a year is actually "earning" it- they are all some manner of robber baron, pushing paper, ruining other folks lives and not caring one iota. Now that's my opinion, but I'm sure it's a minority opinion around this blog.
Thayer-D hit the nail on the head; folks making that kind of money are not "working class"- in other words, they don't really work. They make money, lots of it, but that's not work, it's highway robbery. So-called "white collar" work, and by that I mean lobbying, corporate law, Wall Street and banking among quite a few other professions, are just so much thievery.
These close-in city neighborhoods ought to be reserved for the teachers, police and firefighters, who by-the-way should be required to live in the city(but that's another issue), carpenters and plumbers, etc.- real hard working folk, but of course the gentrifiers(regular yuppies and the "exceedingly affluent powder-wigged aristocrats") have already priced them out and pushed them out to the "ninth ward". But that's just what I think...
by KevinM on Nov 9, 2010 12:03 pm • link • report
#ironyfail
by oboe on Nov 9, 2010 12:14 pm • link • report
LMAO!!!
by KevinM on Nov 9, 2010 12:49 pm • link • report
Barry Farm (no "s" by the way) is a NEIGHBORHOOD and not just a public housing comples. There are single family homes, condos, and apartments in addition to the public housing complex. Barry Farm Dwellings. I happen to know that "organic" change is happening there and has been happening. People do buy homes there, I know a few who live there.
Also can we stop assuming that all the new people that are moving in are white (why it matters I still don't know), there are white people who are moving (or returning) to Ward 8 (the Barry Farm neighborhood no less) but by far these "newcomers" (of which I would include myself) are brown and most of us our first time homebuyers *gasp* and what you may call colledge educated professionals *double gasp*.
I think What Miss V was pointing out (and much better than I could) is that this "gentrification" thing looks different to a lot of people and I would wager no one is right but at the end of the day, what difference does it make? People are not going to stop moving where they can afford to live (thank goodness) and hopefully everyone who wants to stay can afford to stay although I think we are a very long way off in EotR of anyone being priced out, we have far too many vacant properties.
I like to think EotR is finally on track to being what it once was and if that makes me a gentrifyer, I am cool with that.
My 2 cents.
by The Advoc8te on Nov 9, 2010 1:00 pm • link • report
The anti-gentrifiers forget that DC's prices (housing/ food / etc.) were *inorganically* (artificially) held low by the DC Government under the Barry/Kelley administrations. I.e. there was a deliberate government policy to hold down prices and economic development so that the "poor" wouldn't feel poor.
If you confine your discussion bubble to what has happened only in DC, the economic development can feel like radical change. If you stop treating DC as the personal fiefdom of the aggrieved, you realize that what is happening is simply the inevitable back fill of a poor economic policy.
by DC RES on Nov 9, 2010 1:09 pm • link • report
White flight into the suburbs (and then the second-ring suburbs) is/was bad.
Wealthy whites moving BACK into the cities is also bad.
Which way do you want to have it? Or in other words, where do you want to the wealthy to live?
by EJ on Nov 9, 2010 2:55 pm • link • report
But why do property taxes change wildly from year to year? That is entirely in the government's control. Property taxes should not change on a property until the next time it is sold (or transferred to heirs after death). That would let someone live there on the same income if they're a homeowner, and take the uncertainty out of the price of homeownership. It would also take the government out of the business of 'deciding' what a house is worth. It's worth what it sells for, not what someone assesses it for. Why does no city government do this? If the government isn't making enough money they can increase the percentage of the tax without having to change hundreds of thousands of valuations, which will have an equal effect city wide.
by Brian White on Nov 9, 2010 4:16 pm • link • report
by the truth on Nov 12, 2010 4:57 pm • link • report
No one on here, in my opinion, knows what their talking about. This is all hypothetical. As a current resident at Barry Farms I feel that I should correct the point of view that is constantly casted on this geographical and historic landmark.
I am a single mom of 4 sons. I am a full time student and is employed in the public relations field (housekeeping,babysitting,entertainment for weddings,funerals, etc. ).
I Never wanted to come here! From the infamous rumors i heard and the news- I figured my sons and i were gone... Surely. After 2 1/2 years, i realize that its just like any other neighborhood. You have disruptive folks and folks who are actually gratiful God blessed them with Any type of home whatsoever. As I am writing this, We( THE RESIDENTS) are having meetings weekly about the times to come. Mainly because fir a lack of better phrasing.... we smell a snake and we think we're gonna get dicked! Dicked out of our homes; our fair-non dictated options of affordable accomendations and in quickly reacting to a seemingly "good deck of cards" we will ultimately remove ourselves from the datebase of housing altogether. We are scared. Even wuth steady income and loans- I still can not afford market rent for me and my boys.
There alot of working productive one and two parent, sonetimes three parent homes making due the best wat they can. Just to be kicked out and given two options to go to, which are a BlockAway from the original site!? Help the ones that actually want better! Give us afair chance! Inorganic change is whats happening here. It was a Great example but here another one, in our nation's capitol...
H street. H street has been predominately african american for Years! Instantly when the price of living goes up, foreigners to the area are able to find affordable housing And get bank loans and grants/tax write offs to built properities in my our backyard....
The whole demographical change that happened overnight is FORCED! It creates a sense of paranoia simply because there were and still are ample and able bodies who want to experience the whole essence of the american dream. The entrepeuneurship of it; the feeling of security and TRUE OWNERSHIP. All minorities in DC are nervous. And it shouldn't be that way. Agree or disgree with me- I could care less.
Just be civil
by Louvenia on Mar 21, 2012 11:44 pm • link • report
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