Thank you, seriously.
-
Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.
Spike Lee rails against Gentrification: "We been here. You just cant come and bogart"
- Thread starter RustyNails
- Start date
- Status
Thank you, seriously.
water_wendi
Water is not wet!
i reread what he said and thats not what he said. You can apologize all you want for him and try to turn his bigoted views into what the actual reality is but that isnt what Spike Lee said.
Thats because i judge him by his words and actions and its a fitting label.
AbortedWalrusFetus
Member
It's not even necessarily that though. I live in a rapidly gentrifying area and none of the people moving in are even necessarily wealthy. They're middle class or upper middle class at best. Crime didn't go down in the neighborhood because more police were assigned. My friends car got stolen around the corner a year ago, and all of the sudden they built a new building (a low income building, might I add) and because the street is lit up and has eyes on it car thefts in that area have gone from frequent to nearly none. Muggings have gone down all over the neighborhood because there are more lights, more foot traffic, and more people looking out their windows. Known drug corners that operated for years went away because neighbors moved into the area and called the police when they saw open air dealing occurring. More residents are filling in abandoned houses and repairing sidewalks cleaning up garbage that used to sit, so the streets are much cleaner. Sidewalks are getting cleared when it snows when they used to be frozen over all winter. None of this has anything to do with increased city funding or police presence. All of it is the result of people moving into neighborhoods and fixing up abandoned properties or ill-maintained properties and becoming invested in the neighborhood they moved into.
FritoBandito
Banned
This is a gross generality and certainly not true across the board. I obviously can't speak of all neighborhoods, but here in Chicago white/Europeans were displaced prior to the 70s in many of the neighborhoods that are now undergoing or have undergone gentrification. In the 60s, for example, Poles were the predominant ethnic group and Puerto-Ricans went from comprising only 1% to 39% in a handful of years. Why? Freeway construction. As a result, gangs took hold and it was a crummy place to live that had nothing to do with crack or racism, at least not directly. The situation was similar in Humboldt Park where in 1960 it was 99% white and by 1980 it was only about 30%. Same situation in Pilsen when hispanics displaced whites due to construction of the current UIC campus.
There are a number of reasons why these areas were impoverished, crime-ridden cesspools around the 70s. And racism does certainly play a role on some level. But let's not act like in all these currently gentrified areas they were once stable, safe, and economically sound ethnic neighborhoods that were poisoned by the white man introducing crack. Drugs and crime are a symptom of poverty. Neighborhoods didn't turn that way because of sabotage, but because when the hands were changed racially the wealth disappeared and the city didn't and still doesn't give a shit about investing in poor areas.
No, you really don't understand. You don't understand that you don't understand.
You don't know what you're talking about.
The rent goes up because a development company wanted it to go up.
They bought up the blocks, raised their buildings, and transformed the neighborhood into an expensive place to live.
In order to make it appealing, they added a bunch of useless gimmicks.
Example: the rent for my building recently went up as a result of them painting the building a new color.
It went up by 200 dollars.
200 dollars more per month.
So, I reiterate: you have no clue what you're talking about.
This is frustrating for me because it cuts deeper than money.
It's unethical and immoral. It is a scummy, greedy thing for them to do. But they do it, anyway.
And you will continue to think of a shiny new coat of paint as "new development" because you're not paying attention to the facts.
They're not improving the neighborhood. They're just adding a new coat of paint on it with some pointless features and are justifying that to raise the price.
Free wifi in the computer room downstairs: extra 50 bucks per month on my rent. A computer room with three computers from 2005.
A gym where half the equipment at any time is malfunctioning and the other half is almost always occupied because there are 1,200 tenants.
Understand that these large residential firms are doing this nationwide. They are fucking over everybody because they can buy up large blocks of land in poor neighborhoods for dirt cheap and then build what seems to be a high quality building (but isn't) and then attracting a bunch of lemmings with money for their own profit.
And you think that's okay because... free market?
