gentrification – Page 2 – If The River Swells

December 3, 2015

The Rowe: A Fitting Conclusion

When thinking of the quintessential new downtown development, a few things come immediately to mind: young (primarily white) professionals, market rate apartments, condos, ground floor retail, and the all important brewery. A development will either be in a prime location, situated in an up-and-coming area, or adjacent to a large public infrastructure project. Oftentimes, it will be “walkable” to to “farm-to-table” award-winning restaurants and coffee shops.

The Rowe fits the bill. Once a hotel built in the 1920s to house visitors attending Grand Rapids’ semi-annual Furniture Market, converted into a retirement home in the 1960s. At the end of December 2014, it was announced that after over a decade of standing vacant the building would be transformed into “The Rowe”. The development is entirely what one would expect. There will be market rate apartments (one-bedroom for $1,100/month and two-bedrooms for $1,600/month) and condos (ranging from $239,000 to more than $1 million). The project will be anchored by Atwater Brewery which is opening a beer garden and taproom on the ground floor. A perfectly safe, predictable project—a fitting capstone for the last standing vacant building downtown.

Interior of Atwater in the Park in Grosse Pointe Park, Michigan

But there are a few things we can learn from this project taking hold. First, The Rowe occupies a critical location on the northwest corner of Monroe Ave and Michigan St. It is directly across from a planned Michigan State University (MSU) building and will be the first residential construction in the area. MSU has also indicated that they are willing to sell part of their land to private developers, so it likely won’t be the last. The Rowe is located at the gateways of the Westside and Monroe North and will provide an enticement into areas which are traditionally considered outside of downtown. Already on Monroe, there are condos, lofts, and a variety of new developments transforming the area. A similar process is happening across the river on the Westside. Moreover, as the last empty building in downtown proper, the gentrification in the city must spread outside of the city center. This will increase pressure on the edges of downtown to gentrify as well. The Rowe functions as the perfect segue to that transformation — a keystone critically connecting and upholding two rapidly gentrifying areas.

When the retirement home that formerly occupied the building was closed in 2001, Peter Secchia bought the property and quickly sold it to the DeVos family. CWD (Cummings, Wierda, DeVos) is facilitating the project for OMH LLC, a subdivision of RDV Corp (a real estate investment company owned by the family of Richard DeVos). What’s notable is that the DeVos family sat on the property for over a decade until other development around the area began. They and other millionaires treat the city is as if they are playing chess. Sometimes they keep buildings empty, sometimes they make condos for the rich, and sometimes they create spectacles like ArtPrize to drum up interest for their vision of downtown – but its all at the whim of a very small group of people. Even Atwater Brewery came at the behest of Sam Cummings of CWD. It’s a good reminder of how gentrification encompasses people beyond simply hipsters and makers. It often needs the backing of millionaires. At this point gentrification in Grand Rapids has moved beyond the pioneering phase which utilizes adventurous risk-takers to start up a craft business or boutique. It’s now “safe” for large investors to cash in and will likely rely on them as more projects are built new.

Gentrification is often tied to and/or facilitated by investments in public infrastructure. This is obviously true with The Rowe given that it’s largely tied to the construction of MSU’s facility across the street. The developers are taking advantage of that ready-made audience. We can see this happening with GVSU on the Westside and in the Belknap neighborhood. This happens in smaller ways as well. For example, The Rowe project was given a $120,000 grant by the Downtown Development Authority for outdoor features including streetscaping. Generally, these are all about facilitating private profit. In this case, a ccording to Kris Larson of Downtown Grand Rapids Inc., the grant will “… create a more generous sidewalk environment for dining… Really an embellished public realm, a better space for people.” But these features aren’t really about better spaces for “people”, rather better spaces for commerce. Similar to the reconstruction on Bridge St., where “bulb outs”, outdoor dining areas, and bike lanes were recently installed, the investments in infrastructure are often designed to encourage gentrification. The GR Forward plan is an example of this on a massive scale. The Rowe, located near the river and a proposed park, would undoubtedly benefit from such a plan.

