MARCH OF THE AFFLUENT: Why Gentrification Is An Irresistible Force:
Ah, gentrification. What’s not to hate? Except for sit-down restaurants, dog parks, charming pubs, bike lanes … and there goes the neighborhood. Yesterday, we talked about the inherent irony of gentrification: the fact that gentrification is simultaneously driven and abhorred by nice young progressives who just want to live in a walkable neighborhood. We also discussed why so many of the ideas proposed to stop it — from inclusionary zoning to tougher rent control — have so far proven powerless against the March of the Affluent.
Today, we’ll take up the remaining possibilities: scatter-site public housing, and massive, city-wide upzoning, particularly in wealthy areas. And we’ll explore why, even if these things are good ideas, they are probably not going to materialize fast enough to halt gentrification — if they materialize at all. . . .
The political fact is that if you try to plop, say, a 56-unit low-income housing project in the middle of a wealthy neighborhood, the neighbors are going to freak out.
You will say this is terrible NIMBYism. I will say that this is neither here nor there: The neighbors are still going to freak out, and if you want to build affordable housing on their block, you will need a plan to deal with that fact. Housing projects offer affluent people no personal benefit — they are unlikely to find themselves in need of an apartment catering to folks living below the poverty line — but even small ones will change the appearance of their community, and, it is believed, will bring with them some fraction of the problems that afflicted larger projects.
The larger the disparity between the incomes of the people who are going to be housed, and the people who are living near the site, the more community opposition you will face. You can issue clarion calls to residents to do their bit for the public weal, but in general, people are very good at thinking up reasons that a particular project, while splendid in theory of course, should actually be sited somewhere else more appropriate, and of course, much less close to their own home.
On the other hand, if we continue on the present economic policies for another decade, there will be fewer young affluents to support gentrification.