By: Coleman Elkins
Introduction
Elizabeth Mueller, a professor at UT says, “The main issue is how fast the city has been growing over such a short period of time, so we have lots of demand for housing, especially in the central parts of the city that's been driving the price of housing up in those areas, driving the price of land in particular up in those areas”
Rising property taxes in Austin are causing a huge problem for many families, whose income cannot keep up with increases in rent. If these families can’t make enough money to stay in their houses while their rent rises, they will be forced to move farther away from Austin. Keep in mind that these are the people that are working at gas stations, fast-food restaurants, and grocery stores, and now they can’t afford to live in Austin anymore. This is changing the character of these neighborhoods, which worries people.
This is a before and after photo of a building after it had been gentrified:
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John from the Waller creek foundation in Austin says, “The presence of a brand new really active exciting park will increase property values around there. I think you know we're looking at ways that we can help mitigate that through programs for supporting other organizations and advocating with the city for some of those increased tax dollars.”
Gentrification is when rapid development transforms a poor neighborhood to a much wealthier one. The neighborhoods that used to house many low-income families fill in with new and fancy buildings inhabited by wealthier people. Sometimes this happens when the city tries to make these neighborhoods a nicer place, by making parks and other nice areas around low-income housing. As a result, more people will want to live around that park, raising property values. For example, in New York City, specifically Manhattan, a park called the Highline was built in a low-income neighborhood. Soon, the Highline was the most visited part of New York, this meant the land around it was going to get more expensive, and it did. When this happens, the property tax starts to rise, displacing families who don’t have a well-paying job and can barely make enough money to feed their families.
The Highline, New York CIty:
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“Gentrifiers” are middle-class citizens who move into a city and buy houses in what once was a lower class neighborhood. Over time the neighborhood could even go on to house all types of people, eventually even the richest. This quote from Gentrifier, an online publication, captures the idea: “We are gentrifiers. That is to say, we are middle-class people who moved into disinvested neighborhoods in a period during which a critical mass of other middle-class people did the same, thereby exerting economic, political, and social pressures upon the existing community.”
John also says,
So you know what we have in terms of what we do as an organization, we're not just building a park, we also have a real focus on making this a park for all. One of the many ways that you know we're really looking to address the correct gauge on the community and that extends to like you know you're more traditional events. Stuff like asking folks what they lost in a park, but also looking at ways that we can create workforce development or training programs in another park and ways that we can engage with other city and nonprofit organizations to help advocate for affordable housing and just generally improving quality of life and affordability in Austin.”
In a lot of cities across America, gentrification happens because of some kind of disaster. For example, this is a passage from the New Republic talking about a book by Peter Moskowitz, How to kill a city, specifically what makes a city gentrify:“In New Orleans, Moskowitz argues, it was Hurricane Katrina; in Detroit, it was the 2013 municipal bankruptcy that allowed Michigan Governor Rick Snyder to install an unelected emergency manager with powers over the city government.” This makes sense because nobody who has any money would want to build a house in a really dangerous, and dirty neighborhood when they could build somewhere else. When a disaster like Hurricane Katrina hits a city like New Orleans, it can destroy a lot of neighborhoods, including some of the lower-income ones. The lower-income families will not have enough money to build there, while the wealthier ones will, and thus the city becomes gentrified.
Causes
The threat of rising property tax is occurring mainly in growing cities because the city is not yet developed in a way that long-existing cities are. Property taxes only rise if more people want to live in the city. Therefore city engineers want to make the city a nicer place, which involves raising the property taxes. When more people come to the city, they have to have somewhere to live, but they don’t want to live in a bad neighborhood. For example, in Austin, the median income in the west is 108,000, when you cross IH 35 to go to the east, the median income is 49,000. The people who have money and are moving to the city will want to live in the west, because that must be a nicer place. With lots of people moving into the city, housing supply does not meet the demand, and property taxes raise.
