Posts about Gentrification

Forum on TOD and housing in Prince George's, organized by the Coalition for Smarter Growth and Envision Prince George's featuring David Bowers of Enterprise Community Partners, Rodney Harrell of AARP, and developer Jair Lynch. Monday, July 11, 6:30-8:30 at the CSC Building, across from New Carrollton Metro station, 7900 Harkins Road, Lanham.

Circulator east of the river public meeting to present alternatives and get resident feedback on the route. Tuesday, July 12, 7-8:30 pm at the Southeast Neighborhood Library, 403 7th Street SE, DC.

Action Committee for Transit discussion about how White Flint advocates built support for Smart Growth, featuring Dan Hoffman and Barnaby Zall from Friends of White Flint. Tuesday, July 12, 7:30 pm at Silver Spring Center, 8818 Georgia Ave, Silver Spring, in the Woodside Conference Room.

Lunchtime workshop on Eco-City Alexandria with Bill Skrabak of the City of Alexandria and Joe Schilling of Virginia Tech discussing Alexandria's sustainability initiatives and community indicators developed based on best practices from around the country. Thursday, July 14, noon-1 pm at the Charles Houston Recreation Center, 901 Wythe Street, Alexandria.

Maryland Avenue SW plan public meeting to present draft recommendations for the CSX railway corridor between 4th and 12th Streets, SW, and adjacent property. Thursday, July 14, 6:30-8:30 at 1100 4th Street SW, DC in the 2nd floor meeting room.

St. Elizabeth's East public meeting to give feedback on land use and transportation concepts for the redevelopment of the east campus. Thursday, July 14, 7-9 pm at Imagine Southeast Public Charter School (Old Congress Heights School), 3100 Martin Luther King Jr. Ave SE, DC.

Takoma Langley Crossroads urban design guidelines discussion between the Planning Board and the community. The guidelines will govern development around the future Purple Line stop. Thursday, July 14, 7:00 pm at the Takoma Rec Center, 7315 New Hampshire Avenue, Takoma Park.

You can find these and many more events on the Greater Greater Washington calendar. If you know an event we should include, send it to events@ggwash.org.

Davidson listed advantages and disadvantages of gentrification. Advantages included an improved use of urban land, safer inner-city neighborhoods, higher tax revenues (to provide more funding for social safety net services such as rental assistance, energy assistance, emergency food assistance, and various other forms of assistance for the city's dependent population) and more business investment.

Among the disadvantages were a displacement of residents, a loss of community identity, and a shift of financial services (from high concentrations of social service expenditures to more recreational and cultural expenditures).

From a strictly economic definition of gentrification, statistics demonstrate that as an area's ethnic identity becomes "whiter," there is a corresponding increase in median household income thus indicating the process is gaining a foothold, according to the panel. This assertion makes logical sense, but, however factually accurate or inaccurate, operates under the dangerous and loaded axiom that people of color are poor and people not of color are wealthy.

This default position often forms the fault line and negotiating position from which conversations at community meetings deteriorate into us versus them sessions leaving people to feel more dejected than they did before attending.

Although the assembled group, almost entirely African-American with a majority female, acknowledged it is "dangerous to say that gentrification is not a race issue," the consensus held strongly that gentrification more closely correlates with economics.

"We over simplify the conversation by looking strictly at a race breakdown. We clamor to define it instead of discussing how to stop it. Each neighborhood has a different story. The issue happens at a micro level, each block by each block, instead of a macro, city-wide level," said Davis, a New Jersey native, who came to DC in the mid 1990's as a student and is a homeowner in the historically middle class neighborhood of Hillcrest in Ward 7.

"Race can't be completely dismissed from the conversation. We are only one generation removed from segregation. People born after 1975 are the first cohort that grew up in a desegregated world, for all intents and purposes, and without overt racism. So really we are first generation where everyone had access to higher education and thus we are starting with higher incomes than previous generations."