So on the one hand, The Rowe represents a familiar story. One that we’ve touched on before, one that is a blueprint of rendered predictions in gentrification. There are patterns here that can’t be denied. On the other hand, it’s a story about what is valued in the “new” Grand Rapids. Though it was closed years ago, a retirement home in downtown no longer fits—the elderly, like low- and no- income residents, are not valued. Their stories are erased and that legacy must be forgotten, hence the rebranding as “The Rowe” (a similar strategy was seen with “The Morton”). All new developments cater to their tastes and dispositions, and increasingly Grand Rapids is staking its future on this demographic. Everything must be made shiny, new, and upscale for young professionals and the tourists. The development emboldens those who would imagine away the post office, a building they see as obsolete because they have become permanently attached to their phones and because they personally are not working class. Perhaps there is a market for the million dollar condos and upscale apartments at The Rowe, but it doesn’t mean that anyone deserves to live in them. Nor should we see them as the saviors of Grand Rapids.

November 25, 2015

GR Forward Strikes Back

Recently, the final draft of the GR Forward plan was released. We wrote an extensive article critiquing many aspects of GR Forward back in August, but after a barrage of news articles touting the plan’s allegedly strong commitment to diversity and inclusion (The Rapidian and Mlive), it’s worth looking at again. Moreover, the plan is rapidly moving through various boards toward final approval. It recently passed unanimously before the Planning Commission on November 12, after being approved by the Downtown Development Authority (DDA) and the Monroe North Tax Increment Financing Authority the previous day.

Article on The Rapidian Announcing the GR Forward Final Draft

To hear GR Forward tell it, the new draft is substantially changed: it is a significant response to criticism around the issues of diversity and inclusion. The basis of this claim is the new preamble titled “Towards an Equity-Driven Growth Model in Downtown Grand Rapids”. It’s full of seemingly bold, self-critical statements like:

“The robust public engagement process also revealed widespread concern regarding everyone’s ability to participate in Downtown’s historic and future prosperity. Put plainly, a broad swath of our community, including many from historically marginalized areas of the City, believe they’re not welcome or don’t belong in Downtown Grand Rapids.”

Based on news articles and GR Forward representatives, it seems like a major mea culpa. After a draft document that was embarrassingly bad on the topic of diversity, it’s now seemingly front-and-center. There’s calls for an African-American Heritage Museum in downtown, an African-American festival, diverse cultural events, and more. GR Forward wants more diverse city boards as well as a “regional equity framework” to address the ways inequality manifests itself across the region. There are calls for more minority-owned businesses and more minority workers in downtown. That’s all well and good, but they hardly seem adequate to the task at hand.

The United States was built on white supremacy and it is still a white supremacist society. “Diversity” is a terribly ill-suited approach to dealing with this legacy as it ultimately relies on the goodwill of employers, developers, city boards, etc, to decide if “diversity” is something worth having. It does not address the structural or material basis of racism and glaringly absent from the discussion is the fact that large portions of the “new” Grand Rapids rely on white supremacist divisions of labor: it is largely people of color who work in kitchens, do housekeeping, clean the streets, etc.

Even taking GR Forward’s approach on their own terms, there is nothing making sure that they will actually achieve the goals they identify, they are just targets . It’s just lip service at a greater scale: a preamble accompanied by more visible photos of minority populations. It’s something to show critics who justifiably raise questions (see their summary of public comments received on the draft [presented to the Planning Commission], they point people to this section over and over). It still reads as though it’s tacked on, a scrambling attempt to deal with the perception that GR Forward isn’t really about inclusion or diversity. And it isn’t now nor was it ever, it’s only ever been about economics.

In that sense, little has changed in the draft. It still advocates for the core project of transforming downtown and making it a more attractive destination for tourists and those who currently live outside of its confines. The same mantras are repeated about the “need” for 10,000 households to gain further investment (and what the city can do to get to that point), the necessity of “restoring the river,” the proliferation of staged events, etc. There’s no need to repeat these criticisms, they were laid out in our previous article on GR Forward. Despite the changes, it is a plan that seeks to transform downtown into a playground for the rich, or those who like to play tourist for the weekend while visiting downtown for ArtPrize.

