In San Francisco, the relatively affluent are vocal in their denunciation of the "gentrifying" effects of the more affluent. This debate clouds the city's fundamental problems in housing its poor and working class residents, says Ilan Greenberg.
In San Francisco, "the debate [over gentrification] is dominated by fierce new champions of the anti-gentrification cause who aren't concerned so much about the truly poor being forced from—or tempted out of—their neighborhoods," writes Greenberg. "In their view, the victims of gentrification are also affluent, just less so than the people moving in."
“Middle-class people being bought out by upper-income people—that may be a political issue, but it’s not what we would call gentrification,” says Robert J. Sampson, an urban sociologist at Harvard University. “The affluent moving in—that’s an urban battle, but not gentrification.”
But for Dawn Phillips, co-director of programs for Causa Justa, a neighborhood organization responding to resident displacement in Oakland, and other advocates for the disadvantaged, these debates among the relatively affluent obscure the city's more significant problems.
"In Phillips’s world, the urgent issue isn’t whether the Bay Area’s new wealth has the same perspective and experience as the old. Nor is Phillips losing sleep over where in the city middle-class people are supposed to live," notes Greenberg. "Rather, for Phillips, the gentrification problem concerns government policies that for decades disinvested in neighborhoods, only to turn around and encourage real-estate investment when richer neighbors moved close. This, Phillips argues, systematically pushed vulnerable, disadvantaged people to the geographic margins, where there is little work, community resources, or personal networks."
FULL STORY: I Left My Home in San Francisco: The rise of the white, middle-class anti-gentrifiers
Oregon Passes Exemption to Urban Growth Boundary
Cities have a one-time chance to acquire new land for development in a bid to increase housing supply and affordability.
Where Urban Design Is Headed in 2024
A forecast of likely trends in urban design and architecture.
Savannah: A City of Planning Contrasts
From a human-scales, plaza-anchored grid to suburban sprawl, the oldest planned city in the United States has seen wildly different development patterns.
Washington Tribes Receive Resilience Funding
The 28 grants support projects including relocation efforts as coastal communities face the growing impacts of climate change.
Adaptive Reuse Bills Introduced in California Assembly
The legislation would expand eligibility for economic incentives and let cities loosen regulations to allow for more building conversions.
LA's Top Parks, Ranked
TimeOut just released its list of the top 26 parks in the L.A. area, which is home to some of the best green spaces around.
City of Rochester
Boston Harbor Now
City of Bellevue
HUD's Office of Policy Development and Research
Mpact Transit + Community
HUD's Office of Policy Development and Research
City of Birmingham, Alabama
City of Laramie, Wyoming
Colorado Department of Local Affairs
Urban Design for Planners 1: Software Tools
This six-course series explores essential urban design concepts using open source software and equips planners with the tools they need to participate fully in the urban design process.
Planning for Universal Design
Learn the tools for implementing Universal Design in planning regulations.