NullPointer
Member
Haha, yeah. I'm sure people value neighborhoods improving when they can no longer live there anymore because they've been priced out.Noooo our neighborhoods are getting betterWhat about my poor culture? I remember when this neighborhood was unsafe, now you can walk at 3AM with a baby in a stroller!
As I'm sure they'll be happy once they've settled into their new neighborhood much farther away, when it all happens again and pushes them out even further.
Its just a wonderful cycle of fucking happiness. Nothing says life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness quite like forced evictions and the tripling of rents.
jetpacks was yes
Member
Gentrification is complicated. What do you do when you have to live in the city but you don't make very much, and you can only afford to live somewhere like the bronx or harlem in a tiny little studio apartment? Should you try to find someplace as close as you can afford so that your wife can commute to school within 40 minutes, but contribute to gentrification because you're a white & persian couple, or should you try to find some white neighborhood in yonkers or somewhere that's much further away? There's a lot of nuance to this issue, and I certainly feel a measure of guilt coupled with hopelessness. I love diversity, I don't want to contribute to the negative effects of gentification, but I also can't afford to live in a whiter neighborhood (which I don't want to, anyhow).
this SoHa nonsense is really stupid, btw.
this SoHa nonsense is really stupid, btw.
BlackBanditSho
Member
Fair point re: Chicago. For the DMV (DC, Baltimore, VA), this wasn't the case.
To the second bolded point, I think that's the basis of a fantastic conversation. I believe that on a societal level, we've been taught to operate under the belief that the correlation is Drugs and crime are symptoms of poverty.
In the past few years, I've been personally redefining what 'poverty' and 'wealth' actually mean. If we're defining poverty as a very specific socio-economic income bracket, and, for the sake of conversation we'll say that the average income level for an area is 15k, then I challenge that lack of access to resources and opportunity creates poverty and crime, and not actually the income disparity between the classes.
So here's a thought: hypothetically, you take an area where the residents make less than 15k on average. However, local government keeps the neighborhoods clean. Public transportation is plentiful, very clean, safe, and highly affordable. Instead of liquor stores, affordably priced grocery stores are at the ready.
There are numerous after school activities, job and career assistance programs for teens. Police, firefighters, and politicians play an active presence in the community, serving not only as cold adversarial watch dogs, but as active and interactive big brothers REGULARLY visiting schools, participating in curriculum, and allowing teens a peek into the lives of healthy, working, transparent, public servants.
Communities are incentivized to do things like inner-city community farms. While the big box stores like Best Buy and Walmart aren't around, smaller, community-rooted stores are also incentivized by hearty tax breaks, circulating dollars within that community.
Not to mention 'community fare days' which are plentiful in economically thriving areas. Towns have all sorts of community gathering days, and here in Torrance (for example)I'm constantly fielding calls from government officials polling me about ways to beautify some area or if the political officials were visible, responsive, or active enough to my tastes.
Imagine this government-assisted community where these people, although making lower wages than their neighbors across the tracks, are living a life with the SAME potential for possibility? The same feeling that of community ownership and pride.
Do you REALLY believe that this 'poverty assessed' area would be rife with crime and drugs?
Me neither.
Less money doesn't have to mean 'worse off'.
The Faceless Master
Member
DAFUQ!? IS THIS TRUE!?!?!?!
The thing I don't get about the anti-gentrification movement is, what's their proposal? How do you get these areas to be better served without allowing property values to increase and new people to move in? What is the actual benefit to anyone of maintaining neighborhoods that are de facto segregated?
Wow
Succinct Verbosity
Member
More stringent rent control. Man, just being limited to the amount of properties somebody can own and NOT occupy would make a huge difference.
Um... the point would be that property value should not be the determinant of basic services being provided.
Ok, I don't disagree. But if you provide better services to a neighborhood, it becomes more desirable and people want to move there. So property values increase. According to some, this result should be avoided. Why?