GR Forward's Vision for the Westside — GR Forward’s Vision for the Westside

Typical of GR Forward’s approach and vision is its discussion of the Westside. The plan advocates continued construction along and near the Bridge Street corridor, including the building of 4-and-5 story buildings along Bridge and Stocking. They would be a mix of housing and commercial developments. Bridge Street—despite being home to many existing homes and businesses—is presented as prime turf to be colonized by new investments. Already in the neighborhood new housing is being built, all of which features high rents (for example, Rockford Construction’s 600 Douglas and Fulton Place projects) inaccessible to those who traditionally lived in the neighborhood. None of the proposed projects for the neighborhood include affordable housing, and the tepid suggestions for incentives GR Forward suggests won’t do anything to change that. Similarly, most neighborhood business development has been “upscale” stores (the hip and misspelled Denym) and restaurants (Black Heron). These are in many ways typical of commercial development as a whole in gentrifying neighborhoods—it’s designed to meet the demands and interests of a new class of residents.

If what is happening on the Westside is being celebrated by GR Forward, it’s cause for concern as a whole. The transformation of the Westside has been the exact opposite of inclusive and diverse. The Fulton Place development—which is held up by GR Forward as an example of affordable student housing—rents for $800 per bedroom and involved the demolition of existing homes. If this is a template, we should be very concerned when the plan advocates for increased housing for students and young professionals on the Westside and south down Division Avenue. It’s worth noting that the plan advocates for a housing mix in downtown Grand Rapids that is 30% affordable, down from 35% at present. Furthermore, even this call is very limited as seen in the excited discussion about micro-lofts (apartments under 475 square feet) to address the issue of affordable housing. That might be fine for young singles or “empty-nesters”, but isn’t a solution for families who can’t afford high rents elsewhere in downtown.

On the question of public space, the final version of GR Forward continues to call for the total commercialization of downtown. Public space, culture, nature, parks, and people are all seen as “assets” which can be commodified and/or otherwise used to generate economic activity. There’s no real talk about non-commercial space. Instead, parks and the river would be “activated” with a series of facilitated activities designed to cater to tourists and those with money to spend in downtown. Downtown will become a giant amusement park with skate parks, festivals, whitewater rafting, swimming, ice skating, public art, and a host of other activities to take in before or after visiting the hot new restaurant or brew pub du jour. As is typical of GR Forward’s discussion, this assumes that spaces aren’t already used, whether it is a commercial street or a park. For example, homeless people often spend their days in the parks, yet a park such as Heartside Park is seen by GR Forward as needing to be “activated” because it doesn’t have the right type of activity.

Downtown Transformed into an Adventure Park

This illuminates a major tension in the GR Forward plan between activities that are deemed “good” uses of space and those that aren’t. Drinking by low- and no- income people in Heartside Park is seen as an undesirable activity that needs to be “rooted out”, but drinking craft beer at Movies in the Park is seen as a model behavior. At the same time the plan speaks of creating a welcoming downtown, this tension manifests itself in repeated advocacy of improved lighting, the expansion of the Downtown Ambassadors program, illuminated storefronts, redesigned parks, etc, all of which are designed to police a certain type of street life and activity while inviting in a different set of activities. In the downtown envisioned by GR Forward it is fine to walk drunk from bar to bar while sampling the latest in foodie trends, but to inhabit the street while intoxicated because you have nowhere else to go, means that your presence will addressed in terms of how it relates to people’s “perceptions of safety.” The Downtown Ambassadors—identified as a success and something that should be expanded by GR Forward—probably will not be offering to refer tipsy distillery patrons to services to deal with their potential alcoholism, yet they will not hesitate to refer those whom they deem to be homeless and/or “at-risk”.

GR Forward builds on the reality that downtown Grand Rapids has changed dramatically over the past decade. Those who support both the GR Forward plan and the general trajectory of these changes see this in a positive light. The frequent announcements of new housing, new businesses, and other initiatives lend themselves to the idea that there is an unstoppable forward momentum. Intertwined with this idea is the notion that the city is becoming increasingly progressive and/or otherwise changing for the better. It coincides with the concept of infinite growth in capitalism, that there is always something to be exploited, always an asset to be maximized, and a profit to be made. It goes by different names: entrepreneurship, capitalism, colonialism, but it has always meant looking at the world through an economic lens where everything—from swimming in the river, to street musicians, and diversity—is a potential means to generate more economic activity.

