Gentrification issues

[Travis]

I really don't get anti-gentrification activism. Everyone deserves to live somewhere. And people banding together to keep a hated "other" out just always strikes me as wrong. I get that people like affordable housing but to me the solution would seem to be build more housing. Not keep those people from moving in!

Am I completely off base about this?

 

[Newtons Bit]

Yes, your statement is obviously racist. Please turn yourself in to the nearest re-education camp.

 

[sir drinks-a-lot]

Yes, your statement is obviously racist. Please turn yourself in to the nearest re-education camp.

Seconded.

 

[Mark6]

I suppose we will have to wait for some real anti-gentrification activist to make an argument. I very much agree that "build more housing" is the best solution. However, "build more housing" is often easier said than done. And almost always easier than "raise rents".

 

[Mumbles]

I really don't get anti-gentrification activism. Everyone deserves to live somewhere. And people banding together to keep a hated "other" out just always strikes me as wrong. I get that people like affordable housing but to me the solution would seem to be build more housing. Not keep those people from moving in!

Am I completely off base about this?

As a matter of fact, yes, you are somewhat off-base. Many people actually *don't* like affordable housing, on the basis that it attracts unwanted "others" - in the US, this usually means poorer people or minorities. Yes, there's certainly going to be changes in prices and social demographics in neighborhoods as new people move in - that's how it has always worked, and of course long-time residents won't like seeing their neighborhoods change from outside forces - especially when they see their city suddenly spending money on the newer residents that they refused to spend back before they moved in. But there are also plenty of landlords in, say, NYC, who more or less force older residents out at the insistence of newer people, folks who actively work to end long-standing traditions in the neighborhood, and the like.

ETA: as far as the recent London protest goes...I have no clue about what the local issues there are, so I won't claim that anything i said applies to that situation.

 

[ThunderChunky]

I really don't get anti-gentrification activism.

I can understand why people who are having their rent increased would be frustrated, but the activism appears to me to just be a way to vent hostility. Building more housing probably isn't always a viable option, in a lot of areas undergoing gentrification there simply isn't much more space to build in.

 

[TragicMonkey]

I really don't get anti-gentrification activism. Everyone deserves to live somewhere. And people banding together to keep a hated "other" out just always strikes me as wrong. I get that people like affordable housing but to me the solution would seem to be build more housing. Not keep those people from moving in!

Am I completely off base about this?

I just don't understand people who complain about lack of affordable healthcare. Why don't they just build more affordable hospitals?

 

[TomB]

As a matter of fact, yes, you are somewhat off-base. Many people actually *don't* like affordable housing, on the basis that it attracts unwanted "others" - in the US, this usually means poorer people or minorities.

I actually know a family that sold their home because a new apartment complex was being built about a mile away from them. The problem wasn't that there was an apartment complex going in. They were fine with that, and there are others in the area. The problem was that a portion (not all) of the apartments were going to be subsidized.

It was pretty controversial at the time. The gist was "How dare they put subsidized apartments near an upper middle-class area?" Bear in mind this is a town of 50,000. Wou can go from wealth to poverty in a few blocks.

The funny thing is they sold their house and moved into what I consider a less upscale neighborhood that isn't significantly farther from the new apartments.

 

[The Nimble Pianist]

I really don't get anti-gentrification activism. Everyone deserves to live somewhere. And people banding together to keep a hated "other" out just always strikes me as wrong. I get that people like affordable housing but to me the solution would seem to be build more housing. Not keep those people from moving in!

Am I completely off base about this?

All well and good until these same individuals complaining about rising rents and gentrification show themselves for the NIMBYs they really are. This November we'll be voting on two incredibly short sighted initiatives that somehow are supposed to help make living here more affordable: an 18 month market-rate residential construction moratorium, and a hefty anti-Airbnb law.

 

[ThunderChunky]

All well and good until these same individuals complaining about rising rents and gentrification show themselves for the NIMBYs they really are. This November we'll be voting on two incredibly short sighted initiatives that somehow are supposed to help make living here more affordable: an 18 month market-rate residential construction moratorium, and a hefty anti-Airbnb law.

