Better City = Displaced Populations?

[West End Boy]

I am starting to get a sinking feeling that all of the things that I love about where Toronto is (sometimes slowly) heading, like better transit, bike infrastructure, city beautification, etc. are actually going to slowly turn Toronto is one big gentrified rich neighbourhood.

When I've travelled back to a city, like Barcelona, where they have done so much to make their city beautiful and dynamic and functional, it seems like people without piles of cash inevitably get pushed out as land prices and rents rise. This seems to be true of many of the great cities like New York, London, Paris.

I don't have a worked-out position on this, but I'm starting to wonder if I can really support this.

Curious if others have any thoughts on this, or know of cities that have been able to avoid this fate.

 

[allabootmatt]

Berlin is a notable example of a very vibrant city where there has been (relatively) little displacement, since it's still, mostly, very cheap. But there has nonetheless been some degree of cultural displacement; hipster HQs like Friedrichshain and Prenzlauer Berg used to be home to the salt-of-the-earth GDR working class, most of whom could almost certainly still afford to live there. But they have little use for yoga studios and Cambodian restaurants.

But Berlin's a special case; it has little in the way of big companies so there isn't a lot of top-heavy corporate wage inflation.

As for Toronto, I think the phenomenon you describe is pretty much 100 per cent inevitable. Supply and demand dictate everything; inasmuch as neighbourhoods are improved, there will be more demand to live in them and hence higher prices. Aside from providing a limited 'floor' through the social housing system, I'm not sure what can or should be done to change that.

 

[GraphicMatt]

It's a reversal, yeah, from the poor being in the inner city while the rich live around it, to the affluent reclaiming downtown and pushing the poor to the suburbs. Neither of these scenarios is particularly good for poor people.

There's some inevitability to it - and on a long enough timeline it would probably be a cycle that repeated itself again and again - but there's ways to mitigate some of that effect, primarily through mixing market housing with affordable/subsidized housing, as has been done in neighbourhoods like the St. Lawrence Market.

 

[EnviroTO]

If any neighbourhood improves at a rate greater than other neighbourhoods the cost to live in that area will go up relatively speaking because more people would want to live there. If you improve all neighbourhoods in the country an equal amount then no displacement would be necessary. If bike paths, parks, and transit improvements are placed in all parts of the city then all areas should improve and therefore the only way all areas could possibly be "rich" is that there are millions of rich people living here. As long as other GTA municipalities are also improving their cities there shouldn't be a reason for people to flood into the city and drive up prices. The people who need to worry most are in an area which is becoming more desirable faster than other parts of the city and who don't own their property.

 

[Eug]

I think people would find mixed income type gentrification more palatable if the "mixed income" didn't include the drug addicts, etc. in subsidized housing.

A few km away from where I live is subsidized housing. The police are there frequenty. No, not everyone living there is a degenerate. However, there are a few very bad ones in there that repeatedly offend, yet the city refuses to evict them. Given this, you can understand why residents of an up-and-coming neighbourhood might rather see no subsidized housing in their area.

 

[TrickyRicky]

...but hold on for a second. Let's challenge our conventional notion that the rich push out the poor and that this is a static one way phenomenon. I think if you look at the big picture you will find that the poor also push out the rich and that both benefit and loose from the cycles of investment and de-investment during phases over the long-run.

 

[Eug]

...but hold on for a second. Let's challenge our conventional notion that the rich push out the poor and that this is a static one way phenomenon. I think if you look at the big picture you will find that the poor also push out the rich and that both benefit and loose from the cycles of investment and de-investment during phases over the long-run.

Very true.

What I was getting at above though was that it's not just the broad category of "poor". It's more the undesirable element of the "poor" to which the middle class object. The problem is that the city doesn't have enough backbone to get rid of the undesirables. Seriously, why won't the city consistently evict repeat drug offenders for example?

I say middle class because it's usually more the middle class rather than truly the rich displacing the poor.

 

[Hipster Duck]

I think that gentrification in Toronto was temepered to an extent by the condo boom. While I don't have any data to prove this, I feel that Toronto neighbourhoods didn't see the sweeping change that you saw in places like New York because most of the upper middle class influx into the central city went into new housing units that didn't previously exist.

...but hold on for a second. Let's challenge our conventional notion that the rich push out the poor and that this is a static one way phenomenon. I think if you look at the big picture you will find that the poor also push out the rich and that both benefit and loose from the cycles of investment and de-investment during phases over the long-run.

How do the poor "push out" the rich? If anything, in the urban osmosis game, the poor are sort of like a low pressure system while the rich are a high pressure system. Rich people have the means to force existing poor residents out of a neighbourhood, but poor people cannot force rich residents out of theirs. Instead, rich people leave an area on their own accord and, if the result is a dramatic lowering in property values, poor people may have a chance to move in.

