How does the process of gentrification and tourism change our cities?
Question: On paper two, we explored the processes of urban restructuring. On paper three, we will concentrate on two important trends that have been associates with urban restructuring in the United States: gentrification and tourism.
Utilizing at least eight citations of specific pages from at least five of our readings (Frieden and Sagalyn, Anderson, Abu-Lughod, Mele, Fainstein and Gladstone, Judd, and Hannigan) consider how the issues that we have studied to date are related to both gentrification and tourism (and how gentrification and tourism are related to one another.
Cities are always competing among each other have been doing so since the original ideas of cities was established. They each try to be; the most popular city, safest and more appealing to tourism. Thus, it is inevitable that cities would try rebuild themselves and constantly update themselves in such a way that there would be nothing but good things that can be said about their location. Gentrification and tourism both play important roles in the development of cities. Cities try to establish themselves in a more appealing way by gentrifying old neighborhoods and try to attract tourism. In this paper I will attempt to establish how the issues such as economy are related to both gentrification and tourism and how gentrification and tourism are related to one another.
Gentrification and tourism are strongly correlated as structures of operation for cities. Thus; gentrification and tourism greatly rely on heaps amount of revenue, well established marketing, and a significant and vital participation of the public financial support.
Gentrification is the re-establishment and improvement of deteriorating urban areas. It is where the reinvestments of real estate capital into declining neighborhoods near a downtown to create a new residential neighborhood for middle end high-income residents. Gentrification usually take place is low income neighborhoods where the poor and the immigrants resides. Frieden and Sagalyn (1997, 16) mentioned that “to replace the obsolete city with new vision would mean tearing down much of what was here…and in order to save the downtown area, it was necessary to destroy it”. Almost every resident was hurt by this. The areas were completely destroyed and renovated. Majority or all the residential buildings were converted into luxury housing. The residential building that shelter many poor families was converted into luxury condos and co-ops. Many of the industrial space such as old factories were converted to luxury condos to attract middle class residents.
The process of gentrification came with a high price. It was very costly to many people. It greatly impinge on household dislocation on several aspects such as development and improvement to the environment and atmosphere, property values greatly increased, landowner harassments, and rent increased. Because almost all the areas were deteriorating the property values decreased very dramatically. Middle class people were buying up the houses and buildings and renovating them. Mele (1994, 170) acknowledged that “investors who purchased one or more properties were solely for the purpose of quick resale at a profit”. Investors would buy properties at cheap values, fixed it up and resell it to a cheap value but enough to make a considerable amount of profit, gentrification main theory is the “recap theory” that is the difference between potential value and actual value of a property.
As mention earlier, many of the people who were living in this neighborhood were poor, so they were push out and evicted because they could not afford to pay the rent. Many people move away and many became homeless. Mele (1994, 179) established that ‘the warehousing of vacant apartments in New York City greatly contributed to the increase in the number of homeless, especially homeless families, because they could not afford to purchase a condo or co-op even at the lower insider’s price”.
In addition, given that these new neighborhood is attracting new people (middle class people) it began to set the foundation for other industries. Anderson (1990, 139) mentioned that the invasion of the newcomers affect local businesses and government officials. For instance, mortgages and home improvement loans that would have been denied a few years earlier are now more readily available”. New retail and other commercial establishments began to emerge and such as upscale restaurants, coffee shops, boutiques, art galleries and high end clothing shops. Because rentals were very low and people were moving in, there was a great demand for these industries, and thus, the businesses that were already there could no longer compete because although the rentals were low, they still could not afford it.
Gentrification did not only affect these neighborhoods economically, but also socially and culturally. Gentrification changes the social environment and established class based and ethnic networks. New comers bring their own culture to the community. They try to change the physical image of the neighborhood. For instance, they would change the decorations and attractions of the neighborhood. They would install gardens and better parks they think is culturally appropriate. Anderson cited that “as the newcomers wittingly or unwittingly establish a cultural outpost of the larger society, they tend to discount this significant proportion of the host community and are fairly criticized for not following the cultural footsteps of their processors”.
