What is Gentrification?

The neighborhood is changing. Some stores close and more expensive ones take their places. You start seeing different sorts of people walking around, and maybe some familiar faces are no longer there. Older apartment buildings are being converted into fancy condos and it feels like everything is under construction. There are more cops on patrol and a homeless encampment that’s been around for ages suddenly disappears.

But the way that many renters first experience gentrification is through rent. It can be little by little or all at once, but when landlords notice these types of changes, they start seeing dollar signs and it’s only a matter of time before tenants feel the changes directly.

While a neighborhood is gentrifying, some of the everyday issues that people have with their landlords can be exacerbated, and conflict can boil to the surface. Maybe your landlord never fixed anything, but you let it slide because the rent was cheap. But when the rent goes up and you have less money to work around these issues or fix them yourself, you might decide to request repairs. Landlords in gentrifying neighborhoods might jump at the opportunity to evict a tenant who complains so that they can cash in on rising rents or get a new tenant who won’t speak up.

We all notice the neighborhood changing. But there is a traumatic, violent process going on in the background: displacement.

Building by building, block by block, the population that made the neighborhood a vibrant and desirable place to live is removed — some priced out or evicted, others incarcerated and/or deported, and many leaving on their own when they see the writing on the wall. In their place, a wealthier and whiter population moves in, co-opting some elements of the old neighborhood and erasing others. Now, schools that had been starved of resources find funding, vacant lots turn into beautiful parks and potholes are finally filled. The newcomers get credit for “revitalizing” the neighborhood, and the people fighting to save their homes are accused of standing in the way of progress.

We all deserve to live in thriving communities. This is why ATU fights for an end to all displacement and for community control of housing. As our neighborhoods are treated like cash cows and playgrounds for the owning class, we demand housing justice. That means communities shaped by and serving the needs of the people who live in them.