Consequences
One of the many consequences of gentrification is that when people who can’t afford their rent get moved out of Austin, they have to go a long way to work, adding to the fossil fuel problem, and traffic. Of course, most of these people don’t have cars, so they have to take the bus, which is a fuel-efficient way to commute. But the commute will take longer, meaning they have less time to spend with their families. The bus system in Austin is not efficient, meaning it can take a few hours just to get to work, which can lead to hardship within the family, and even on one’s own. This can lead to a negative family environment. Also, when people who are not native to the area move in, it can change the character of the neighborhood. Some people complain that the result is another boring middle-class neighborhood.
The biggest problem, however, is that these are not just simulations, they’re real people, who have real lives, they have kids, jobs, friends, families. Some of which they are leaving behind when they leave the city. Sometimes these people leave their neighborhood and have to drive farther, but some of the time they are being forced to leave the city. When these people leave the city, they leave their entire lives behind, going to a place that has no community, and is not as pleasant to live in. This displaces their kids, who will now have to start their lives again with nothing. These kids will have to deal with bullying and arguments, which will lead to them getting in fights, and can send them down a very negative path in their lives.
Solutions
Some approaches have been made to prevent or slow gentrification.or example, in Berkeley California the city council decided to freeze the property tax of certain neighborhoods. This means that in certain areas that were going to be gentrified at some point in the near future, they held the property taxes at the current rate, so when other nicer buildings and parks get built in the area, the resulting influx of people does not drive up prices.. This solution allows for communities to stay intact even when the city starts to grow. This could create a nice environment for the working class. Although this could be beneficial, there are some drawbacks. For example, when one neighborhood of a city has its property tax frozen, it will still most likely get nicer when new parks and public areas get added, so there will be a lot of people who will now want to live in this now more desirable part of the city, that only houses the working class. So, it may attract even more people, driving up prices even more. Another reason this could be bad is that the property tax is there for a reason, it pays for local governments, and when you freeze the tax while the city is still growing, there wouldn’t be enough money to pay for all the renovations and improvements the city needs. And some neighborhoods would be paying more than others, which might seem unfair to some. This could lead to a very unbalanced and unhappy city. With that said, there are other solutions.
John says,
They have some existing tools in place you know through the land development code that help with that. You know they have portable housing requirements through different programs. One example is the Density bonus program that they have where you know because of the value of the land and the increased population, in Austin now we're getting to a point where a lot of people want to build above and beyond the maximum size you're allowed to build in downtown. With a new density bonus program you are allowed to go above and beyond that if you contribute units or money into an affordable housing fund. So that's one way that you know the city is trying to combat gentrification. The other way that you know we and the city are looking at addressing that as interest for cases not just residential, but also a lot of businesses and other things which risk being pushed out as things continue to grow and change, so we've been working a lot on how we preserve the cultural assets as well, and so you know we have a lot of great music clubs and older cultural arts institutions. How do we work with them so they still kind of have a place in the future of what this area looks like.
One of the other solutions is to create public housing, which can range from a single building to house a lot of people at a low cost, to entire neighborhoods built specifically to house low-income people, that are still pleasant to live in. One of the benefits of public housing is that it can create a much safer place to live, for example, the New Republic says:
It was only after the elevators broke down and the trash piled up, through no fault of the residents, that crime spiked. And despite it all, today a majority of residents in the New York City Housing Authority, the country’s largest, express satisfaction with their living conditions.
Public Housing:
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This seems to be the best current solution to gentrification, because as the city grows, the rent of the people living in the public housing will not be affected, and the city will still not be disturbed as much as it could be without public housing.
Could gentrification be good?
One of the benefits of gentrification, however, is that as the poor neighborhoods have wealthier people move in, it increases the median income, which can lead to local businesses making more money, which could lead to a nicer environment. Another benefit of gentrification is that when more citizens are paying their taxes, there will be more money for the local governments. The local governments can use this extra money to implement more public transportation, public schools, and law enforcement.
Conclusion
It’s a hard question as of what to do about gentrification, because it can cause harm to a lot of people when they lose their communities and have to commute a long way, while it can also benefit some by creating a nicer environment, and increasing the cash flow for the local governments, and businesses. While there are ways to avoid gentrification, including freezing the property taxes and implementing public housing, it is expensive for the city, and the question has to be asked, is it worth it?
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