White flight? Suburbs lose young whites to cities

[RU OX Alum]

Mine isn't quite gentrified yet.

[DrPhil]

Originally Posted by RU OX Alum

Oh. Okay, yeah that's messed up, people shouldn't be forced out like that. But who would pay $2,500.00 for the exact same apt. that was only $500.00?

The people who live in some of the renovated downtown apartments in places like Richmond, VA and Atlanta, GA that have focusd heavily on gentrification in the past 10 years.

Originally Posted by RU OX Alum

How would the landlord even get away with that, that is a 400% increase, were 400% worth of improvements done to the property?

There are shitty downtown areas that now have $3,000/month loft apartments that attempt to mirror NYC. Gorgeous apartments surrounded by awesome restaurants--in a relatively crappy downtown area. Apartment and other non-owner living has high resident turnover and almost zero sense of neighborhood and community. That's a breeding ground for greedy landlords/rental agents and crime.

[DrPhil]

Originally Posted by PiKA2001

For Realz? I don't see why people would want to pay $400k for a 900 sq ft condo when they can get a 3,000 sq ft house with a yard and a driveway 20 mins outside town for $200k. Not everybody works downtown and some people want to own actual property, not just a unit in a building. While I prefer city living, I like it on a smaller scale a la Ann Arbor than Manhattan.

I agree but remember that there are plenty of home owners in the city.

[DaemonSeid]

Originally Posted by RU OX Alum

How is it bad? Please explain, I'm not being a smart ass. I really don't see how how renovating and rebuilding-up parts of town that were lying vacant is a bad thing. I mean, if gangs don't even hang out there because something fell on one of them (urban myth, but who knows, they were unoccupied for years) then it is absolute blight. Nothing but an empty building. That's just plain sad. Why shouldn't they (the old buildings, I mean) be turned into cool new apartments or restaurants or cool office buildings or retail stores maybe on the ground level or maybe some dance clubs or something?? Just leaving it bombed out just leaves it bombed out.

And even if you don't live in a bigger city, it makes sense to at least have a town/urban center no matter how small/big it is near by so you can easily get to stuff/find other people in an emergency.

25 years ago in Baltimore, white flight was the opposite...whites left the city in droves to move to the suburbs to get better schools better houses and commute in the city. The city was being run down and it supposedly many areas were bad to live in. But when there was talk of the projects being torn down, as many of the blighted areas were being fixed up many started moving back in the city. Many areas where lower income people lived are being fixed up for people who could afford but....most of this progress halted when the housing market crashed.

The same thing is going on in many other cities. There are many areas where years ago were crime ridden and now affluent. And guess what....all the crime has moved out to the 'burbs.

[DaemonSeid]

Originally Posted by RU OX Alum

So basiaclly, the negative is that it rocks the boat and upsets the status quo and the actual cities become where the rich/er people and poor people will move to the subdivsions? But I don't get how that last part happens, much less is forced. It's not like they evict people in Building A as soon as the rennovate Building B. Is it??

YES...they do....I have seen it happen...there is a federal law that went into effect back in 1997 that states if you all of a sudden find yourself homeless, you do not get 1st dibs to get emergency housing. That's how they managed to get a lot of people out of the prjects that were torn down and not let them move back into an area once new housing went up.

In essence, most of the young whites flying into the cities are the result of parents that left the cities 25 to 30 years ago.


You guys are flying back....LOL

[DrPhil]

This new white flight from the suburbs is really just what was always called gentrification.

"White flight" (and "capital flight") has always referred to whites leaving the city and "fleeing" to the suburbs to get away from a number of social problems. This includes getting away from racially heterogenous neighborhoods in search of racially homogenous (all white with a "tipping piont" for nonwhites) neighborhoods. Euro-immigrants would move to the city core and live in ghettos (which are racially/ethnically homogenous neighoborhoods) until they were able to get enough social and cultural capital to move from the city, leaving behind minorities.

So, if people don't understand the issue with gentrification, they may want to read about the history of city planning (which includes the city core and the suburbs) and all of the social problems that are correlated.

[AGDee]

Originally Posted by RU OX Alum

Oh. Okay, yeah that's messed up, people shouldn't be forced out like that. But who would pay $2,500.00 for the exact same apt. that was only $500.00? How would the landlord even get away with that, that is a 400% increase, were 400% worth of improvements done to the property?

