I know that this topic will touch a nerve for many people, as it deals with a sacred place, one's home. Nevertheless, home ownership and how we view it must be discussed as America's inner cities are being gentrified at an alarming rate, displacing a large section of our population. Now, I am not hear to argue for or against the practice of gentrification (which involves uprooting the current and typically poorer residents of a "blighted or underutilized" community in favor of wealthier residents by economic forces such as rising rents and higher sales prices for buildings {for both residential as well as commercial}). Nevertheless, there are questions that come to mind as it relates to our community's leadership or lack thereof in this matter, all the while remembering that it is I (collectively, we) that form the community:
What is my and my community's role in the change process occurring in our neighborhood?
What could my community and I have done to prevent these gentrification efforts form occurring?
What can my community and I do today to help curb the situation?
What can my community and I do moving forward, so that we don't find ourselves caught up in this process again?
Before we get into our role in the gentrification of America, there are a couple of things that must be acknowledged. We all must be honest and face certain truths.
America is a capitalist country (whether we agree with it or not), that is loosely based on science's survival of the fittest premise.
Capitalism is an economic system based on one's ability to create and market the value of one's creation to the consumer on the open marketplace for a profit (sales price-cost/expenses=profits).
Those that create more value in any number of areas whether it be clothing products, food products, sporting products, or real estate products tend to ascend to the wealthier ranks of our society, while those who do not tend to occupy the working class or the poorer ranks.
While there are instances when many of us complain about capitalism's "selfish/inhumane" practices, there are other instances when we relish its benefits, even those that many of us take for granted such as having a television, a cell phone, brand name clothing, or a home computer. The truth is that in countries with different economic systems such as China and Cuba, items such as these are not as commonplace as in America. Therefore, I do not advocate demonizing our economic system, instead I encourage you to comprehend its inner workings so that you, your family, your friends, and your community can benefit from it and not fall prey to such things as gentrification.
I say all of this to point out that capitalism has a theme that we all must recognize and utilize if we want to prosper in it. The theme is as follows: Those that create and add value for others in the marketplace will be rewarded with economic success, while those that don't will remain stagnant and fall prey to our economic system. This being said, are you creating and adding value to the marketplace? What are you creating or adding that others will value? These are leadership questions, therefore the gentrification of America can be classified as a leadership issue. Whether it be a leadership issue at the individual or community level is for you to decide, but it is a leadership issue nevertheless. Yes, some of you may want to turn this into a political debate, but it truly is not. While gentrification can be made to be a political debate, at the root of the issue is the individual and the community's choice to create or add value within their neighborhood so that it cannot be deemed blighted or underutilized by locally elected politicians and real estate developers.
You see, gentrification can only occur in neighborhoods where there is low ownership by those that live and do business in the neighborhood. Realize, that when you pay rent, you are at the mercy of the landlord (whether you are a resident or a business owner). At any time, that landlord can decide to raise your rent to the point of pricing you out of the neighborhood in search of higher profits. So, if your locally elected politicians and area real estate developers deem your neighborhood prime real estate for any number of reasons, what do you think that landlord in search of higher profits is going to do in a free market economy like capitalism? What would you do? Even if you don't want to admit it, because in this case capitalism does not work to your advantage, most of us (being totally honest with ourselves) would justify in our minds charging higher rents. And then the dominoes begin to fall. When one landlord gets higher rents from new/wealthier tenants, the rest fall in line, until the previous residents are driven out because of high cost. Now, what was of value in this process? Why, the land of course. The problem is, was this land being valued by its residents prior to gentrification? That is debatable, but do know that if you have little to no ownership, your voice in this debate can be easily silenced. This is the essence of gentrification.
On the contrary, if you owned your home or the building that your business was located in, gentrification would be much more difficult to occur, because locally elected politicians and developers would have to show just cause in order to utilize eminent domain, which involves government buyout of homeowners and building owners in order to use that area of land for the betterment of the public at large. This is not usually an easy case to make, especially if the community joins together to fight the action.
This leads me to ask you a few questions:
Do you own the property where you reside or do business? If not, why?
If your home is supposed to be your castle, what could you be spending your money on that is preventing you from saving the money to own it?
For those of you who say, "I can barely make ends meet." I ask you, are you creating and adding something of value to the marketplace? (Whether it be knowledge, food, jewelry, poetry, anything.) Understand that if you are not, you will remain in this conversation for the foreseeable future, and gentrification will not be your only problem.
Are you staying informed as to what is going on in your neighborhood?
Are you voting (this act alone, holds local politicians in check)? It is well known that communities that have smaller voting turnouts have less political influence then those with higher voter turnouts, because politicians know that there will be little to no repercussions that will hinder future reelection bids if they take actions that are not popular with the low voter turnout communities. Hence, gentrification becomes a viable option in these communities.
Didn't you notice how I've been prefacing the term politician(s) with the words locally elected? I did this because your community allowed the very same politician(s) that are gentrifying your neighborhood to take office by either voting for them or by not voting at all.
Again, whether gentrification is a heartless act against the working class and the poor or revitalizes formerly "blighted or underutilized" real estate is debatable, but what's not debatable is that it occurs randomly. Gentrification is an intentional act by those given the power to take actions such as rezoning and handing out government contracts to real estate developers. Notice, I said those given the power. I say this because gentrification often occurs in:
communities, where the ownership rate by those living and doing business in the community is low.
communities that are perceived as not thriving, blighted, or underutilized by our political leaders.
communities that are not holding their politicians accountable.
This leads to my next point, which is that gentrification does not happen overnight. Not at all. Gentrifying a particular community takes years to come to fruition. So for it to succeed, means that many in the community turned a blind eye, or simply did nothing until it became apparent that the neighborhood had already changed. So, what now? How can a community stave off gentrification when it has already begun to take root? Sadly, it may be too late for some communities. In these communities, soaring housing and property costs have outpaced the indigenous residents' incomes. In addition, the lack of voter turnout for local elections in these communities have often resulted in an inability to pressure locally elected politicians to create significant affordable housing. But it does no good to look backwards at the gentrified communities with regret, instead we must look to the future armed with a better understanding of what it means to vote, to own, to create, and to be a part of a community. Regardless of your community's current situation, we all have to become leaders for ourselves, our children, our communities, and our futures.
We can all start by understanding and by embracing capitalism. This means creating something of value to introduce into the marketplace (within your community as well as outside its borders).
We must encourage others in our community to do the same. We must begin engaging with our local politicians and letting our voice be heard at the voting booth. Let our representatives know that we as well as our constituents will not be supporting any of their future political campaigns if they do not address our housing concerns. And most of all, we must work towards owning where we live and/or do business, this way we keep control of what goes on in our neighborhood. If this means not indulging in some of life's niceties for a while, then so be it. In the long run, we will have acquired a property that will gain in value and security as long as we along with our neighbors add value to the community.
This is our home, our block, our community. This is leadership, America. This is important.