Here's a real life example of why I don't get it. In Portland, recently, Trader Joe's tried to build a store on a vacant lot in a historically black neighborhood that is already being gentrified. A group of people opposed to gentrification made a lot of noise about the deal (TJ's got a very nice subsidy from the city to buy the lot). So TJ's backed out. So now the lot is still vacant, and the neighborhood doesn't get the additional jobs for building and staffing the store. Congrats? How is a vacant lot better than a Trader Joe's?
Yeah, that is one of the contradictions. However, consider a city where everywhere has good services, then there would be no drive to gentrification just from providing good services.
Damn gentrification, people don't even let you get some chocolate milk.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gG6guvFbSAM
But seriously, this sucks.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gG6guvFbSAM
But seriously, this sucks.
I dunno the whole situation, but it's not as bad as it seems thankfully. The gentrification is happening mostly towards UIC/the eastern area. My old block is untouched and it'll probably stay that way for a while. If anything the neighborhood will be rezoned in two or something. Some artists (definitely hipsters) but ill be around the transitional area most of the time. A couple of my friends like the artsy vibe they bring (though it looks like the being a lot of kitsch).
The Faceless Master
Member
in the real world people realize that a Trader Joe's would just speed up the gentrification and the staff wouldn't really have many of the longtime locals as hires either.
Vicetrailia
Banned
Harlem used to be incredibly rich and then things changed. spike lee should realize that these trends are natural to the housing market. This happens everywhere in some kind of fashion.
you do not stop it. But what you fight for is more wealth equality.
you do not stop it. But what you fight for is more wealth equality.
Build affordable, high-density housing near the city's hotly contested areas in order to bring down the prices organically (higher offer in order to counter high demand) and connect it with the rest of the city by public transport so you don't increase the costs of living for the lower classes by un-tieing higher conmuting costs with lower rents. It works, but then you have to to trow into the toilet the godawful suburbia America city sprawl type of urban planning. Which it is a good thing, but I don't know if it is politically realistic.
But that's communism, you see. Let's better talk about racial sheanigans instead. Harlem only got better public infrastrucutre because whites are living in there now. Wealth disparity and municipal funding be damned.
Mr.Wreckless
Banned
No way the employees at that Trader Joes would represent the current population of the neighborhood.
The huge issue for me is that gentrification pushes out the people who need that location the most. Middle class whites can afford a car to drive into the city for work and leisure. They don't need to depend on public services just to make it through life. The poorer minorities that are pushed out are often moved to the outskirts where public transportation is limited and it's hard to get to work or even the grocery store without a vehicle. In many instances those public transportation lines and other services were originally placed in that area because the people living there actually needed it, now they no longer have access to them.
Does Spike care about what the people who are forced to leave areas due to gentrification do to the new areas they move too? That really should be part of his argument. White hipsters moving into black/latino neighborhoods doesn't just have an impact on those neighborhoods, but where the black/latino people move to as well. Poor black/latino people moving to a poor white neighborhood is going to change that neighborhood as much as wealthy white people moving into a poor black/latino area. It's a ripple effect.
(probably created by a hipster)
It says a lot about me that the first thing I noticed were the grammatical errors. I can't help but think that's a bit of a witchfinder general thing - you spotted the grammatical errors? You're who this is for!
People will move between cities. The first level at which you are able to prevent people from moving is the national level. Unfortunately for some, the United States has 300M people in it, which makes intranational migration more than enough to gentrify an entire city.
Rocket Scientist
Member
Had to stop listening to him because he talks slow as hell... I know you need some time to think, but damn. I did read the rest though and he makes good points. The city is definitely changing and it's unfortunate. In a fair world most of the children of those who lived in a certain place would actually be able to afford to at least live in the same area or a better one.
Black people have been in Fort Greene since the late 1800's. A lot of freed slaves moved there and the black population has been there ever since. Fort Greene is a historically black neighborhood.
