There is someone moving into the neighborhood today, who in 5-10 years will complain that gentrification moved them out. This thought came to me after a quick conversation with an older woman (maybe not quite senior citizen) who was moving into a rental house. A house that has been ‘affordable’ since I’ve been in the neighborhood. And it has had a fair amount of turnover (but that’s because the landlady is horrible) so it remains a housing option.
There is little purity in the gentrification that happens in this neighborhood. All the poor people do not move out at the same time to be replaced by people with more money. Not all the landowners sell when the market is hot, some keep holding on, maybe through greed or apathy, and then the market cools. There is loss, there are fewer housing options for lower income groups, however there isn’t a 100% loss of affordable housing from the market.
I write this from what I’ve observed on my block. At least three houses (there might be more) in the six years I’ve been noticing appear to fall in the ‘affordable’ category and they though the crazy RE market and it’s current cooling have had some turnover with tenants and yet have had the same kind of tenant.
2 thoughts on “Quick thought on housing and gentrification”
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marie,
glad to see an analysis of gentrification that acknowledges that there isn’t a ‘one size fits all’ way to label the phenomenon. i won’t ramble on here (because i COULD), but just wanted to say thank you for your observations.
On one side of the trend….The place I have rented for 5 years, at a very reasonable rate, is soon to be for sale for more than half a million buck-a-roon-ies! The market will likely accept that price- but another affordable rental bites the dust.
-A