[lbo-talk] Olympic displacement

Wojtek Sokolowski swsokolowski at yahoo.com
Wed Jun 6 21:34:04 PDT 2007


--- "W. Kiernan" <wkiernan at gmail.com> wrote:


> WS wrote:
> >
> > [WS:] And what is exactly wrong with
> "regeneration"
> > or "gentrification?" It creates economic growth,
> > it improves living conditions, it creates jobs -
> > what is wrong with that.
>
> If WS had seen downtown St. Petersburg, Florida over
> the last couple
> years he wouldn't have had to ask that question.

[WS:] I did not see downtown St. Petersburg FL but I have seen downtown Baltimore, MD. And i can tell you exactly where the people "displaced" by gentrification went - to new very nice developments that you cannot tell the diffrence between subsidized and "market-rate" units. I already offered a free tour of these developments to anyone on this list who cares to visit Baltimore - and that offer is still good.

Quite frankly, i find your petersburg story a bit hard to believe, because in most states residents of public housing cannot be simply kicked into the streets - they must be provided substitute housing. Perhaps FL is different, or perhaps those who live in the tents are not the same people who lived in the demolished housing, or perhaps the demolished housing was not public housing. However, based on my MD experience I find this story difficult to believe, and i have been involved in community development here for quite a while.

There is another angle to the gentrification story -taxes. Many US cities suffer tax base deficits due to low property values and flight of better off individuals to the burbs. Building $500k condos in the cities addresses that problems and creates new revenue stream that funds city services roads, schools, libraries, housing, the police, that are used predominantly by the low to moderate income citizens. That is a long term benefit of gentrification that benefits the low income group - much better than, say, nonprofits taking advantage of low property values and moving to cities - since they do not pay property taxes. It certainly helped Baltimore more than millions previously wasted on a football stadium

That benefit outweighs the inconvenience of those few who have to move to make room for new developments. I can understand that moving can be difficult, I have been moving every 3-4 years since i left my parents' house, but that is not the end of the world. And as i alrady said, in many cases that i know the "displaced" low income residents receive assitance in their relocation.

It would be helpful to move this discusion beyond anecdotes and urban legends to a more systematic and comprehensive comparisons of both, costs and benefits of urban development.

Wojtek

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