Everyone and everything is a potential niche to market or market to. And as for those who don’t fit into this vision? At best they might be the subject of a token mention in a preamble, but their experience is quickly buried under the forward march of progress. To raise concerns, to register objections, or otherwise critique the existing trajectory is an anachronism when everything is moving forward and everything is progressive. It’s an ahistorical triumph where the past no longer matters and legacies of exploitation can be wished away. At the same time, the tide GR Forward represents washes across the landscape, leaving in its wake a city transformed into an adventure playground built on a landscape that has been thoroughly cleansed, sanitized, and monetized.

November 10, 2015

But the Band Plays On: Community, Participation, Gentrification

Polite society makes conflict a dirty word, a dangerous omen — something to be either avoided or tranquilized. When faced with conflict, there are always groups (whether formal organizations or social cliques) that seek to smooth over dissent while still maintaining the appearance of inclusiveness. So in a time when conflict about policing and gentrification has been rising and threatening the status quo, it’s useful to identify the inevitable attempts at controlling this conversation.

Recently, there has been a rash of forums and panels in Grand Rapids on the topics of development, gentrification, racism, and policing. Noteworthy among these was the August 20th “How We Grow” forum organized at Wealthy Theatre by the group Equity Drinks. It was sponsored in part by Spectrum Health and Bear Manor Properties, the latter most conspicuous for their enthusiastic commitment to development in the Wealthy Street corridor. The event was billed as a community panel discussion, and focused on the ongoing developments taking place in Grand Rapids and the related issues of displacement and inequality.

Despite the open doors and the anticipation of an informal community discussion, there were layers of mediation between the participants and the panelists. The least subtle of these was the heavy moderation, typical of forums like this, which shaped the content and the direction of the conversation. The ways in which the event was structured and scheduled also meant that certain voices would necessarily be more present. Events like this are typically scheduled in the evenings, on the assumption that most attendees work 9-to-5. It seemed to be primarily promoted via Facebook, where in-the-know “concerned citizens” could share it with their friends but not many others. And as with all Equity Drinks events, there was a networking hour before the forum commenced — implying that most attendees would come from similar professional backgrounds and would know how to, much less want to, network with each other.

Technology provided yet another layer of mediation to the discussion. Behind the host and four panelists, a massive display of the event’s Twitter feed updated in real time with questions and comments from attendees, imparting a fragmented mood to the event. While attendees’ attentions bounced between the panelists, their phones, their Retweet counts, and the display, the panelists didn’t engage with the questions or comments from the Twitter feed very much.

Everything about the event, from the venue to the panelists, was respectable and safe, and so the people most comfortable engaging were respectable and safe. It’s not just formal organizations or companies that have an interest in quelling conflict, it is individuals as well. Locally, conversations about issues related to housing and development are often dominated by cliques of urbanists — an assemblage of neighborhood association members, aspiring politicians, urban planners and would-be urban planners, trendy business owners, local micro-celebrities, and their cohorts. These types are educated, tech-savvy, “green,” and typically self-identified liberals or progressives. They are cultured, glowing with civic pride, and utterly convinced that they are a part of the solution. They are diplomatically aware of their privilege, and yet simultaneously oblivious to how it lets them skillfully engage in more-or-less polite debates about things that others’ very survival depends upon.

These are the types that are the most comfortable engaging with discussions about development and gentrification, in the flesh and on social media, and who leave the most satisfied. To not engage would compromise their liberal sensibilities, but to take meaningful action beyond merely engaging and accommodating would compromise their stake in the economic growth. The sponsors of development, the sponsors of events discussing development, and the urbanist cliques that engage in these events become actors in a theatrical performance — though cast in opposing roles, behind the curtain they are members of the same company.

What should be immediately noticeable about the “How We Grow” event is that, if the intention is taken at face value, it was practically pointless. If one didn’t like the new developments and transformations taking place in the city, Tweeting about it wouldn’t do much. And for those who did accept or approve of the gentrification, lucky them — because it’s already happening!

But let’s give Spectrum Health and Bear Manor Properties a little credit here, the event was a bit more than a waste of time. By corralling people into a public discussion and encouraging criticism, a number of things are accomplished that are actually beneficial to the forces of gentrification.

