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Consequences of urban renewal
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From an aerial perspective, Southwest DC is strikingly different from the other four quadrants of the city. Not only is the neighborhood much smaller, but the street grid is also broken. While the same rules apply to SW, the street grid is not as rigid as the rest of the city; this allows for more open spaces and serves to make SW feel more like a neighborhood than just a collection of big city blocks. The older buildings that make up a large portion of SW comprise of many low-rise, low-to-mid income housing, and some interspersed light commercial plots on each block near South Capitol St., but it becomes almost exclusively residential approaching the waterfront and far Southwest border. This is a change from most of the rest of the city; while there are plenty of other residential neighborhoods, none have the contrast between new and old that is present in SW.
The old urban renewal on the neighborhood created what can be seen today as a highly dichotomized neighborhood with elements of both extreme wealth and intense poverty. Walking from South Capitol St. westward, the area follows a starkly contrasting trend – new high-rise, upscale condominiums – then old downtrodden row houses and apartments, some without electricity – and finally an upscale, but old, area mixed with row houses and large apartments and condos. The first two sections are perhaps the most evident example of current urban renewal efforts in the entire city. The ability to stand in a lot in the middle of SW (e.g. the site of the old Waterside Mall) and look down M St. to see three distinct trends shows just how much this neighborhood has been torn apart. The influx of renewal has brought new developers into the eastern portion (looking eastward), where high-rise...
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... type of facility keeps kids off the streets and promotes positive habits during formative years in a young person’s life. In addition to the benefits to children, the city also provides adults with career oriented services such as resume writing classes and job searching advisors. Aside from educating people and helping on an individual level, the city can enforce laws that require developers to devote a portion of new buildings to low-income housing. Right now there is a brand new high class condo building on one side of M St. with downtrodden row houses on the other. Instead, there should be new buildings on both sides of the road, catering to both luxurious lifestyles and people on a tight budget.
Works Cited
Wasserman, Paul, and Don Hausrath. Washington, DC from A to Z: the Traveler's Look-up Source for the Nation's Capital. Sterling, Va.: Capital, 2003. Print
Jackelyn Hwang and Robert J. Sampson’s article “Divergent Pathways of Gentrification: Racial Inequality and the Social Order of Renewal in Chicago Neighborhoods” addresses the evolution of gentrification over time. The direct examination of gentrification is difficult to observe; however, by examining social pathways we are able to further advance our studies.
Chicago’s Cabrini-Green public housing project is notorious in the United States for being the most impoverished and crime-ridden public housing development ever established. Originally established as inexpensive housing in the 1940’s, it soon became a vast complex of unsightly concrete low and high-rise apartment structures. Originally touted as a giant step forward in the development of public housing, it quickly changed from a racially and economically diverse housing complex to a predominantly black, extremely poor ghetto. As it was left to rot, so to speak, Cabrini-Green harbored drug dealers, gangs and prostitution. It continued its downward spiral of despair until the mid 1990’s when the Federal Government assumed control the Chicago Housing Authority, the organization responsible for this abomination. Cabrini-Green has slowly been recovering from its dismal state of affairs recently, with developers building mixed-income and subsidized housing. The Chicago Housing Authority has also been demolishing the monolithic concrete high-rise slums, replacing them with public housing aimed at not repeating the mistakes of the past. Fortunately, a new era of public housing has dawned from the mistakes that were made, and the lessons that were learned from the things that went on for half a century in Cabrini-Green.
Lance Freeman tackles the issue of gentrification from the perspectives of residents in the gentrified neighborhood. He criticizes the literature for overlooking the experiences of the victims of gentrification. The author argues that people’s conceptions on the issue are somewhat misinformed in that most people consider it as completely deplorable, whereas in reality, it benefits the community by promoting businesses, different types of stores, and cleaner streets. These benefits are even acknowledged by many residents in the gentrified neighborhood. However, the author admits that gentrification indeed does harm. Although gentrification does not equate to displacement per se, it serves to benefit primarily homeowners and harm the poor. Additionally,
Another noteworthy urban sociologist that’s invested significant research and time into gentrification is Saskia Sassen, among other topical analysis including globalization. “Gentrification was initially understood as the rehabilitation of decaying and low-income housing by middle-class outsiders in central cities. In the late 1970s a broader conceptualization of the process began to emerge, and by the early 1980s new scholarship had developed a far broader meaning of gentrification, linking it with processes of spatial, economic and social restructuring.” (Sassen 1991: 255). This account is an extract from an influential book that extended beyond the field of gentrification and summarizes its basis proficiently. In more recent and localized media, the release the documentary-film ‘In Jackson Heights’ portrayed the devastation that gentrification is causing as it plagues through Jackson Heights, Queens. One of the local businessmen interviewed is shop owner Don Tobon, stating "We live in a
In conclusion, I believe that every place has one building that either makes or breaks the area in which it is located. I believe that my city has areas where some buildings bring the area down. As a resident of Saginaw I didn’t really want to bring the negative to this paper, I’d rather bring the positive buildings to my paper. I hate the negativity the world has on Saginaw. But what they fail to realize is every place has a downfall, and the rise of Saginaw is on its way!
