6 ms·

I've always thought it was funny how whites moving from the city to the suburbs is bad (white flight) and whites moving from the suburbs to the city is also bad

by reddog 6y ago

I've always thought it was funny how whites moving from the city to the suburbs is bad (white flight) and whites moving from the suburbs to the city is also bad (gentrification).

jonsno56 6y ago
Well yes, it goes to show that you can find an abundance of systemic racism against black people in all kinds of housing policy.
CydeWeys 6y ago
It makes logical sense. You cause problem A by leaving, and then in coming back you cause problem B. The same thing happened with the Iraq War -- we caused lots of problems with the unnecessary invasion, then caused more problems by leaving. It's lose/lose. The only winning move was never to play. In the white flight analogy, the only winning move was never to seek segregation from moving out of the cities in the first place.
- dmurray 6y ago
  In the same way, global warming is bad, but global cooling would be much worse. It's climate change that's the problem, disrupting human patterns that we've got used to.
  - wolco 6y ago
    If the problem is change then you will always have problems.
    - webmaven 6y ago
      > If the problem is change then you will always have problems. It isn't change per-se that is usually the problem these days, but the rate of change, and sometimes the rate of change of the rate of change.
dylan604 6y ago
When an area is ceded by one group, the vacuum will always be filled by another group. When the people that left try to reclaim that territory, friction will always happen. If the current occupants of that territory have no desire to relocate , or have no where else to relocate to, or have no means of relocating if it were possible then there will always be friction. It's repeated over and over through out history.
- refurb 6y ago
  Right. One way to solve this is moving away from the identity politics (why is that group moving here) and tell people who want to “maintain their neighborhood character” to pound sand.
  - CydeWeys 6y ago
    What does "pounding sand" actually mean in this context though? Considering that the people in question are complaining because it's already happening to them? You can't just tell people to stop complaining about grievances.
    - refurb 6y ago
      People are free to complain. But the challenge is (at least in CA) is that the most minor complaints will hold up desperately needed housing projects. Legitimate complaints (e.g. this will mess up traffic) are fine. "Neighborhood feel" complaints (e.g. this building is too tall, it doesn't fit the neighborhood character) should be met with "thanks for your feedback, but that's not a good enough reason". Of course if there is widespread consensus among voters on how they want their city to be developed, fine. But right now, the current system allows a handful of very vocal opponents to development to derail new housing.
      - CydeWeys 6y ago
        Agreed with you on all points. Unfortunately housing policy decisions are made at a very local level in the United States, and local politicians are accountable to a very small number of squeaky wheels. And they can't afford to ignore even a few highly pissed-off wealthy voters. So what you end up seeing is that the wealthier, whiter people living closer in have enough political power to successfully stop new development, and then the development that does happen occurs in farther out areas that are poorer and blacker/browner and have less political say, and that's when you get gentrification. Trust me when I say that East Bushwick is not anyone's first choice for erecting new luxury apartment buildings, it's just that SoHo and its ilk have successfully been fighting all new construction for decades running. That's why doing housing/zoning policy at a much higher level, ideally statewide, would be much better. Japan has that (for their equivalent of states) and you don't see these distortionary effects. Then you'd see the development happening where it really truly does make the most sense, and as a side effect gentrification would be lessened because not as much new construction would be happening in farther out marginal neighborhoods because the demand would be satisfied closer in. Incidentally this also has positive benefits in lower commute times and less environmental impact.
rsynnott 6y ago
I think you have to detach the idea of _personal_ blame from it. They're both phenomena which cause problems.
- xvedejas 6y ago
  I've always seen gentrification as more a symptom of a problem, rather than a problem itself. After all, it's not the appearance of a higher economic class that's bad; it's the forceful displacement of the lower economic class, which may or may not follow. I've seen both scenarios play out in both urban and suburban areas, depending a ton on willingness to allow new construction and pre-existing home ownership rates.
  - nickff 6y ago
    The harmful displacement effects of gentrification are really a symptom of unresponsive city planning and zoning. If governments were more flexible and faster to adapt to changing circumstances, gentrification could have been positive-sum.
  - pessimizer 6y ago
    The appearance of a higher economic class leads to lopsided political power. It's the lopsided political power that then leads to the displacement of the lower economic class from any desirable area.
    - refurb 6y ago
      Really? Look at the Mission in SF. You can’t build anything without Calle 24’s approval. Projects aren’t getting shutdown by the wealthy.
  - matthewowen 6y ago
    The displacement effect of gentrification is potentially overstated: https://www.philadelphiafed.org/-/media/community-development/publications/discussion-papers/discussion-paper_gentrification-and-residential-mobility.pdf https://www.philadelphiafed.org/-/media/community-developmen... is an interesting study. In that case, vulnerable populations in gentrifying neighborhoods were no more likely to leave than equivalent populations in non-gentrifying neighborhoods. For me, the obvious mechanism is that, well, it's true that people who leave may often blame gentrification / increased costs for their departure. But on the other side of it, without gentrification people may still have left, but for different reasons: to get away from crime, to go somewhere with more amenities. It's possible that these two tendencies somewhat balance each other out.
smileysteve 6y ago
It's surprising that sudden drastic changes in demand have sudden drastic effects on supply?
- coryrc 6y ago
  Supply is not increasing and that's just another self-induced injury by the USA.
  - adventured 6y ago
    Entirely depends on where you're at. Overall the US added nine million new housing units from 2010-2019, while adding only about 19 million people. For housing that's somewhere between keeping pace with and exceeding population expansion. Obviously not all of that supply expansion goes to family housing, however not all of it needs to either, given that's only a two to one ratio.
    - CydeWeys 6y ago
      Location location location. A lot of that new housing is not where it's actually needed most. If you need it somewhere within commuting range of your job, but instead it's 18 hours away and several states over, it's really not doing you any good.
narrator 6y ago
There's nothing stopping you from moving to Detroit or Baltimore or East St. Louis. Why wouldn't all the progressive people move there if the housing is such a bargain?
eplanit 6y ago
That's the core narrative: whites are bad.
dboshardy 6y ago
That's a pretty generous interpretation of white flight. You leave out the redlining and segregation that were huge factors in white flight and subsequently reverse white flight and gentrification.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
hehebbssjj 6y ago
Part of the problem is that Black people never had the opportunity to buy the properties they occupied, even at depressed prices when those properties were undesireable. So when gentrification occurs, rents go up and they're shut out. If there wasn't a massive wealth gap to begin with you'd see more Black homeowners in gentrifying areas making bank on their massively appreciated houses.
- dylan604 6y ago
  In some cases, it's worse. Some families that were able to buy properties have had them for so long they only owe taxes each year. Then some developers petition the city that those properties are vital, and they are granted eminent domain. Even if they are paid the amount of the suppressed values of their property, there's no way they can afford to do anything with that money. Plus, they are now forced out of the property that has been in their family for a long time.
  - MaximumYComb 6y ago
    Does the US have a lot of eminent domain for development?
    - dylan604 6y ago
      Yes. One of the sticking points to 'build that wall' is the land they want to build the wall is owned by private citizens. Oil & Gas, transportation, etc have all used it to get the land.