Furthermore, Black people didn't displace white people. Some white people chose to leave because they didn't want to live around black people. Also, banks were devaluing their homes due to the black presence and due to red lining black people were forced into very specific neighborhoods.
That sounds like racial segregation, regardless of when. It is awfully close to only black people should live in that spot.
Or are you saying that people of different skin colour moving to an area will remove it's history?
The problem is that money is associated with white people. So even when a neighborhood is successful it is still not enough for them because the belief is that they can make even more money with white people.
Lets take a look at the Fulton mall. This stretch of Brooklyn has the second highest commercial rent in Brooklyn (second to Montague street) yet the city felt the need to drive out the businesses in the Mall so that they can introduce more upscale businesses (H&M, GAP, Century 21 etc.). Gentrification is not just about the wealthy moving in and having services follow. It is a concerted effort on the parts of policy makers to change communities into their vision of what is profitable even when it is already profitable! So the people who patronize there have to go elsewhere because these people decided we don't want y'all to shop at those stores that are there and doing well so you must go elsewhere. There is a systematic effort (most specifically under the Bloomberg administration) to push out lower income/black people. I'm pretty sure there are people who scream let the market decide these things. However the market did decide and that was not enough for the City.
Gentrification is so much more than what people want to acknowledge it is.
Why do some people think it's inevitable to let gentrification go cracy? It's possible to have some degree of gentrification while still having enough affordable buildings for families who've been there for generations. Where I live, we can vote against building projects in our town, therefore the companies really need to show convincing plans which benefit the new people in town as well as the folks already living here.
It's a shame to see how plutocracy destroys a good neighborhood.
It's a shame to see how plutocracy destroys a good neighborhood.
No I am not. I am giving pj a history lesson. Per his statement he was under the impression that black people displaced white people and that they have only been in Fort Greene for the past 50 years.
Ah, thought you were addressing the first part of his post, not the second. Apologies.
entremet
Member
Hit the nail on the head.
Another thing, many African Americans were banned from buying land and buying homes during Reconstruction, creating a wealth disparity that lives to this day. Banks also didn't give out mortgages to black families, so many relied on renting.
Once you rent you're assed out politically, because you don't own anything and thus your bargaining power is diminished.
Pretty good post here. I think Lee always takes the race card and plays it out a little too ambitiously. Sometimes it makes sense often enough it doesn't. Here I am not sure. But let me tell you those companies are looking at profit not race. If the neighborhood was all rich black people they wouldn't give a shit. So now we get into a whole nutha story about the economy, drug scheduling, racial profiling, etc. These things address why the AA are lower income and blah blah it is extremely complex. Lee sounded like he was ranting. I got some of his points but would rather he make his points in a more stable way.
I like some Spike Lee movies and often respect his opinions. He could postulate ideas in a better way imo. He's always complaining about some white dude doing something. Hey Spike: So am I and I am white. We all aren't against you dude. The persecution complex this man has is stunning. And 75% of the time he is probably right. But at this point he is making race a deal where other factors are in place as well.
NYC is a city changing fast. There are many laws in various places that bring problems. I don't think it's just a couple white people moving in that provokes better facilities. It's more like the economy and the workers in that neighborhood were not rich enough for whatever reason to matter to the corps. It happens. Everywhere. This guy comes real close to bigot himself at times but that is just my opinion.
When he was all over Tarantino about his slavery film I just kind of thought this guy is too stuck in the past though we do need him.
Man I just came back to the city I was raised in after being gone for 2 years and that hit way too close to home.
Yes, and it's the correct answer.
Sorry you're being priced out of your neighborhood because of new development and investment leading to new people moving in and being willing to pay higher rents. You don't believe the neighborhood is improving and that the buildings are low quality with a slick veneer, but based on the influx of new residents, plenty of people think otherwise. You think those that disagree are lemmings and falling for corporate nonsense. Your opinion is not more (or less!) valid than theirs because you were there prior to them. I don't know what else to say.
