Essay On The Pros And Cons Of Gentrification

The process of gentrification, renovating and improving urban neighborhoods to suit a middle-class lifestyle, may be romanticized to many middle-class individuals, but hold grand consequences to lower-income individuals who originate from urban situations. Individuals come into a neighborhood and buy buildings and apartments to flip them to be higher-quality, thereby raising rent, taxes, and the cost of living. This neighborhood is now unaffordable to those who live there, causing displacement and erasure of urban identity. Those who decide not to move or do not have the means to move are even more impoverished because their rent is too expensive for them to afford much else. Low-income neighborhoods tend to be low income for undesirable reasons,

Many individuals do not recognize gentrification as a problem in any sense. They are only able to view the positives in regards to who reaps the benefits rather than see the damage and displacement forced upon the victims. It is also a matter of procedural justice because residents in areas facing gentrification have no say in who can come in and zone business and residential areas. There are also laws in place that discourage and prevent minorities from owning homes and properties due to longstanding biases from an era of legalized redlining, making them more vulnerable to displacement. Evidence of inequality in regards to distribution and procedure also exist. Low-income individuals do not reap the same benefits as those who are wealthy and has been so throughout history, and these individuals do not have any power over what happens to the neighborhoods that they live

The history of redlining, the act of favoring loans towards home ownership to white individuals, is the root of the problem. Redlining is now illegal as it is a direct act of discrimination but as discussed in class, it is still subconsciously practiced in modern mortgage companies (Luna, 2017). Since people of color had systematically and lawfully been at a disadvantage in regards to owning a home, they are always more vulnerable to unstable housing and have minimal control over it. Minority and low-income individuals are already more likely to rent than their white counterparts, causing tem to be pushed and displaced when their communities gain higher standards of living. In an article by Bernice Ross titled “Why Redlining and Discrimination Are Still Real Estate’s Problem”, she exposed a number of lawsuits filed regarding violations to the Fair Housing and Opportunities Act. In United States v JP Morgan Chase Bank, “the complaint had alleged that the defendant charged African American and Hispanic borrowers higher rates and fees for wholesale mortgages than similarly situated white borrowers” (Ross