Gentrification Op-Ed Floyd PDF

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ErrDaisha Floyd Dr. Aaron Passell Introduction to Urban Sociology Spring 2019 Home is Not Where the Heart Is Profit over people. This is what drives gentrification in capitalist societies; some people’s lives, their communities and neighborhoods, are made to be disposable solely for the profit of someone else. Inherently, then, there is an imbalanced relationship which works to reproduce inequality underlying gentrification. On one hand, the extraction of capital is pursued relentlessly. On the other, people are living their lives, constructing their sense of self and their view of the world day by day.

Living is what the residents of The North Boulevard Homes were doing. The housing project was home to 2,000 residents, mostly African-American, mostly people who had lived substantial parts of their lives there. It was located in West Tampa, a bustling part of town where Black mothers could be spotted out before the sun, tending to motherly things. Convenient bus routes took them wherever they needed to go. Groups of Black men fellowshipped outside, congregating in open spaces because, if they lived in the Projects, which most of them did, their homes proved not large enough. Their homes proved not capable of lots of things but it was still their home. To developers, however, their home proved to be profit unrealized.

In Tampa, modern gentrification is named InVision Tampa, a reinvestment plan focused on redeveloping the downtown Tampa area. It includes the West River Reinvestment Plan whose first phase required the demolition of North Boulevard Homes and the removal of its 2,000 residents. When this happened, Mayor Buckhorn boasted that Downtown and West Tampa had “already been transformed. You can feel it. You can see it in people's sense of pride, their sense of ownership, their Tampa swagger” [ CITATION Eme18 \l 1033 ]. Based on where they 1

ErrDaisha Floyd Dr. Aaron Passell Introduction to Urban Sociology Spring 2019 relocated, the 2,000 former residents were not the “people” whose sense of pride and ownership mattered.

According to data gathered by the Tampa Bay Times, 52% of those residents relocated to communities that were just as impoverished as West Tampa [ CITATION Joh18 \l 1033 ]. Although the city provided Section 8 vouchers and funds for moving, affordable housing was still clustered in the same neighborhoods. Just like the result produced by demolishing other housing projects such as Ponce de Leon and College Hill Homes, the quality of life for the former residents did not change. Instead, a group of people had been forced to relocate to a place of similar conditions in order for their old neighborhood to improve.

Not only does this create a sense of isolation, as one is removed from their home, but it ultimately contributes to how one sees themselves. As social beings, humans derive their sense of meaning from place. This is why conceptualizing the neighborhood can become complex; a person’s understanding of their neighborhood is entirely dependent on that person, their daily routine, their relationships with people and the environment, and their experiences. In this way, a person shapes what a neighborhood is and vice versa; the neighborhood shapes who the person is. Gentrification obscures the fact that places are socially derived and integral to a person’s understanding of self, especially when that place is socially isolated.

As stated, North Boulevard Housing Project was home for some. The disinvestment had been worked into the resident’s sense of self. This was only reinforced by gentrification because while their old home was renewed, their new home remained disinvested in. In other words, the place 2

ErrDaisha Floyd Dr. Aaron Passell Introduction to Urban Sociology Spring 2019 was renewed while the people, who were not, were moved to a place that reaffirmed their “sense of pride and ownership”. Instead of addressing high unemployment and low job skills which would align the people with the new property values, the government only made it easier for them to be moved out.

If the developers and the city wanted, they could be more intentional about creating space for displaced residents. For example, tax and rent controls and inclusive zoning rules are just two ways that would preserve the people. This would give community development boards an opportunity to actually center the community because building and infrastructure improvements would be made by the people, for those people. At the same time, schools would be improved and employers would be strategically placed in the community.

Yet, the intention, in a capitalist system, is profit. Space is made for profit not for people, excluding the 2,000 former residents of North Boulevard Homes. Thus, Mayor Buckhorn was right to say West Tampa had been transformed. In order for the place to be truly transformed, not only does there have to be new developments, but there also has to be new people, new lives lived there. Together, that makes a neighborhood, one that does not intend to have space for former residents and their lives.

