Name
Capella University
PSYC FPX 3540
Prof. Name
December, 2024
Gentrification: Impacts on Communities and Segregation
Gentrification is a relatively complex and highly politicized process, which describes the processes of change in the urban fabric brought about by the newly affluent inhabitants, investments, and regeneration (Anguelovski et al., 2021). One simple and specific positive aspect is a better physical environment, better public spaces, upgraded facilities, and, last, but not least, revived economics as their main and often most significant consequence gentrification influences low-income and Other deprived populations with social exclusion, erasing their cultures and history, and prolonging the divide between the ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots’. It increases questions of equity and justice because the alterations of the process are presumably unequally perceived in the targeted populations.
The main causes of gentrification can be seen in economic and social factors. High demand for houses due to population congestion in urban areas, alongside investment either by the government or private sector brings up property rates and commercial rents higher (Hou et al., 2024). Prosperous newcomers locate themselves near places of employment, cultural facilities, and other attributes of an urban environment thus placing previous unprestigious neighborhoods into upward marketer status. But there are strings attached to all the shades of economic gains. It is not just the poor and the racially oppressed who have lived in Phoenix for years, they are evicted from their homes and neighborhoods. These households cannot afford such high rents, property taxes, and living costs and get dislocated and dismantled coercively, and materially; networks through which they have lived and operated for years can get destroyed.
Displacement is one of the first and easily recognizable impacts of gentrification, it comes into focus at the time when the cost of staying in the neighborhood becomes too expensive, and most of the population is left with no other option other than to leave (Leeuwen, 2024). People may be forced to look for poorly maintained and under-equipped city precincts, or distant areas from where they used to live. Effects of such a condition give rise to instability in the families and communities, regarding various aspects of schools, health care, employment, and many more. It also erodes the concept of neighborhoods in which many people from various cultures derive their pride. Indigenous cultural assets, that are business establishments and religious facilities, for instance, may be lost to globalization or replaced by commercial and other facilities, which capture the standards of higher-income people who move into these areas.
Another problem is the cultural and social transformation of the gensiflying areas (McDougall et al., 2023). Such neighborhoods undergo metamorphosis and respond to the new elites’ high income by altering the identity of the neighborhoods. Independent or mom-and-pop stores needed by the original inhabitants are pushed out by chic stores, eating establishments, and coffee shops that the negatively affected or those remaining lower-income people might not be able or inclined to frequent. This process is sometimes termed “cultural displacement.” Those who lived in those areas for years now noticed that they are actively and systematically starting to become unwelcome. The same loss of cultural variation diminishes the quality and vibrancy of the urban amenities and continues the exact tales of progress that place profits over people’s welfare.
The worst impact of gentrification is that it perpetuates social and racial apos of the population (van Gent et al., 2020). In the past, poor people, less fortunate people, and specifically blacks, Hispanics, and immigrants were the victims of gentrification. Policies of gentrification are providing more hardships to these groups of people since they replace their houses and businesses with more Shielded assets by settling in cheaper, poorly equipped areas they can only attend mere average schools, receive substandard healthcare, and have poor access to public services. It is an indication to other districts, firms, and social classes that the facility of the poor is separate from that of fellow citizens and systemically denies them upward mobility, thereby perpetuating poverty (Tehrani et al., 2018). On the other hand, however, the class of relatively wealthy, primarily white populations benefits from receiving positive effects of gentrification, let alone, real enhancements in infrastructure and services associated with gentrification at the cost of re-establishing social segregation of privileged and less privileged groups.
While gentrification is generally categorized as a driver of economic rebirth, the gains from it are not well distributed. Certain individuals have however posited that it lowers crime rates, encourages investment, increases taxable revenue which would be used to pay for general public services, and enhances the physical facilities. However, these benefits are not always positive for life, and they do not reflect the condition of displaced residents or those who stayed in gentrifying neighborhoods. Like rising property tax where the affected low-income earners will be forced to sell their property and leave.
Significantly, the effects of gentrification on individuals and communities who are displaced and made to feel invisible are concretely psychologically and emotionally repellent. The dynamics of the loss of a home or a neighborhood, along with perceptions that these individuals and groups are left out of receiving the positive aspects of the new urban development scenario, results in resentment frustration, and alienation. For so many, the neighborhood is a lot more than a geographical location but a source of its people’s social identity and support system. The breakdown of such connections also has a potential negative impact on the psychological and physical well-being of a community especially those in the most sensitive parts of the life cycle namely the elderly, youths, and the less fortunate in the society.