A development company wanted rents to increase when they built a new, expensive residency with luxury amenities? Of course they did. If demand was weak, the company would not have located there in the first place, or otherwise be forced to reduce their expectations for rent.
Lastly, your assumption that no one could possibly disagree with you if they knew what you knew, or conversely, no one who disagrees with you could possibly know or understand anything, is not helpful for discourse. Honestly -- what do you actually know about the history of addresses of myself or anyone else here, to assume so much?
teruterubozu
Member
Ironically, Spike Lee was instrumental in making Brooklyn "cool & hip".
Tesseract
Banned
are you the monopoly guy?
The Polish made up a significant part of Balitmore's history and population in the 60's. His point still stands, even for Baltimore.
daisysmurf
Member
London, it just beat NYC . It has less restrictions to invest, average price is now £450k. Wow!
His decades in the public sphere haven't made that well-known by now?
Still, though, it's hard for me to complain about some of the points he raises, particularly since my neighborhood (in Boston) is at the onset of some major gentrification right now. Within five years, this place is going to be gutted and replaced with eco-friendly apartments and retail chains -- and all the higher rent that goes with it.
My girlfriend and I right now pay $1400 total for our 1 bedroom. The new apartment building being built next door will be filled with 1 bedrooms for $2100. What the fuck. How do you compete with that?
And it's not just us who will inevitably get pushed out. Our neighborhood is predominantly for (poor) college students and low-income families in general. The commute to downtown is already 30-45 minutes, getting pushed out even further from the city is going to make things virtually unlivable.
Gentrification is great for improving living standards, but what's the point of it when the people who can't afford to live there anymore are just shunted into shittier, further neighborhoods?
bob_arctor
Tough_Smooth
Haha I have to tell my wife this, she grew up there. Meanwhile, my old stomping grounds in Mott Haven remain largely impenetrable. They're trying a bit by that strip going to the Willis Ave. Bridge--all the "affordable" lofts and little dive bars, shops etc--but it hasn't really spread out beyond that. The South Bronx generally is last man standing when it comes to gentrification far as I've experienced.
Obviously depends on where you are. In my county that's te textbook operation of the board. They also say that they have to do it because "development is coming!" Like it's some boogeyman they have no control over, and must be fed with higher density than zoning allows or else... Something.
I've thought that when the South Bronx gentrifies, it means there's nothing left to gentrify in NYC. The Bronx, in general, still has a stigma that the other boroughs (or neighborhoods up in Harlem) don't have among yuppies and hipsters.
Inwood + Washington Heights are the next logical spot because of the Hudson River views and proximity to the GWB + Columbia hospital.
Long Island City is the most egregious example of NYC gentrification by sheer construction and development, but to be entirely fair, there was very little in LIC (abandoned industrial) prior to the massive glass towers going up along the river. Not so much displacement as revitalizing an otherwise underused area with great views and access to the city.
I've been to the navy yard museum and have read the wiki article on the area so I have some small idea of the history. I've also discussed how things used to be with my landlord who bought the pre-civil war brownstone I live in during the early 80s. The black presence in the area is still strong, especially with the masonic temple on the corner of my street which hosts events seemingly every day. In discussions about gentrification, fort greene is usually brought up as one of the 'success stories', since it has somewhat retained its diversity. I'm sure due in some part to higher black home ownership than other areas. Having so many historic buildings and not-great train access has prevented it from becoming a monstrosity like some other areas.
My original post was more talking about the last neighborhood I lived in, crown heights, and some others I've visited or read about.
Doesn't gentrification go in cycles? Those black areas where once white neighborhoods, and before that Native American ones. Also, integration is a good thing.
What I can lament though is getting priced out of a place. It's kinda fucked up to lave to leave a home you have no desire to leave because the cost of living/rents skyrockets.
What I can lament though is getting priced out of a place. It's kinda fucked up to lave to leave a home you have no desire to leave because the cost of living/rents skyrockets.
- Status