Tag Archives: gentrification

Green gentrification in Brooklyn

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Brooklyn is one of the five boroughs located in New York City and it is recognized as a global city, a green city, and a gentrifying city.  It is a global city because there are 2.5 million residents and one-third of its residents were born outside of the U.S.  Brooklyn has becoming self-consciously “green” in the twenty first century with a number of recent high-profile LEED certified buildings, new bike routes, and ambitious greenways are highlighted, as well as the high ratings local elected officials receive from environmental advocacy groups.  Kenneth A. Gould and Tammy L. Lewis, authors of “Green Gentrification: Urban Sustainability and the Struggle for Environmental Justice”, argue that this increased “greening” occurring in Brooklyn is leading to a jump in the city’s gentrification rate.  Much of the city’s growth is due to internal migration meaning Americans are flocking to Brooklyn and foreign immigrants are being forced out of the city they’ve lived in for decades.  “Green gentrification” is defined as the appropriation of the economic values of an environmental resource by one class from another (Gould & Lewis, 25).  This means that as environmental resources in Brooklyn become more available as amenities, that area of Brooklyn becomes more attractive to the wealthy, white in-migrants of the U.S.

I took data provided in Gould & Lewis’s book that was focused on Brooklyn as a whole, as opposed to a single neighborhood, and graphed the increase of the white population compared to the decrease of the black population from 1990 to 2014.

As the graph shows, the green bar represents the black percentage in Brooklyn which has been gradually decreasing as the blue bar, which represents the white percentage in Brooklyn, has stayed steadily higher from 1990 to 2014.  Gould and Lewis argue that this is a result of green gentrification and environmental injustice in Brooklyn because wealthier, white residents are attracted to the quality of environmental amenities and push out low-income, black residents in the process.

 

Negative Impacts of Gentrification in Brooklyn

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The process of gentrification in urban areas can have a disastrous effect its inhabitants. The process refers to a physical, social, economic and cultural phenomenon whereby urban neighborhoods are converted into more affluent communities resulting in heightened property values and the discharge of low-income families. Gentrification happens not only all over the United States, but all over the world.  On my term abroad in Washington, DC this past spring, we witnessed gentrification in its prime—we saw nicer, new buildings being constructed in a poverty-ridden area.

Due to the construction of new buildings, the area becomes more expensive to live; rents rise, and therefore, impoverished people cannot afford to live there any longer.  They are forced to leave.  This process, gentrification, changes areas drastically over the course of several years.

The article I decided to analyze from RacialMath looks into gentrification of Brooklyn, New York.  The article, Who Hurts, by Ben Gibberd published in 2005, looks deeper into the personal problems of individuals being directly influenced by the gentrification in the area. Gibbered explains the new attractiveness of the area, and how it draws wealthy, middle-high income individuals to the area. From there, displacement occurs.

An interesting story from the article is of Ms. Anaya.  She resides in an overcrowded two-family home, living with her parents, brother and twelve other tenants.  The twelve other tenant include multiple children under three years old in just the upper-floor of the apartment alone. She explains the poor condition of the apartment, explaining that ”there’s a big hole in our bathroom, and hardly any heat.” And, her parents pay $1,000 a month in rent.

However, even though Ms. Anaya and her family want to move out—they cannot. Due to gentrification issues, they cannot afford a new place in Brooklyn.  She illuminates these problems by saying, “”Everything’s $725,000,’ and that’s on a bad block.”

The issues raised in this article led me to another article posted on the RacialMath site. This article looks at the changes of rent from 1990 to 2000. I made a graph to show the increase in rent during the ten-year span.  Due to the large increase between these two years, we can only imagine how high the rent is today in Brooklyn, 18 years later.