Davis cited the DC government's Homestead Program in the late 1990's as a public program that incentivized gentrification. The Homestead Program awarded foreclosed, abandoned, and dilapidated homes at nominal prices in order to move the properties off of the city docket. These homes, often purchased in the U Street and 14th Street NW corridor for less than a thousand dollars, were then fixed up for less than $100,000 and subsequently assessed at $300,000.

Would this have happened naturally? The panel agreed that it would have, but this program "moved the process along faster than what you would usually see organically."

Speakers referenced demographic shifts in the history of the city. Georgetown had a reputation as a slum in the 1920's, and Anacostia was nearly 80% white up until the 1950's. Given this, there was a consensus that change is natural as people come and go between and within neighborhoods. Davis noted that there is an emerging group of middle class African Americans that are "not choosing to buy or if they buy they are typically choosing the big house in Prince George's County."

Further discussion focused on the influence of HUD and HOPE VI projects, of which DC has the largest presence of any American city other than Chicago. "HOPE VI helps the lower income people stay, but it is the middle income people who get displaced. They make too much to qualify for housing programs but they don't make enough to afford the cost of living in the city," the panel said. "These formulas look at the Adjusted Median Income, not the cost of living. We are moving to extremes where we have a city of very high income earners and very low income earners."

One of the problems is a pervasive "fear undertone" that has branded "bike lanes, cupcakes, and dog parks as code for white people," said Davis who pointed to a social component of "a lot of day cares but no pre-schools" in certain neighborhoods that have a heightened fear, alertness, and sensitivity to a real or perceived encroachment of change.

Misinformation was credited with spreading and perpetuating the "fear undertone" according to Greene. "DC has caps on how much your property tax can be raised. There are exemptions for seniors. Nearly half of the multi-family housing stock is rent controlled. Working in Prince George's County, I can tell you Maryland's property taxes are higher than DC."

"It is a polarizing word. One of the main causes is public policy," said Greene. "From that standpoint it is called revitalization. What we try to do is re-concentrate areas of poverty with more mixed income neighborhoods through the investment of public dollars. Hopefully you have positive outcomes but you have negative outcomes at the same time."

The panel and audience agreed that "large pockets of poverty have not worked" and with a movement towards mixed-use development "we try to manage displacement." However, Greene said mixed incoming housing is not a panacea as it is hard to finance by bringing together two sets of investors accustomed to very different systems. "One is used to generous tax credits and one is used to return on investment."

While the conversation was honest and refreshing, it ended back to where it started, as "DC is creating jobs that many residents are increasingly unqualified for there is a supply and demand problem that is not going to go away."

The play ran at the Woolly Mammoth theater last year, and I enjoyed it tremendously. Woolly brought it back this year, and since then it's won both the Pulitzer and Helen Hayes awards.

We've arranged a special Greater Greater Washington night on July 28. All tickets to that performance are 15% off if you use the code 1186 when you buy tickets online or on the phone. In addition, we'll have a happy hour in the Woolly's lobby. Everyone who buys a ticket with the code gets $1 off beer or wine. We'll gather starting at 6, and the show begins at 8.

You can also start learning and talking about gentrification even sooner—tonight, in fact. GGW contributor Veronica Davis is participating in a panel, "The Gentrification of Chocolate City—Reality vs. Perception," hosted by the Greater Washington Urban League. It's at 6:45 pm at the NPR building, 635 Massachusetts Ave NW (Metro: Gallery Place).

Tomorrow midday is another interesting panel, "Better Transportation By Design," discussing how design can help create a better high-speed rail program. It's part of the Van Alen Institute's "Life at the Speed of Rail" event announcing winners of a design competition around HSR.

It starts at 12:30 at the National Building Museum, 401 F Street, NW (Metro: Judiciary Square). It's free but RSVPs are requested at rsvp@vanalen.org.

Monday is Arlington's CaBi expansion meeting; if you can't go, you can submit your suggestions for locations.

And don't forget about our Greater Greater Washington trip to the Anacostia Community Museum and Art Gallery on July 10. There's still some room so RSVP here.