I'm all for anti-airbnb laws, that's a quality of life issue too. But how is a construction moratorium supposed to keep rents from rising, you'd think it would do the opposite?

 

[The Nimble Pianist]

I'm all for anti-airbnb laws, that's a quality of life issue too.

The proposition has been colloquially named "the Airbnb Law" though it aims to curtail all forms of short term occupancy even in cases where the homeowner or lease holder is only renting out a room and not an entire building. This law goes after everyone not just those who have effectively turned their house into an unregulated hotel.

But how is a construction moratorium supposed to keep rents from rising, you'd think it would do the opposite?

The moratorium is designed to stop construction of market-rate properties. The supporters of the moratorium believe that the only residential construction that should be allowed during this "crisis" are low income units. These tend to be the same people who support other initiatives that do things like limit how many stories new residential properties can be, which neighborhoods they may be in, etc. In the mean time we have vacant lots not being developed so no one gets to live there. Demand is still steadily increasing while supply remains stagnant.

 

[TomB]

I'm all for anti-airbnb laws, that's a quality of life issue too. But how is a construction moratorium supposed to keep rents from rising, you'd think it would do the opposite?

Nice new construction raises the profile of the area. The new units rent for higher rates and are occupied by more affluent people. As the area becomes trendy, they are followed by their friends or people who aspire to that level of affluence. Landlords of existing buildings find that people are willing to pay higher rents, so as leases expire, rents go up.

Now, while the demand in the newly trendy area is going up, presumably the demand in some other areas is decreasing. Now you have residents of those areas alarmed at their dropping property values and "those" people moving in.

I'm not sure there's a whole lot you can (or really should) do about this. It's a cycle. The bad neighborhoods used to be the good neighborhoods and vice-versa.

 

[Travis]

I can't pretend that one size fits all but I know in San Francisco the issue is basically one of lack of domiciles. The same neighborhoods that protest against Google workers moving in have also, for decades, prevented any new construction of tall residential towers. And now there is a severe housing shortage. How could you complain about what would seem to be fairly inevitable results?

 

[Puppycow]

I came across this article in Buzzfeed. It certainly doesn't make me feel and sympathy for these anti-gentrification protesters whatsoever.

The Shoreditch Cereal Café Was Attacked By Anti-Gentrification Protesters

Hundreds of anti-gentrification protesters attacked the controversial cereal café in Brick Lane this evening, throwing paint at it and daubing “scum” on the window.

Alan Keery, who co-owns the Cereal Killer Café, told the Evening Standard: “There were children there – they were terrified. The staff were absolutely terrified. It was an angry mob throwing paint at the windows. They had torches and pigs’ heads.”

The protesters also appeared to have damaged an estate agent’s window.

On the event’s website it says: “Our communities are being ripped apart – by Russian oligarchs, Saudi Sheiks, Israeli scumbag property developers, Texan oil-money twats and our own home-grown Eton toffs.”

“We don’t want luxury flats that no one can afford, we want genuinely affordable housing. We don’t want pop-up gin bars or brioche buns – we want community.”

“Soon this City will be an unrecognisable, bland, yuppie infested wasteland with no room for normal (and not so normal) people like us.”

Basically the sentiment is we hate outsiders and we feel entitled to use violence to keep them out. Not much different from the KKK burning a cross on a black family's lawn to scare them out of the neighborhood.

 

[The Nimble Pianist]

I can't pretend that one size fits all but I know in San Francisco the issue is basically one of lack of domiciles. The same neighborhoods that protest against Google workers moving in have also, for decades, prevented any new construction of tall residential towers. And now there is a severe housing shortage. How could you complain about what would seem to be fairly inevitable results?

Bingo! I thought I still had my location tag set but apparently don't. My last post concerns SF.

"Airbnb Law" Prop F

"Mission District Moratorium" Prop I

Last year's Prop B that limit building height anywhere near FiDi, North Beach, or the Embarcadero.

 

[Stacko]

I think the main problem anti-gentrification protesters run into is that by the time they protest it's too late. No one protests when vacant lots are being occupied but that's where the start is. It's a conflict that we have no answer to as creating economic activity where there was none is always good.

