I spent my last year in Houston living in a mixed-income, racially-diverse neighborhood in the middle of town; it was an area that anticipated gentrification, both due to its housing stock and its great location, but it hadn’t quite reached the tipping point– which was a good thing for the working class and nearby college students.
It’s difficult for some of us in Alexandria to recognize that there can be negative effects of gentrification; we’ve never dealt with it. Wikipedia offers a fairly good definition of the term gentrification and its numerous implications:
Gentrification, or urban gentrification, is a term applied to that part of the urban housing cycle in which physically deteriorated neighborhoods attract an influx of investment and undergo physical renovation and an increase in property market values. In many cases, the lower-income residents who occupied the neighborhood prior to its renovation can no longer afford properties there. [1][2]
Proponents of gentrification focus on the benefits of urban renewal, such as renewed investment in physically deteriorating locales, improved access to lending capital for low-income mortgage seekers as their property values increase, increased rates of lending to minority and first-time home purchasers to invest in the now-appreciating area and improved physical conditions for renters.[3] Gentrification has been linked to reductions in crime rates, increased property values, increased revenue to local governments from property taxes, increased tolerance of sexual minorities,[4] and renewed community activism.[citation needed]
Critics of gentrification often cite the human cost to the neighborhood’s lower-income residents. The increases in rent often result in the dispersal of communities whose members find that housing in the area is no longer affordable.[citation needed] Additionally, the increase in property taxes (due to increased property values) may sometimes force or give incentive for homeowners to sell their homes and move to less expensive neighborhoods. While those who view gentrification positively cite local reductions in a neighborhood’s crime rate, its critics argue that overall crime rates have not actually been reduced, but merely shifted to different lower-income neighborhoods.[5]
Because gentrification and neighborhood revitalization go hand in hand, gentrification can be “a double-edged sword” with both positive and negative impacts.[6]
Yesterday, Mayor Roy revealed the specific details of a $96 million city-wide revitalization project entitled SPARC (or Special Planned Activity Redevelopment Corridors), and since this project could potentially result in what some would label “gentrification,” now is as good of a time as any to discuss this issue.
It’s important.
Even at the risk of sounding like a mouthpiece or a propaganda arm, I gotta say: SPARC is huge for Alexandria.
In the previous post, I examined McKinney Avenue in Dallas and the way in which the Dallas City government, with the help of the private sector, revitalized their Uptown through a combination of a taxing district and a business investment district and a series of serendipitous market forces. Although McKinney Avenue and the surrounding neighborhood is now, once again, thriving, it’s worth noting that the revitalization took nearly twenty years to come to fruition. Still, Dallas was able to revitalize their Uptown, in large part, because they realized that there is not a cookie-cutter formula to redevelopment. There are models, sure, but ultimately, the best way to ensure for success is to provide room for multiple solutions.
SPARC will immediately tackle problems in multiple areas in the City without the need for a new tax or an increased tax burden. It’s about leveraging our assets in order to improve our shared quality of life index and increase economic development opportunities in our inner core. Overlaying, repairing, and extending streets. New lighting. Business incentives. Thematic signage. Aesthetic enhancements such as brickwork and landscaping. Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.
In multiple areas.
Effective immediately.
Alexandria’s inner core suffers from severe unemployment rates, low property values, and a track record of violent crime. Revitalization never occurs as the result of a singular catalytic project; a confluence of economic conditions together with a broadly-focused vision can create the necessary environment.
One of the best and most obvious ways to prevent the type of displacement that is sometimes caused by the forces of gentrification is to promote home ownership. To be sure, holding slum lords accountable may sometimes result in turnover, but as long as infrastructural repairs occur in tandem with an aggressive home ownership policy, displacement can be minimized.
Taxes are not meant to be held in a savings account in perpetuity. We pay taxes to provide for infrastructural and quality of life initiatives that can enrich our entire community, projects that address the problems that bog us down. This is not an ideological point; it’s simply the task with which our elected officials are charged: The diligent and dutiful application and expenditure of tax money into projects that can increase opportunities available to the entire community.
If you doubt the validity of these repairs, then I suggest you consult with the voluminous reports, the demographics, and the empirical data; clearly, you will find that we are ignoring our inner core at the financial peril of the entire City.
For some, paving a road to the new Wal-Mart seems like an essential responsibility of government, yet when it comes to improving our inner-city, they believe such an initiative to be a waste of taxpayer money. Today, a commenter on The Town Talk said even if you were to renovate every single house on Monroe Street, it would still be “the ghetto.” Seriously.
And when people publicly say ignorant things such as that, they should be called out: If every house on Monroe Street is renovated, then everyone living in and around Monroe Street will see their property values rise and opportunities increase. Businesses will seek to locate in the area. Civic-mindedness and community involvement will likely increase. (Regardless, the commenter at The Town Talk will likely still believe the area to be in the “ghetto,” because for some reason, he has permanently written off the possibilities of an entire neighborhood and an entire community).
Thankfully, there are far more people who believe in the possibilities, people who celebrate their community and understand the collective benefits of individual participation, and people who understand the need to address our shared “urban nightmares.”
CenLamar 
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