[HN Gopher] Dynamic Models of Gentrification
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       Dynamic Models of Gentrification
        
       Author : Anon84
       Score  : 30 points
       Date   : 2024-10-24 17:49 UTC (5 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (arxiv.org)
 (TXT) w3m dump (arxiv.org)
        
       | ihaveajob wrote:
       | I wish the term 'displacement' would be more commonly used,
       | because it encapsulates the negative aspects of gentrification.
       | On the other hand, gentrification has objectively positive
       | aspects (improvements in safety, amenities, livability of a
       | neighborhood). But it's too late now.
        
         | appreciatorBus wrote:
         | It's long become a meaningless term in housing discourse. More
         | or less boils down to "the vibes are off" When millionaires who
         | live in houses started describing non-millionaires being
         | allowed to live in apartments nearby as "gentrification", you
         | know it's time for a new word.
        
           | zjp wrote:
           | god so fucking true. you have to understand in SF housing
           | discourse that 'bringing in undesirable elements' means
           | 'letting people that "only" make 100k live here'
        
       | daft_pink wrote:
       | My personal experience in Chicago is that the government had
       | public housing projects that generated high crime rates and drove
       | people away that ran in a ring around the city center, but
       | otherwise were in premium locations. Then large public housing
       | projects went out of favor and they were largely torn down and
       | removed from 2000-2015. As the crime rates in these neighborhoods
       | declined, suddenly the reason why people wouldn't live in these
       | places was removed and the intrinsic value of property so close
       | to the city center skyrocketed.
       | 
       | It's sort of like being the person who buys the really cheap used
       | car that's always in disrepair. The reason you got that vehicle
       | so cheap, is because it's dilapidated. If they had built the car
       | to last, you wouldn't have been able to afford it anyways. If you
       | live in the cheapest neighborhood then it's going to be a
       | neighborhood that has problems. If they remove the problems then
       | the value of the property is probably going to increase and
       | suddenly you can't afford it anymore.
        
         | zehaeva wrote:
         | Your post has reminded me of Vimes's Theory of Socio-economic
         | Unfairness[0], but I can't figure out if you think that the way
         | the system works is a good thing or more just "this is the way
         | the world works"
         | 
         | [0] https://terrypratchett.com/explore-discworld/sam-vimes-
         | boots...
        
         | immibis wrote:
         | Mind you, if _everyone_ lives in the cheap neighborhood then
         | "problem people" are diluted to the point there isn't a
         | neighborhood-wide problem meanwhile everyone gets to pay cheap
         | rent.
        
           | taeric wrote:
           | I'm dubious of this idea. Examples of locations where this
           | dynamic exists?
        
             | opwieurposiu wrote:
             | Singapore is the only place I heave heard of where rich and
             | poor live in the same public housing buildings.
             | 
             | Could have something to do with the extreme land scarcity.
             | The super rich still live in private houses though.
        
         | fire_lake wrote:
         | This is why slums are in such inhospitable places.
         | 
         | Ever wonder why people live in industrial waste sites, on steep
         | hillsides, swamps, etc? It's because if the locations weren't
         | so undesirable, they would have been cleared and replaced
         | already.
        
       | sega_sai wrote:
       | That's interesting. I was hoping to see some comparison of their
       | model with the data in the paper, but haven't found it (I looked
       | at the figures). That's a bit disappointing...
        
       | vavooom wrote:
       | "Within our modeling framework, we show that gentrification
       | emerges only when high-income residents have some mobility, even
       | if minimal, highlighting how their movement patterns catalyse the
       | process. We treat relocation flows of agents in our city as time-
       | varying edges in a temporal network, leveraging established tools
       | from network science and human mobility research."
       | 
       | So to summarize, when rich individuals wants to move, they do.
       | Seems logical given they have the excess opportunity to do so
       | with minimal risk / cost often associated with taking on whatever
       | risks are associated with 'gentrifying'
        
         | vavooom wrote:
         | Also: "as city population density increases, so does the
         | propensity for gentrification" summarizes to people want to
         | live near other people!
        
       | timssopomo wrote:
       | Having lived in Brooklyn and Jersey City for a combined 12 years,
       | starting when an office worker could still buy a literal house in
       | Prospect Heights, I'm fully convinced that "gentrification" is a
       | meaningless phrase and we need a completely different way of
       | studying this issue that looks at the role of finance and
       | government in displacing the poor.
       | 
       | Wealthy individuals moved into "gentrifying" neighborhoods
       | _after_ massive movements of capital, not before. In 2007, no
       | professional was leaving the upper east side to move to
       | Williamsburg or Prospect / Crown Heights. After Bloomberg rezoned
       | the waterfront and rammed Atlantic Yards through, boatloads of
       | money moved in. Vacant lots and abandoned buildings were torn
       | down, new ones were built, "luxury" housing stock was created and
       | _then_ rich people moved in.
       | 
       | It's not all that different than VC money in startups - investors
       | are sheep. Once it becomes clear a big fish has made an
       | investment in an area, money floods in and drives up prices. To
       | justify the increase in land values, investors have to raise
       | rents. To raise rents, they need to improve the housing stock.
       | This creates the inventory that the wealthy purchase.
        
         | Maxamillion96 wrote:
         | > It's not all that different than VC money in startups -
         | investors are sheep. Once it becomes clear a big fish has made
         | an investment in an area, money floods in and drives up prices.
         | To justify the increase in land values, investors have to raise
         | rents. To raise rents, they need to improve the housing stock.
         | This creates the inventory that the wealthy purchase.
         | 
         | Priming the pump is the economic term for this, old Timey pumps
         | needed to have a bit of water poured into a mechanism to
         | lubricate and and make it possible to pump water out.
        
         | Tade0 wrote:
         | I can attest to that, as I've seen something of this sort
         | happen in two cities already.
         | 
         | City councils talk of "revitalising" an area, but it's really
         | about getting the most out of prime locations where the rich
         | would had moved in already if it weren't for the dilapidated
         | state of the mentioned.
         | 
         | Interestingly the shift seems to affect businesses the most.
         | The moment the first luxury condo is built/renovated you start
         | seeing a change in the types of services offered. The other day
         | I bought a particularly expensive bagel in a cafe that looked
         | really out of place in the barely standing building where it
         | was located. I'm sure almost none of the people that are long-
         | term residents of this area go there.
        
         | thereticent wrote:
         | My memory from the US Midwest is that Williamsburg already had
         | a reputation as a hipster-level gentrifying area--to the point
         | that the PBR-sipping indie set was already eschewing it for
         | Bushwick. Then again, whomever I spoke to could have been
         | parroting an odd blogosphere take by then.
        
       | rufus_foreman wrote:
       | Tom Toles explained the process in 1998:
       | https://laviedesidees.fr/local/cache-vignettes/L500xH449/1to....
        
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