 

[Travis]

Hypothetically if there are good jobs then people have money and want to live nicely. The market fills that need by building residences. When the market is constrained you have these kinds of weird results where people with money still want to live nicely but now they are competing with poor people for the same neighborhood. And in these games the poor people usually lose. And they know this hence the frustration from them but they are attacking the wrong thing. They should be mad that the market was not allowed to function the way it should have been putting them in a Thunderdome scramble for a very constrained resource.

 

[The Don]

Hypothetically if there are good jobs then people have money and want to live nicely. The market fills that need by building residences. When the market is constrained you have these kinds of weird results where people with money still want to live nicely but now they are competing with poor people for the same neighborhood. And in these games the poor people usually lose. And they know this hence the frustration from them but they are attacking the wrong thing. They should be mad that the market was not allowed to function the way it should have been putting them in a Thunderdome scramble for a very constrained resource.

The issue in places like London where there is an enormous imbalance between the demand for places to live and work and the supply is that there simply is not enough land - or available land to increase supply to meet demand. The UK has several other issues which make the issue worse:

• The UK economy is incredibly London-centric. Companies seem to want to be based there, central government is disproportionately based there and people want to live there
• The UK housing market is disproportionately skewed towards owning properties. If you rent, you are viewed to be a loser
• Britains by and large don't like living in flats and apartments, we'd rather have individual dwellings no matter how small. This makes inefficient use of the scant land resources
• Goverment has stoked this demand to own homes by selling off publicly owned affordable rental housing and by providing generous tax breaks

The shortage of available land means that it makes no financial sense whatsoever for building companies to build affordable housing. Instead they will build high-value housing instead and get better profit margins. Government can dictate that a certain percentage of "affordable" housing is provided but any developer worth their salt will just pay lip service and in any case "affordable" in London is still not affordable for working people.

Commercial properties are more often in the hands of landlords who want long-term, high value leases. They'd rather a property stand empty for a year or two rather than get into a long-term cheap lease. As soon as gentrification starts, available inexpensive commercial property dries up very quickly which in turn means that low margin "traditional" retailers like greengrocers, butchers, hardware stores and the like are priced out of the market whereas cereal cafes, artisnal bakeries and the like can still continue.


Of course none of this excuses the actions of the idiots in London.

 

[Travis]

High value residences can't be built forever. Once that market is tapped out it makes sense to go where demand is. The issue of developers wanting to build high value properties is another artifact of a constrained market. If there are very few opportunities to build they will go with the best margins for the fewest units. Less risk. Distribute risk and then that aspect goes away.

 

[The Don]

High value residences can't be built forever.

Possibly not but in markets like London there is still a very high demand for high value residences due to the size of the market and the lack of available building space.

Once that market is tapped out it makes sense to go where demand is.

In London (and other high demand places in the UK) the market is never tapped out because the lack of available building plots means that demand always exceeds supply.

For example, however much demand there may be for property around this area, the fact that our village is in an Area of Outstanding Natural beauty means that it's almost impossible to get permission to build a property which in turn means that demand (and hence price) is sky-high.

The issue of developers wanting to build high value properties is another artifact of a constrained market. If there are very few opportunities to build they will go with the best margins for the fewest units. Less risk. Distribute risk and then that aspect goes away.

That's all very well and good in places where building plots are easy to come by and are cheap but in the UK this is rarely the case in the parts of the country where demand is high. The causes of this are no-doubt complicated but IMO include:

• The "broken" UK property market where there is a perfect storm of imbalance between supply and demand, a pathological desire to own rather than rent, the perception that your own property is an excellent investment, lack of supply and government support for the market
• An imbalance in the economy which splits into London (and environs) and the rest of the UK (well not quite but it's almost like that).
• Very restrictive planning rules which are designed to maintain "green belt"
• The UK's apparent aversion to high intensity housing

An "average" person earning an average wage of £26,500 a year can probably afford to borrow £80k to £100k. The average UK property price (that's all properties, not just houses) is £185k in London this is close to £500k. Unless you bury yourself in debt (and many people do) for the average person in the South East of England, houses are unaffordable.