A congressman representing poor communities in Brooklyn and Queens and a magazine managed by a private equity firm have different opinions about gentrification!
Last Thursday, U.S. Congressman Hakeem Jeffries called gentrification a "malignant tumor" in his state of the District address. Speaking at Boys and Girls High School in Bed-Stuy, the first-term congressman Jeffries said that once gentrification "takes a hold of a neighborhood, it completely devours it, and then goes on to consume neighborhood after neighborhood. We must stop this cancer dead in its tracks."
Strong words from Jeffries, who told his constituents that he's going to work on changing tax exemptions to require a minimum of 50% affordable housing units in new buildings. Right now, law only requires an 80/20 split.
New York Magazine, managed by a private equity firm which presumably benefits from soaring real estate values and the construction of new condominium towers, promptly followed Jeffries's speech by publishing a feature singing the praises of gentrification.
In the piece "Is Gentrification All Bad?" music and architecture critic Justin Davidson relates some folksy anecdotes about individuals in gentrifying neighborhoods whose businesses have survived by offering high-end products to their new clientele. Davidson comes to the conclusion that while gentrification might indeed make life harder for communities that have been in neighborhoods for some time (but the Irish were here first! He so tiredly points out), a rising tide lifts all ships. Except maybe some people have to tread a bit harder just to stay afloat.
So is gentrification a "malignant tumor" or a partially beneficial phenomenon whose evils have been overstated? Davidson cites a 9-year-old work of academia to support his argument that minority communities are benefiting from gentrification. Hakeem Jeffries represents a group of New Yorkers desperate for affordable housing now, in a rapidly developing part of the city. Where does the truth lie? Somewhere in between, probably, but most likely not in the pages of a magazine that massive real estate interests call home.
