John Joe Schlichtman

The term gentrification was coined just 50 years ago by Ruth Glass in London. It described the landed gentry descending en masse into a deteriorating neighborhood. Investing in it, they changed it.

Gentrifier is an attempt to describe every conceivable angle and objection to gentrification, by three ethnographers who use their own experience as the basis. This is, of course, never wise. I did like that they distilled gentrification of a neighborhood into a de- phase, followed by a re- phase. That is a lovely, elegant and simple image for anyone to grasp the impact. They have also classified gentrifiers into six stereotypes: Conqueror, Colonizer, Competitor, Capitalist, Consumer, and Curator, which I was not so happy with. There are at least two other obvious possibilities they never consider (possibly because they don’t begin with C). In immigrant communities all over the world, people with similar backgrounds like to congregate. It gives them a sense of support, familiarity and comfort. So if an Indian community suddenly develops in New Jersey, it’s gentrification as blacks and/or whites move out. And two, there can be a (all too rare) sense of excitement being part of something that is building, not just existing. When Soho changed from industrial to artsy, it attracted people who liked that new ethos. It’s not just (or necessarily) wealthier people taking over rundown housing.

From what I have seen, gentrification is just a slander of the term redevelopment, like calling public school government school. (I wanted to use “urban renewal”, but apparently I have spent a lifetime misusing urban renewal. The authors narrowly define it as government cleansing in the 1950s-70s, so we can’t use it to describe the rebirth of neighborhoods today.)

What Gentrifier skips over is that we go through eras. Cities used to hollow out as suburbs became fashionable, starting with the interstate highway system in the 50s. Now suburbs are déclassé and inner cities are where it’s at. The whole world is urbanizing, so there’s investment going on. Cities are living breathing beings, if you read Jane Jacobs or Ayn Rand. They get ill, they recover, they grow, they die, they re-emerge. Gentrification is one passing phase in the life of a neighborhood. In 25 years, you won’t recognize it. It could disappear like Detroit or blossom like Bed-Stuy. Neighborhoods were never built blighted. Gentrification is just another stage.

Gentrifier reads like philosophy: things are both what they seem and not. Everything can be viewed positively and negatively. There is no clear path, it says. In quantum physics, the mere fact a scientist witnesses an event changes its outcome. In Gentrifier, many just want to fit in and not change their new neighborhood. But guess what? Just by being there, they do. And unless we want to live in Amish villages, there will be gentrification, not better, not worse.

David Wineberg… (mere)