Gentrification is a huge problem for lower-income communities. It displaces so many lower-income families in the affected areas. Racial redlining, or dividing cities into economically segregated areas has been a problem since the end of slavery against people of color. This idea of redlining has shaped America into what it is today. This concept has also galvanized the idea of gentrification. City governments should limit gentrification projects, especially in the District of Columbia and other major cities.
According to Merriam-Webster, gentrification is “a process in which a poor area (as of a city) experiences an influx of middle-class or wealthy people who renovate and rebuild homes and businesses and which often results in an increase in property values and the displacement of earlier, usually poorer residents.” In other words, the government is taking poorer neighborhoods by paying the city and turning them into suburban-like areas. Even though this may sound like a good thing, the neighborhoods being targeted are mostly filled with black and brown people. Sometimes, the original residents are only given a few weeks’ notice to leave the area before they are kicked out of their neighborhoods.
The government is moving people who are probably in their older years, and some of them have lived there for a significant period of time. This is a problem because these specific people might have trouble finding new areas in their price range. Many older adults in this area have lower incomes, and some might have health issues. This quote from DataSpace shows how many people in D.C. were affected by gentrification: “Displacement of black and Hispanic residents accompanied gentrification in many places and impacted at least 135,000 people in our study period. In Washington, D.C., 20,000 black residents were displaced. Washington, D.C., was the most gentrified city by percentage of eligible neighborhoods.” There are too many people affected by this problem. These older adults most likely have families close to them who are probably being displaced as well, which would hurt their support network even more. We have to be able to make a change and make it better for the people in these communities by limiting gentrification projects.
This problem is making it harder for black and brown people to maintain the lives they’ve known, but we can lessen the effects on these communities by writing a petition to pressure the government to lessen gentrification projects to keep people from getting displaced. If you would like to join this cause, there are organizations that you can support, like Community Movement Builders and UNIDAD, which stands for United Neighbors in Defense of Displacement. Both of them support black and brown communities. Another thing people can do is ask questions like the ones in the book Vital Little Plans by Jane Jacobs: “How can the city tie in its old buildings with its new ones so that each complements the other and reinforces the quality of continuity the city should have?”
The government should limit gentrification projects, especially in the District of Columbia and other major cities. Let’s say that you had an old pair of diamond earrings and that they were your great-grandmother’s. Would you trash those because they were old? No! So why would you get rid of old neighborhoods where most of the people have lived for years?