by reddog 6y ago

I've always thought it was funny how whites moving from the city to the suburbs is bad (white flight) and whites moving from the suburbs to the city is also bad (gentrification).

jonsno56 6y ago

Well yes, it goes to show that you can find an abundance of systemic racism against black people in all kinds of housing policy.

CydeWeys 6y ago

It makes logical sense. You cause problem A by leaving, and then in coming back you cause problem B. The same thing happened with the Iraq War -- we caused lots of problems with the unnecessary invasion, then caused more problems by leaving. It's lose/lose. The only winning move was never to play. In the white flight analogy, the only winning move was never to seek segregation from moving out of the cities in the first place.

dmurray 6y ago
In the same way, global warming is bad, but global cooling would be much worse. It's climate change that's the problem, disrupting human patterns that we've got used to.
- wolco 6y ago
  If the problem is change then you will always have problems.
  - webmaven 6y ago
    > If the problem is change then you will always have problems. It isn't change per-se that is usually the problem these days, but the rate of change, and sometimes the rate of change of the rate of change.

dylan604 6y ago

When an area is ceded by one group, the vacuum will always be filled by another group. When the people that left try to reclaim that territory, friction will always happen. If the current occupants of that territory have no desire to relocate , or have no where else to relocate to, or have no means of relocating if it were possible then there will always be friction. It's repeated over and over through out history.

