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 
Lamar, I cite the Acadian Village area, off of lower Third in Alexandria, as an example of home ownership brings about community pride, a clearer area of the City and a decrease in crime. So I am all for improving the infrastructure and beautification of depressed areas of town.
But what I am much less enthusiastic about is the expenditure of public funds as bsuiness ivestiments in those areas. I fundamentally believe that any business benefits should be offered on an equal basis to all businesses and individuals regardless of what section of the City they reside or operate in. I do not feel that it is government’s business to invest in private business, as that is Socialism and anti-American free enterprise. Perhaps loans can be easiier swallowed, but such should, if it is to be dones, be offered equally to all.
And they always are available to everyone in the City, regardless of where they work or reside.
I take it that you oppose all of the federal tax incentives being utilized right now to entice businesses back to the Gulf Coast. To be sure, I definitely oppose the misapplication of many of these incentives; allowing wealthy developers to build luxury condos near football stadiums with tax-payer assistance is certainly not what these programs should be intended to do.
However, incentives packages– particularly those that sunset and those that demand accountability (and even, in some cases, repayment after certain benchmarks have been met) can stimulate growth, create opportunities, and enrich an entire community; this is not socialism. It’s one of the oldest practices in the American Free Enterprise textbook. The problem– and the reason many people have such a distaste for programs such as those– is that they have a potential for abuse, which is why accountability is so important.
And Greg, I don’t think there are constraints on who can use them, but certainly different programs respond to different environments. There is not a single, one-size-fits-all solution.
Like it or not, we are already subsidizing business of all types. Let’s take the new Wal-Mart in Alexandria, or the Lowes in Pineville. Both of those projects required extensive improvements to and espansion of the existing infrastructure and are paid for with taxpayers money, not private money. Of course, you could argue that the money comes back by way of sales tax reciepts….but until we get some marked increases in population, and/or higher income levels, we’re just playing a musical chairs with the same dollar bill.
Which is why strategically targeting your investment in order to produce the maximum return is critical.
Paving a road to Wal-Mart may bolster sales tax receipts, but it doesn’t necessarily “revitalize” a community or increase its standard of living. Ultimately, access to Wal-Mart primarily helps the Wal-Mart corporation.
Of course some people typically don’t view this as an “incentive,” which it is, though they’re more than ready to decry inner-city incentives as an “unfair waste.” Unfortunately, such thinking allows communities to become divided and fragmented between the haves and the have nots. An unequal application of funds, usually based on the demands of a small handful of key players, can result in the fracturing of an entire community, which subsequently results in an expensive problem that must be solved.
Lamar,
Thank you for highlighting the sensitive dialectic between urban revitalization and gentrification. There is certainly a vast gray area between the two, and how a person creates an opinion on this issue is certainly dependent upon one’s personal interests and own point of view.
I am a native of Alexandria that has recently purchased a 90 year old double in Mid City New Orleans. This house needed a great deal of work before the storm and there is much to do, although it is in livable condition. Perhaps many ignorant people, such as the commenter in the Town Talk that writes that Monroe St. will always be a ghetto, would consider my new neighborhood ‘a ghetto.’ I, however, do not. I chose carefully where to buy my dwelling, and I specifically wanted to live there because it is mixed race (black, white, Honduran, Mexican, etc.), mixed income (some of my neighboring units are government assisted, many of which are in better shape than my house with lovely tenants), and actually accessible to New Orleans’ many areas of interest (commercial, business, educational, recreational) by bicycle. We have a community garden in my neighborhood. You don’t need a big suburban backyard to grow organic vegetables; you just need dirt and sunshine. I actually know my neighbors, which is more than most suburbanites can boast.
I am somewhat of a radical, however. I believe that the suburbs (and the so-called exurbs springing up around major American cities) are a completely mistaken failure, if we are trying to create sustainable healthy communities that ensure social justice and a positive standard of living for ALL citizens. It is nothing less than a travesty to continue to spend tax payer money to cut down our forests in order to build new roads to new subdivisions or commodity commercial areas, which require investments (that need to be maintained into the future) on new utility infrastructure, schools, parks, sewerage, drainage canals, etc. These residential and commercial areas are farther away from the core of our Alexandria community, not closer, further tying everyone into our self-destructive automobile culture. And we are doing this as perfectly useable pre-existing commercial, business and residential space is deteriorating in front of our eyes. This is being done, whether we admit it or not, with implicit and explicit subsidization by all levels of government, and it has served to widen the inequality between the haves and have-nots, between urban blacks and afraid-to-actually-be-urban whites.
Members of my family have been regularly attending the church services at the historic Emmanuel Baptist Church in downtown Alexandria for more than two decades. Emmanuel has done a great deal of work improving its own area around the 4th block of Jackson Street, mainly for its own purposes. In many nearby areas, however, like on Bolton Ave., there has remained unused retail space as long as I can remember. What would our great-grandparents and great-great-grandparents, who actually dedicated their lives to developing these parts of Alexandria and building the best communities they could build according to their own vision, say if they could see the way we live now? They would be ashamed at the neglect of their progeny. And what will our own great-grandchildren say to us if we could meet them? I’m sure it would be something along the lines of, “Fuck you for your neglect! Fuck you for your unchecked consumerism!”
I believe that urban revitalization should not just be the priority of local government, but of everyone in the local community, regardless of the location of their own residence, their occupation or social status. People and businesses simply do not exist in isolation, and economic and social progress is not a zero-sum gain. Improving the living standard of all citizens should not be debatable; it is the generally accepted charge of government.
Well, Lamar, I am here going to make a personal vow: I will never live in a suburb again, no matter what.
“Save an endangered species: Renovate an old house!”
Somehow i missed the point. Probably lost in translation 🙂 Anyway … nice blog to visit.
cheers, Abruptness!!
I wonder how I missed this post. I get tired of so many ignorant people, like the one who made the comment about Monroe Street. They sure do like to point their finger, but don’t lift one to do anything about the problem. Some people also make big huff and puff statements about the area, but don’t have the guts to live here or help improve it. I live on Monroe Street and I own three houses now. If I HAVE TO renovate EVERY HOUSE on Monroe Street, I WILL DO IT. Yes, I am hoping that it will make my property value rise, but most of all I will have the satisfaction of knowing that I have done my part in helping save a once beautiful neighborhood. Will it happen overnight? NO! But someone needs to say, enough is enough! ENOUGH.