For one, opposition is dulled into ineffectual criticism. First, a “we” is created, a contrived sense of community, and it’s implied that “we” have some nebulously-defined agency in affecting the outcome of gentrification. The terms of the conversation are set before it even takes place, most obviously in the name of the event itself, “How We Grow.” (As if growth is the only option.) By asking everyone to air their grievances, hostility towards gentrification is transformed through this false sense of community into an equally false sense of participation and inclusion. Antagonism towards gentrification then becomes critical dialogue within this “community.”

It’s obvious that not everyone in Grand Rapids benefits equally from what is proposed as growth, and that some are even hurt by it. Different people interact with this growth process in very different ways. Events like this acknowledge that point, but insist that we can move past any issues and move forward with the process if only everyone could participate in some way. Landlords and tenants, business owners and workers, and people who experience drastically different levels of privilege and power are suggested to be “in it together.”

In this way any conflict is reined in to a non-conversation. Then, the fact that the “conversation” happened can be used as proof that everyone’s voices and needs have been included and addressed — a rubber stamp on the original plan, whether or not it has actually been meaningfully affected by opposing voices. Organizers and moderators are lauded for talking about the tough issues, while the strongest opponents, or those most affected by the issues they’re discussing, are either side-stepped or glaringly absent from the conversation.

In addition to this process of recuperation, public forums on contentious issues act as a pressure release. The idea of a “public sphere” is an abstraction where everyone can supposedly contribute to an equal exchange of ideas. What’s insidiously behind this is the fact that there are powerful people, groups, and institutions which can produce a disproportionate amount of influence within this public sphere. Sound bytes and slogans are produced by think tank intellectuals and deployed by the media, politicians, and through social media to manipulate the most people in ways most beneficial to power, while many rant and rave on Facebook or in MLive comments to seemingly no effect. But it actually does have an effect – it reinvigorates and validates the sphere that power can then use to much more artfully manipulate.

Another effect of dutifully entering one’s critiques into the metaphorical suggestion box of these public forums is that it gives power the chance to form a response. Public relations people, various paid staff, and neighborhood boosters can hear what the complaints are and develop arguments and strategies to defuse them, all while the forces of gentrification go untouched or are even bolstered.

Events like “How We Grow” and the urbanist cliques and organizations that stage them ultimately seek to avoid social conflict. Those who sponsor these events have no reason not to believe that the current system works for everyone and they have an abiding faith in the idea that it will work for everyone—if they just make the right changes after the right collective decision is reached. Unfortunately, events like this often hide structural oppression, naively assuming that everyone has the same access to power or that everyone will be comfortable coming to them for help. At best, there may be a tweak or two proposed, but in the end, there is no path for meaningful action. There is self-reflective hand-wringing, i.e. “we need to do better” or wondering aloud (or at least on Twitter) if the restaurant we are eating at is “just” in light of the conversation that happened. But at the end of the day, nobody needs be too concerned, because the “conversation” happened and the performance of awareness has been staged, and everyone can go back to doing what they were doing.

September 9, 2015

The Downtown Market is Succeeding

On The Rapidian, writer Levi Gardner recently published a provocatively titled piece “Why we need to start talking honestly about the Downtown Market.” The article makes some worthwhile points regarding the Downtown Market and its relationship to “the local food economy,” but in many ways, it misses an essential point. The Downtown Market isn’t “failing to meet expectations”, but rather, it is succeeding at exactly what it was designed to do: transform the immediate neighborhood and encourage an influx of money into the area.

In the discussion around the Downtown Market, it seems that many people have missed this, despite the Downtown Market being rather explicit in its goal:

“We wanted our Market’s location to serve as a focal point within the city while revitalizing a previously neglected area. The Market continues to spark redevelopment of nearby properties while reintroducing community neighbors to a once underutilized Grand Rapids locale.”

Thus, when the Downtown Market is assessed it should be judged less on its ability to address the food needs of the neighborhood—which it was never designed to meet—and more on its power to transform the neighborhood. In this sense, the Downtown Market should be seen as an agent of gentrification.