refurb 6y ago
Right. One way to solve this is moving away from the identity politics (why is that group moving here) and tell people who want to “maintain their neighborhood character” to pound sand.
- CydeWeys 6y ago
  What does "pounding sand" actually mean in this context though? Considering that the people in question are complaining because it's already happening to them? You can't just tell people to stop complaining about grievances.
  - refurb 6y ago
    People are free to complain. But the challenge is (at least in CA) is that the most minor complaints will hold up desperately needed housing projects. Legitimate complaints (e.g. this will mess up traffic) are fine. "Neighborhood feel" complaints (e.g. this building is too tall, it doesn't fit the neighborhood character) should be met with "thanks for your feedback, but that's not a good enough reason". Of course if there is widespread consensus among voters on how they want their city to be developed, fine. But right now, the current system allows a handful of very vocal opponents to development to derail new housing.
    - CydeWeys 6y ago
      Agreed with you on all points. Unfortunately housing policy decisions are made at a very local level in the United States, and local politicians are accountable to a very small number of squeaky wheels. And they can't afford to ignore even a few highly pissed-off wealthy voters. So what you end up seeing is that the wealthier, whiter people living closer in have enough political power to successfully stop new development, and then the development that does happen occurs in farther out areas that are poorer and blacker/browner and have less political say, and that's when you get gentrification. Trust me when I say that East Bushwick is not anyone's first choice for erecting new luxury apartment buildings, it's just that SoHo and its ilk have successfully been fighting all new construction for decades running. That's why doing housing/zoning policy at a much higher level, ideally statewide, would be much better. Japan has that (for their equivalent of states) and you don't see these distortionary effects. Then you'd see the development happening where it really truly does make the most sense, and as a side effect gentrification would be lessened because not as much new construction would be happening in farther out marginal neighborhoods because the demand would be satisfied closer in. Incidentally this also has positive benefits in lower commute times and less environmental impact.

rsynnott 6y ago

I think you have to detach the idea of _personal_ blame from it. They're both phenomena which cause problems.

xvedejas 6y ago
I've always seen gentrification as more a symptom of a problem, rather than a problem itself. After all, it's not the appearance of a higher economic class that's bad; it's the forceful displacement of the lower economic class, which may or may not follow. I've seen both scenarios play out in both urban and suburban areas, depending a ton on willingness to allow new construction and pre-existing home ownership rates.
- nickff 6y ago
  The harmful displacement effects of gentrification are really a symptom of unresponsive city planning and zoning. If governments were more flexible and faster to adapt to changing circumstances, gentrification could have been positive-sum.
- pessimizer 6y ago
  The appearance of a higher economic class leads to lopsided political power. It's the lopsided political power that then leads to the displacement of the lower economic class from any desirable area.
  - refurb 6y ago
    Really? Look at the Mission in SF. You can’t build anything without Calle 24’s approval. Projects aren’t getting shutdown by the wealthy.
- matthewowen 6y ago
  The displacement effect of gentrification is potentially overstated: https://www.philadelphiafed.org/-/media/community-development/publications/discussion-papers/discussion-paper_gentrification-and-residential-mobility.pdf https://www.philadelphiafed.org/-/media/community-developmen... is an interesting study. In that case, vulnerable populations in gentrifying neighborhoods were no more likely to leave than equivalent populations in non-gentrifying neighborhoods. For me, the obvious mechanism is that, well, it's true that people who leave may often blame gentrification / increased costs for their departure. But on the other side of it, without gentrification people may still have left, but for different reasons: to get away from crime, to go somewhere with more amenities. It's possible that these two tendencies somewhat balance each other out.

smileysteve 6y ago

It's surprising that sudden drastic changes in demand have sudden drastic effects on supply?

coryrc 6y ago
Supply is not increasing and that's just another self-induced injury by the USA.
- adventured 6y ago
  Entirely depends on where you're at. Overall the US added nine million new housing units from 2010-2019, while adding only about 19 million people. For housing that's somewhere between keeping pace with and exceeding population expansion. Obviously not all of that supply expansion goes to family housing, however not all of it needs to either, given that's only a two to one ratio.
  - CydeWeys 6y ago
    Location location location. A lot of that new housing is not where it's actually needed most. If you need it somewhere within commuting range of your job, but instead it's 18 hours away and several states over, it's really not doing you any good.

narrator 6y ago

There's nothing stopping you from moving to Detroit or Baltimore or East St. Louis. Why wouldn't all the progressive people move there if the housing is such a bargain?

eplanit 6y ago

That's the core narrative: whites are bad.

dboshardy 6y ago

That's a pretty generous interpretation of white flight. You leave out the redlining and segregation that were huge factors in white flight and subsequently reverse white flight and gentrification.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

hehebbssjj 6y ago

Part of the problem is that Black people never had the opportunity to buy the properties they occupied, even at depressed prices when those properties were undesireable. So when gentrification occurs, rents go up and they're shut out. If there wasn't a massive wealth gap to begin with you'd see more Black homeowners in gentrifying areas making bank on their massively appreciated houses.

dylan604 6y ago
In some cases, it's worse. Some families that were able to buy properties have had them for so long they only owe taxes each year. Then some developers petition the city that those properties are vital, and they are granted eminent domain. Even if they are paid the amount of the suppressed values of their property, there's no way they can afford to do anything with that money. Plus, they are now forced out of the property that has been in their family for a long time.
- MaximumYComb 6y ago
  Does the US have a lot of eminent domain for development?
  - dylan604 6y ago
    Yes. One of the sticking points to 'build that wall' is the land they want to build the wall is owned by private citizens. Oil & Gas, transportation, etc have all used it to get the land.