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ErrDaisha Floyd Dr. Aaron Passell Introduction to Urban Sociology Spring 2019 Academic Discussion Logan and Molotch posited that place is socially derived (3) Neighborhoods are largely determined by the people that make them up, not the material things. Therefore, if the people are changed, the neighborhood is changed. This is reflected in Hwang’s study in which she asked people about their neighborhoods while it was gentrifying. Black and white residents competed to “legitimate their presence in a neighborhood by engaging in boundary work” (99). Therefore, the different groups named the neighborhood differently, in a way that reflected their stakes in the community. New white residents provided a variety of names for the neighborhood to mark their presence while older residents resisted this by keeping conventional boundaries, a maneuver which prevented them from losing their sense of place. The sense of loss of place is extremely significant in the discussion of gentrification given that place is socially derived, and the self is derived from place. Feelings of pride and ownership give way to shame and powerlessness when a person’s neighborhood, who they are, is transformed without them. Therefore, as Shaw and Hagemans conclude, “loss of place can be as distressing as physical relocation” (337). The feeling of isolation can be exacerbated by “physical or psychological disability, lack of access to private transport, reliance on hours of operation of public transport…” (337). Furthermore, daily routines are disrupted as shops and meeting places are lost, resulting in a reduction of daily goods and services catered to lowincome people. Some place-attachment theorists go so far as to name feelings of grief produced by the sense of loss of place which shows that beyond the economics, there are “social and human” factors (339). This explains part of the reason why gentrification is a “chaotic” term (Lees, Slater, and Wyly 3). At the very least, gentrification occurs in stages, as pointed out by Lees, Slater, and 4

ErrDaisha Floyd Dr. Aaron Passell Introduction to Urban Sociology Spring 2019 Wyly. They also noted a difference between production drivers of gentrification, emphasizing the role of the deterministic real estate market, and consumption drivers, centering the creation of gentrifiers through social change. Nevertheless, “gentrification is nothing more and nothing less than neighborhood expression of class inequality” (80). In particular, class inequality is expressed through who things are created for. Deneer shows, in his study of Abbot Kinney Boulevard, that a neighborhood signals who belongs and who doesn’t through the shops that are in that neighborhood. Shops on Abbot Kinney cater to a high-end crowd, favoring anticorporates crafts. Older Black residents remember spots created specifically for the black community but, since these were not profitable, they were disposed of. Taken together, these studies offer nuance to Freemen’s “Displacement and Gentrification in England and Wales”. Although Freemen found that “there is no evidence that low-income or working-class individuals are more susceptible to moving from gentrification”, these same individuals might also experience social displacement (3). The complexity involved in conceptualizing neighborhoods complicates understandings of gentrification. Still, the complexity also prevents the concept of “social preservationists” introduced by Brown-Saracino, since they are trying to preserve their own, simplified, fetishized, version of the neighborhood.

Works Cited (Op-Ed) Original Story: Morrow, Emerald. CHANGING FACE OF TAMPA: WINNERS AND LOSERS IN THE PUSH FOR REDEVELOPMENT. 31 January 2018. 5 April 2019.

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ErrDaisha Floyd Dr. Aaron Passell Introduction to Urban Sociology Spring 2019 https://www.wtsp.com/amp/article?section=news&subsection=local&topic=changingface-of-tampa&headline=changing-face-of-tampa-winners-and-losers-in-the-push-forredevelopment&contentId=67-512676326

Martin, John. Two thousand public housing residents were uprooted from West Tampa. Here’s where they went. 12 March 2018. 5 April 2019. https://www.tampabay.com/news/Two-thousand-public-housing-residents-were-uprootedfrom-West-Tampa-Here-s-where-they-went_16593646

Works Cited (Academic Discussion) Brown-Saracino, Japonica. "Social Preservationists." City and Community (2004): 135-153. Deneer, Andrew. "Commerce as the structure and symbol of neighborhood life ." City and Community (207): 291-314. Freemen, Lance, Adele Cassola and Tiancheng Cai. "Displacement and gentrification in England and Wales." Urban Studies (2015): 1-18. Hwang, Jackelyn. "The Social Construction of a Gentrifying Neighborhood." Urban Affairs Review (2016): 98-128. Lees, Loretta, Tom Slater and Elvin Wyly. Gentrification. New York City: Routledge, 2008. Shaw, Kate and Iris Hagemans. "Gentrification without Displacement’ and the Consequent Loss of Place." IJURR (2015): 1-20.

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ErrDaisha Floyd Dr. Aaron Passell Introduction to Urban Sociology Spring 2019

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