The social question on gentrification is met with comprehensive as well as fair approaches to policy making in urban development. Affordable housing strategies exist to guarantee that households living in specific areas can remain in their places of residence as house prices rise is an example (Smith et al., 2020). One solution was inclusionary zoning, which would mandate that developers of new housing projects reserve an amount of its space for below middle-class-income occupants, thus preserving the neighborhood’s population mix. Affordable housing means that preventions from the landlords and protection for tenants are necessary forms of protection. A community land trust is a structure whereby communities own and control land, promote an affordable housing initiative, and work to prevent profiteering.
Another process is the involvement of communities in decision making which is another important function (Schnake et al., 2020). People should right to decide in what shape and form they should rebuild their homes back again based on the needs of their citizens and needs that are intended to be met on requoting development. The benefits are therefore obtained from CBAs where the developers have been engaging in negotiations with community organizations for special provisions including affordable housing and employment within the residence among others. It will empower the folks to nurture their businesses along with the culture-based organizations that can retain the neighborhood with a very exclusive character economically so making the place inclusive.
But then again, gentrification is not inherently evil, it simply has consequences – or benefits – depending on who initiates it, and how. Well-planned and fairly administered urban renewal makes aesthetic and economically integrated living spaces where everyone can taste renewal. Lacking purposeful intentionality for displacement, the elimination of cultural history, and the physical segregation of race, class, and age, gentrification escalates social and economic iniquity. This brings the role of policymakers, urban planners, and other civil leaders, to ensure the fairness of redevelopment by giving the disadvantaged group, a hearing.
PSYC FPX 3540 assessment 2 Conclusion
Gentrification is understood here as the process through which economic, social, and cultural processes give a new lease of life to urban communities, which is important to consider as a bundle of very powerful transformations of cities (Schnake et al., 2020). Though it produces positive impacts such as increased infrastructure and economic rejuvenation, these positive changes harm the original inhabitants since they are evicted and umbrellaed through a lens of cultural erasure and no access to redevelopment profits. Only in this case, the ill effects of this process are qualitatively compensated and complement can contribute to creating a unified urban environment where the demands of all individuals are fulfilled, which will help attain unity instead of division. Thus, knowledge of the problems of gentrification will be important and necessary in the future when only cities expand and develop.
PSYC FPX 3540 assessment 2 References
Anguelovski, I., Cole, H. V. S., O’Neill, E., Baró, F., Kotsila, P., Sekulova, F., Pérez del Pulgar, C., Shokry, G., García-Lamarca, M., Argüelles, L., Connolly, J. J., Honey-Rosés, J., López-Gay, A., Fontán-Vela, M., Matheney, A., Oscilowicz, E., Binet, A., & Triguero-Mas, M. (2021). Gentrification pathways and their health impacts on historically marginalized residents in Europe and North America: Global qualitative evidence from 14 cities. Health & Place, 72(102698), 102698. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.healthplace.2021.102698
Hou, Y., Chen, S., Yao, Z., Zhang, Y., Huang, Q., & Zhang, T. (2024). Exploring gentrification architecture pursuit in individuals with childhood left-behind experiences—empirical analysis based on the perspective of sports participation. Buildings, 14(8), 2367–2367. https://doi.org/10.3390/buildings14082367
Leeuwen, B. van. (2024). What is wrong with gentrification-related displacement? Progress in Human Geography. https://doi.org/10.1177/03091325241289546
McDougall, E., Webber, K., & Petrie, S. (2023). Addressing the need for more nuanced approaches towards transit‐induced gentrification: A case for a complex systems thinking framework. Geography Compass, 17(3). https://doi.org/10.1111/gec3.12681
Smith, G. S., Breakstone, H., & Dean, L. T. (2020). Impacts of gentrification on health in the US: A systematic review of the literature. Journal of Urban Health : Bulletin of the New York Academy of Medicine, 97(6), 845. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11524-020-00448-4
Schnake, A.S., Jahn, J.L., Subramanian, S. et al. Gentrification, neighborhood change, and population health: a systematic review. J Urban Health 97, 1–25 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11524-019-00400-1
Tehrani, S. O., Wu, S. J., & Roberts, J. D. (2018). The color of health: residential segregation, light rail transit developments, and gentrification in the united states. international journal of environmental research and public health, 16(19), 3683. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph16193683
van Gent, W., & Hochstenbach, C. (2020). “Chapter 18: The impact of gentrification on social and ethnic segregation”. In Handbook of Urban Segregation. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar Publishing. Retrieved Dec 14, 2024, from https://doi.org/10.4337/9781788115605.00026