The Downtown Market is a classic example of a “pioneer” gentrifier as originally conceptualized by gentrification scholar Neil Smith. It is located on the far edge of downtown, in an area that has been identified as ripe for redevelopment. The Downtown Market is a way to convince people—visitors, longterm Grand Rapids residents with negative perceptions of the area, and investors—that the area is “safe”. It is no coincidence that shortly after the Downtown Market opened, a cage was constructed to prevent people from sleeping under the bridge at Wealthy Street and Ionia Avenue. Beyond “the cage”, the outside of the Market is surrounded by examples of “hostile architecture” aimed at excluding homeless people from lingering in the area. One need not be a conspiracy theorist to believe that the location of the bathrooms on the far edge of the building was a deliberate design choice to discourage their use by homeless people.

Cage Designed to Prevent Homeless People from Sleeping under Wealthy Street — The cage designed to prevent homeless people from sleeping under the Wealthy Street bridge.

The Downtown Market’s offerings are upscale in nature because the project is designed to attract capital to the area—and nothing more. An early statement on the project stated that it sought to create a “center of local food excitement”. It wasn’t to address the food needs of the longstanding community surrounding the Downtown Market, but rather to create a destination for visitors and a beacon for the new class of young professionals. For those who struggle financially, food is a constant source of stress, but for those with who do not need to worry about food insecurity, it is no doubt exciting to peruse the options at the Downtown Market. Food tourism and culinary adventures are a critical part of the lifestyle of gentrifiers and it is on that terrain that the Downtown Market is positioned. Crepes, gelato, fish tacos, distilled spirits, etc., are all designed to cater to a specific lifestyle demographic. Statements from the owner of the upcoming Social Kitchen and Bar at the Downtown Market that their $14 turkey burgers are “…really for everyone, rich and poor” are no doubt disturbing, but they make sense in the context of a development designed exclusively to cater to those with money. And even when in the pre-opening stages officials said things like “We will provide a resource to fill a void in what is virtually a food desert,” it always seemed more like a cover than a critical part of the mission. After the Market opened, it was perhaps surprising just how bad it really was, but if one had read behind the lines, it was clear what was going to happen. While the Downtown Market responds to criticism with claims that they offer food assistance (but honestly, how much can one buy using EBT at the Market), decisions made by the Downtown Market continue to show its relationship to gentrification, as was the case of the recent hiring of Torrence O’Haire, most known for opening The Bandit Queen and Propaganda Donuts on Division Avenue.

At times, the Downtown Market seems to be flourishing. At lunchtime, people in business attire purchase lunch from the vendors and eat cafeteria-style in the de facto commons area. It has the air of being a food court for the professional set. On weekends, a mix of suburban visitors, hip and professional urbanities, and young professionals with their visiting parents in tow create a mix that is no doubt an odd site for those who have lived in the area prior to the opening of the Downtown Market. Conspicuously absent are many traditional low- and no-income residents of the Heartside neighborhood. Comparing the Downtown Market to other public spaces—such as the Public Library—is an interesting exercise. It’s hard to know if the Downtown Market is succeeding financially. Anecdotes abound from people who leave the Downtown Market somewhat confused by the prices or coming just to “check it out.” Most of the jobs generated by the Downtown Market are relatively low-wage service jobs, evidence of the widening gulf in society between those who can be served and those who must serve. But the point is, the Downtown Market doesn’t even have to succeed financially, public subsidies ensure that it has low operating costs. And more importantly, its primary goal is ideological in nature.

Further, in conversations around redevelopment in Grand Rapids, we need to consider more closely the role that public and semi-public infrastructure projects can have in promoting gentrification. The Downtown Market provides a case study for considering this relationship. These projects—landscape improvements, redesigned parks, street improvements, lighting, etc—are always designed to attract private investment, which often means the “market-rate housing”, upscale restaurants, boutiques, and entertainment options that are part of the gentrification process. While the Downtown Market is operated by a for-profit corporation, it relied heavily on government subsidies and was promoted under the guise that its development would help “everyone” in some abstract way. Such promises are usually empty and should be scrutinized. Grand Action—which undertook the market’s development—previously built the Van Andel Arena with the goal of catalyzing development in downtown Grand Rapids in the mid-1990s. Their interest was clearly not in addressing the needs of the Heartside community—they set their sights much further.

Downtown Market Parking Lot — The Downtown Market as a catalyst for neighborhood transformation.

