You’ve been Gentrified! by Lou Cespedes
I think this is a good opportunity to discuss some specific examples of how we are all affected by “gentrification”. It’s hard to overestimate the problem, but easy to illustrate it. Let’s start with a personal story.
I have a white friend named Gerald. He lives in downtown Brooklyn with his wife and 2 kids amid high-rises paying exorbitant rent. One day over dinner I asked; Why don’t you buy a house? He replied, “I love it here and I can’t afford to buy here. My kids go to a great public school here, so why would I leave.” I completely get that! I own a home in E. Flatbush, and I don’t have good services and great public schools nearby like Gerald. I pay for private school because I don’t trust the public schools in my own community. We are both paying the price for gentrification in different ways. Gerald will stay in a cramped apartment, spending unrecoverable money on rent. I will spend my disposable income on securing my daughter’s education in private schools where Gerald lives. However, neither of us is investing in a business, in savings, retirement, or improving our financial futures.
This is how our city bankrupts and kills the middle class.
Now let’s discuss a radically different example. There are great places in our city that have been gentrified for a very long time. One such place is Union Square. Once the epicenter of great street life and clubs like the Palladium, its physiognomy changed slowly over the past few decades. New condos and NYU dorms began to appear. The central attraction to this neighborhood was the park and some amazing eateries and shops nearby. Over the last few years, anchor establishments have closed because of skyrocketing retail rents and taxes. Blue Water Grill, then Republic, then Coffee Shop; they all vanished. The businesses that gave those communities value could no longer afford to remain in the communities they made appraise. In their place will appear soulless commercial behemoths like Chase, or Duane Reade.
This is how small businesses are destroyed in this city every day.
Now, let me tell you about ignorant and ineffective leadership. In our own community of E. Flatbush, “avoiding” gentrification presents us with a mirage. Community Board 17 had a rezoning campaign last year called “We Will Not be Moved”. The Land Use Committee and Community Board argue they want more affordable housing, but oddly, they are hellbent to downzone our community which is predominantly 2 family homes with a smattering of pre-war multifamily buildings. We are zoned R6, which means homeowners could develop their properties to roughly double their current size on the lots they own “as-of-right” (this means without any special permissions by the city). Our glass is about a third full and we could easily increase density in our community and create more affordable housing within existing homes without greatly affecting scale or context. Downzoning residential lots would have the virtual effect over time of turning our community into a neighborhood of single-family homes, making them too expensive for current residents of our community to buy and maintain, while reducing the affordable rental units already provided by homeowners today. In other words, we will be fleeced of our development rights, while our taxes continue to increase dramatically. We will be led to the slaughter by our city council member Farah Louis and Community Board 17 leaders, in their misguided effort to convert our community into East Ditmas. No affordable housing would be available to buyers or renters. As current homeowners become more insolvent, pressure to sell WILL increase – particularly after this COVID-19 pandemic – and WILL accelerate the very gentrification we seek to avoid.
This is how black home ownership and sustainable communities are denied to families.
Finally, a cautionary tale from a close friend who is a real estate broker. Recently, he was nearing the end of a sale he’d negotiated for a young white couple. One of the pair’s parents wanted to buy them their first house and since one of their siblings lived in Bed-Stuy, they decided to buy in that neighborhood. During their search they’d come across several occupied homes, but being young and progressive, they feared displacing black residents, and settled instead on a recently renovated vacant home. The morning of the contract signing, they decided to take a stroll by the house one last time. Suddenly, the couple was verbally assaulted by a black neighbor ranting about gentrification as they stood in front of the house. The couple, being overly sensitive to this perception, decided not to sign a contract – on a house their parents were going to buy for them – – in Bed-Stuy! Unbeleivable! It was sold the next day to another white person that apparently could care less about being verbally abused by black neighbors.
This is what ignorance begets; lost opportunities to build on shared values.
If you are reading this and shaking your head in disbelief and horror (as well you should), there is only one logical conclusion; we live in a construct where poverty and affluence are purposefully blurred, and where E. Flatbush is presented with a false choice between opportunity or blight. It’s doesn’t have to be this way, but without leadership and vision, we will continue to lose ground to this narrative of racism and inequity. If we don’t adapt now it will only be a matter of time before
You’ve been Gentrified! Jeremiah 12: v.4-5 Twitter: @loufor45 Instagram: Loucespedes
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