To appreciate a row house neighborhood, one must first look at the plan as a whole before looking at the individual blocks and houses. The city’s goal to build a neighborhood that can be seen as a singular unit is made clear in plan, at both a larger scale (the entire urban plan) and a smaller scale (the scheme of the individual houses). Around 1850, the city began to carve out blocks and streets, with the idea of orienting them around squares and small residential parks. This Victorian style plan organized rectangular blocks around rounded gardens and squares that separated the row houses from major streets. The emphasis on public spaces and gardens to provide relief from the ene...
Gentrification is the keystone for the progression of the basic standards of living in urban environments. A prerequisite for the advancement of urban areas is an improvement of housing, dining, and general social services. One of the most revered and illustrious examples of gentrification in an urban setting is New York City. New York City’s gentrification projects are seen as a model for gentrification for not only America, but also the rest of the world. Gentrification in an urban setting is much more complex and has deeper ramifications than seen at face value. With changes in housing, modifications to the quality of life in the surrounding area must be considered as well. Constant lifestyle changes in a community can push out life-time
As the moving in of new residents filled the community with new cultures, many old life styles are slowly disappearing. This quote in document E says: “Those tired old landmarks are being replaced with market housing, trendy eateries and a whole new population that’s heard about, but has likely never seen what the Downtown Eastside was all about.” The main point in this quote is while the new things are coming into the DTES, they did not care nor preserve the old life-stye of that place. While they are building new shops and housings, they are also removing what has stayed there for a long time, the old poor and rugged culture that represented
Over the next 160 years Central Park has seen many transformations. An early decline in the 1900’’s followed by a revitalization by Robert Moses
..., residents. The new residents obtain “affordable”, stylish housing and all of the pricey accommodations of life in a trendy urban neighborhood (coffee shops, bookstores, boutiques, club, etc.). Although long-time residents may benefit initially from safer, cleaner streets and better schools, they are eventually priced out of buying or renting. In addition, as the new residents impose their culture on the neighborhood, lower-income residents become socially and economically marginalized. Even if the economic discrepancies aren't as severe as they may appear, a persistent complaint about gentrification is that it damages the "soul" of a neighborhood. The tough character, eclectic spirit, and ethnic diversity that attracted the initial urban pioneers is overhauled by overpriced brunch menus, iPad-tapping hipsters, chain stores, and stroller parking at the corner bar.
Furthermore, he attempts to dispel the negative aspects of gentrification by pointing out how some of them are nonexistent. To accomplish this, Turman exemplifies how gentrification could positively impact neighborhoods like Third Ward (a ‘dangerous’ neighborhood in Houston, Texas). Throughout the article, Turman provides copious examples of how gentrification can positively change urban communities, expressing that “gentrification can produce desirable effects upon a community such as a reduced crime rate, investment in the infrastructure of an area and increased economic activity in neighborhoods which gentrify”. Furthermore, he opportunistically uses the Third Ward as an example, which he describes as “the 15th most dangerous neighborhood in the country” and “synonymous with crime”, as an example of an area that could “need the change that gentrification provides”.
"Building Partnerships to Revitalize America's Neighborhoods." HBCU Central (Winter 2002): 1-6. Winter 2002. Web. 2 May 2012.
Hollywood is so much more than a metonym for the entertainment business, or a tourist attraction; it is an ethnically diverse neighborhood that doesn’t necessarily live up to the glitz and glamour of the movies. Because Hollywood doesn’t live up to tourist expectations, public and private forces seek to change it. The result is gentrification. Since 1986, the forty year multi-million Hollywood Redevelopment Project has overtaken the neighborhood (Reynolds, 2012, p. 101). Initiated by associations such as the Los Angeles City Council, the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce, and the Community Redevelopment Agency of Los Angeles (CRA/LA) projects such as the W Hotel and the Hollywood and Highland Center over-glamorized the neighborhood. Hollywood abounds
Pollard (2001) writes about the despondency of the American public over loss of open spaces, pollution, and climate change due to land-use and transportation patterns in the paper, ‘Greening the American dream?’ The author believes that ‘new urbanism’ is the solution to these issues. New urbanism is a variety of related planning and design approaches that include traditional neighbourhood, as well as transit-oriented development (Pollard, 2001). New urbanists are critics of sprawl and promote mixed-use land development. Designs include more open spaces, walkable neighbourhoods and street networks with few cul-de-sacs. The primary goals of new urbanism are to save open spaces and wildlife habitat
The night way cold and rainy, no moon was present. As people walked down the street never once looking up, eyes glued to their phones with an infinite amount of apps, infinite wasted time. The buildings were tall, concrete on the north side of the city, offices and high rises for business men and the wealthy. To the south were old brick buildings, a historic downtown from the original city, narrow streets and no stop lights. The contrast was incredible, in the north was the present, in the south was like something out of a Noir film. In the west was the docks, they had never changed, wooden structures reaching out and large filled dry docks. The city was always busy with trade, imports exports, everything