Or someone buys the whole building and converts it to condos to SELL them for a huge amount of money. Often, people who were renting are not in a position to purchase them.

[33girl]

Originally Posted by DrPhil

This new white flight from the suburbs is really just what was always called gentrification.

"White flight" (and "capital flight") has always referred to whites leaving the city and "fleeing" to the suburbs to get away from a number of social problems. This includes getting away from racially heterogenous neighborhoods in search of racially homogenous (all white with a "tipping piont" for nonwhites) neighborhoods. Euro-immigrants would move to the city core and live in ghettos (which are racially/ethnically homogenous neighoborhoods) until they were able to get enough social and cultural capital to move from the city, leaving behind minorities.

So, if people don't understand the issue with gentrification, they may want to read about the history of city planning (which includes the city core and the suburbs) and all of the social problems that are correlated.

Yeah, I don't think I would ever classify this as "flight." I would classify it as "hipster doofuses turned parents who think they're being all green and shit by only driving 7 miles to work downtown instead of 37."

It's an issue here, and not exclusively black/white but also young professional (well, semi-professional) whites moving into neighborhoods that are still very heavily Italian/Polish/Slavic/ what-have-you immigrants. I think Pgh is atypical in still having areas like that though.

[christiangirl]

Ain't nothin' wrong with a good suburb!

[DaemonSeid]

cool lil blurb from 2006

[RU OX Alum]

Originally Posted by DaemonSeid

cool lil blurb from 2006

I like this. I agree with it for the most part. I'm guilty of gentrification. Oh well. I guess I'm a white asshole.

[sigtau305]

Originally Posted by DrPhil

This new white flight from the suburbs is really just what was always called gentrification.

"White flight" (and "capital flight") has always referred to whites leaving the city and "fleeing" to the suburbs to get away from a number of social problems. This includes getting away from racially heterogenous neighborhoods in search of racially homogenous (all white with a "tipping piont" for nonwhites) neighborhoods. Euro-immigrants would move to the city core and live in ghettos (which are racially/ethnically homogenous neighoborhoods) until they were able to get enough social and cultural capital to move from the city, leaving behind minorities.

So, if people don't understand the issue with gentrification, they may want to read about the history of city planning (which includes the city core and the suburbs) and all of the social problems that are correlated.

My Urban Geography Professor had a discussion about this. Gentrification is a regularly most talked about topic at Cleveland State's College of Urban Affairs where i'm taking my classes at.

[Kevin]

Oh well... sucks being poor, but developers don't owe folks anything just because they're poor/unemployed/underemployed. Go to school, don't do drugs, have a little good luck, etc. etc., then you'll be in a position to be the gentrifier rather than the gentrifiee. Gentrification is generally a good thing for all involved. Pumps money into the school system, usually means quality charter schools will start becoming available, eliminates crime and blight, more money for public safety personnel, etc. Some people probably do get displaced, but that's the risk you take when you rent.

[AOII Angel]

Originally Posted by Kevin

Oh well... sucks being poor, but developers don't owe folks anything just because they're poor/unemployed/underemployed. Go to school, don't do drugs, have a little good luck, etc. etc., then you'll be in a position to be the gentrifier rather than the gentrifiee. Gentrification is generally a good thing for all involved. Pumps money into the school system, usually means quality charter schools will start becoming available, eliminates crime and blight, more money for public safety personnel, etc. Some people probably do get displaced, but that's the risk you take when you rent.

And that's the other side of the argument.

[knight_shadow]

Originally Posted by Kevin

Oh well... sucks being poor, but developers don't owe folks anything just because they're poor/unemployed/underemployed. Go to school, don't do drugs, have a little good luck, etc. etc., then you'll be in a position to be the gentrifier rather than the gentrifiee. Gentrification is generally a good thing for all involved. Pumps money into the school system, usually means quality charter schools will start becoming available, eliminates crime and blight, more money for public safety personnel, etc. Some people probably do get displaced, but that's the risk you take when you rent.

I'm not even going to touch on the bolded...

As far as your last sentence, what about the home owners who are offered pennies to move out when large projects are being planned in their areas?