 

[Earlscourt_Lad]

A further consideration may be the changing nature of work within the inner city. If one is blue collar, living in a traditionally blue collar area within the inner city is no longer a very desireable position. One's work has more than likely closed or moved out to the newer industrial developments in the suburbs. So faced with living in an older neighbourhood that is now significantly further from work, or moving out and somewhere nearer work and ostensibly "better" (relative to the perceived faults of downtown) I suspect the draw is to move out. Thus creating a space for someone to move in who finds inner city living desireable, and is more than likely working closer to downtown. While this doesn't address the poor, it would provide an example of how gentrification may not equal displacement.

 

[PukeGreen]

Cities are always in flux. The only constant is change. In the 1960s Yorkville was a hippie haven, full of scruffy young kids in coffee shops and cheap beer joints playing folk music. Today Yorkville is so upscale I can scarcely afford to walk through it. A few years ago Queen West was the home of little indie clothing shops and pubs; today it is a shopping mall minus a roof. So the cool kids moved farther west to, to West Queen West. Two years ago Dundas and Ossington was a hangout for elderly Portuguese; now it's a happening place, with new restaurants and bars opening weekly. Ten years from now all these places will change roles again.

 

[GraphicMatt]

Seriously, why won't the city consistently evict repeat drug offenders for example?

Because the city can't... banish people. You evict a drug addict from subsidized housing you just create a drug addict who now lives on the streets near the subsidized housing. And that's a much worse situation.

That's not to say TCHC should just turn a blind eye to these sorts of things, but it's not as simple as you make it out to be.

 

[Eug]

Because the city can't... banish people. You evict a drug addict from subsidized housing you just create a drug addict who now lives on the streets near the subsidized housing. And that's a much worse situation.

That's not to say TCHC should just turn a blind eye to these sorts of things, but it's not as simple as you make it out to be.

No it's not simple, but the problem is that TCHC does seem to turn a blind eye to these things.

With that in mind, it's easy to understand why gentrification advocates often hate subsidized housing. Hell, even the subsidized housing building managers hate subsidized housing, because they have no power to kick out the troublemakers.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

Eug:

Few kms? Cabbagetown is right next door to a host of low-income housing and private apartments housing individuals of lower income - that hasn't prevented the neighbourhood from gentrifying. Ditto Parkdale, Riverdale, etc. That's not to mention planned mixed income neigbhourhoods like St. Lawrence.

Besides, if the neighbourhood is truly so terrible, why move into it in the first place? Clearly, the undesirables aren't that much of a nuisance to the pioneering set of gentrifiers - but it offends those with suburban tastes and expectations.

AoD

 

[Eug]

Eug:

Few kms? Cabbagetown is right next door to a host of low-income housing and private apartments housing individuals of lower income - that hasn't prevented the neighbourhood from gentrifying. Ditto Parkdale, Riverdale, etc. That's not to mention planned mixed income neigbhourhoods like St. Lawrence.

Besides, if the neighbourhood is truly so terrible, why move into it in the first place? Clearly, the undesirables aren't that much of a nuisance to the pioneering set of gentrifiers - but it offends those with suburban tastes and expectations.

AoD

It doesn't affect me directly. I just mentioned it was a few km from me because it's something I've been able to see first hand, and have been able to speak with locals and the people from the city who know about it. I've read about similar situations but haven't had the same exposure to it because some of those might be across the city or whatever.

In any case, I'm not saying subsidized housing is bad. I'm saying subsidized housing with no effective oversight is bad. This TCHC thread is a good example:

I live in a TCHC highrise, I've been here for 18 months, lol, in that time we've gone through 3 manager's from Greenwin and and 2 secretary's, Some of the stuff that goes on in this place is just mind blowing, I for one have to put up with a garbage hoader for a neighbor, he picks crap from the garbage bins around this area and stores it in his apartment, brand new carpet 4 months ago on my floor and within a week there was a black path from his door to the elevator!! he is disgusting, not only is he infested with cockroaches but the smell is so bad that the hallway REEKS and in the summer I cant open my livingroom window or go out on my balcony. YET NOTHING can be done apparently, they've been trying to get rid of him for 17 years, but the "mental health rights act" protects him and makes everyone else suffer!!!!
There are al LEAST 2 drug houses in here, and the guy that got shot last year , lived one floor above me, according to my friend and others as well, when part of Regent Part was closed, TCHC shipped a bunch of them here, its just awful at times, the blind people in this building are shafted and get treated like crap by some of the tnents in here, not allowed in elevators cause of their guide dogs, and because people in here that are not from Canada seem tho think that blindness is a horrible disease...
the security is a joke, entrance doors are constantly busted, the super in here really tries, but man he is so overworked its not funny!

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

Eug:

This really isn't about whether social housing is well run or not - but whether the "undesirable" poor really have that much impact on the process of gentrification itself - as cited, probably not.

AoD