This seems particularly relevant as the GR Forward plan is up for debate. The Downtown Market was a product of collaboration between a private group (Grand Action), private investors, the Downtown Development Authority (DDA), and government entities. In this sense, it is to some degree similar to GR Forward, which promotes similar partnerships and infrastructure improvements with the goal of attracting “investment” and encouraging “redevelopment”. GR Forward also advocates for the transformation the neighborhood in which the Downtown Market is located, including among other things, a major transformation of Heartside Park largely under the guise of improving “safety” and reducing “illegal activities.” Since 2010, Heartside Park was conceptualized as a potential extension of the Market, a place for co-branded festivals and events. In light of how the Market is, this will involve a complete shift in the park and the likely displacement (both cultural and physical) of those who now spend time in the park.

The DDA celebrates their role in the Downtown Market stating that it “immediately catalyzed residential development.” In response to the criticism of the Downtown Market on The Rapidian, the Downtown Market responded with a lengthy press release highlighting all of their programs allegedly aimed at making the Downtown Market “a place where everyone feels welcome.” Over at The Grand Rapids Press, another article in a long line of glowing news coverage celebrates the latest business opening in the Downtown Market. The Downtown Market isn’t failing, it’s doing exactly what it was designed to do—and that is what is cause for concern.

August 13, 2015

On Displacement

In debates around gentrification, the issue of displacement is often brought up. It’s a core component of definitions of gentrification, with most agreeing that displacement is a consequence of gentrification. However, within the academic world, there is a lot of debate about what exactly “displacement” means and how it should be defined. It’s something that needs to be considered, as how we conceptualize displacement is essential to understanding gentrification.

First, it is important to understand that “the displaced” aren’t an abstraction. They are real people and they have lives that matter. Similarly, displacement is a real threat. Caitlin Cahill captured this well writing:

“The pressure of displacement is not an abstract threat but experienced in material ways: slips under the door offering a buy out in public housing, family members relocating temporarily never to return home, personal experiences of being harassed by landlords, doubling up of families in tiny apartments, and seeing friends displaced. Narratives of deceit, betrayal and loss characterize the ‘war stories’ of displacement, offering an inside perspective on the social costs of gentrification (Alicea 2001: Muniz 1998).” [1]

As it stands, the relationship between gentrification and displacement is complicated. Proponents of gentrification often cling to the idea that if there isn’t immediate and verifiable evidence of displacement, then there is not gentrification. For example, if a development is built on a vacant piece of land—perhaps including market-rate apartments and a ground-floor brewery—many won’t consider it gentrification because they argue that nobody was living on that piece of land, and nobody was forced out. The lack of evidence for direct and immediate displacement is often used as a way to silence critics and dismiss discussions about gentrification.

However, the focus on physical displacement is in many ways exceedingly narrow and ignores the complexity of how people are displaced due to gentrification. That said, people are certainly directly displaced by gentrification. This has occurred in Grand Rapids, witness the demolition of homes on the Westside, the sale of homes in the Belknap neighborhood, and the recent proposal to demolish a block of homes for apartments along Michigan Street. Physical displacement is a consequence of gentrification, and it happens regularly as buildings are bought and sold once developers and individual homeowners move into a working-class areas and start spending large amounts of cash to acquire land and buildings.

Rockford Construction Living @ 600 Douglas — Rockford Construction’s Living @ 600 Douglas. Studios rent for $1,000 per month.

Tracking Displacement

Measuring displacement is difficult. While one can count the number of houses demolished, developing more complex accounting methods is often difficult. For example, if the homes being demolished were owned by landlords—as is often the case in low-income neighborhoods—it’s easy to talk about “willing sellers” and to minimize the displacement as leases are quietly allowed to expire at the end of their term. In the case of neighborhood level change, academics have long discussed the difficulty of measuring displacement due to gentrification:

“…it is nearly impossible for independent researchers to design small, targeted studies of displacement effects in gentrifying neighborhoods: poor and working-class people displaced by gentrification have disappeared from precisely those places where researchers go to look for them. Accurate measurements of displacement are impossible with after-the-fact surveys conducted in the origins of displacement; instead, the researcher must find households in the destinations where people are forced to move. Since those displaced from a single gentrifying neighborhood may wind up in a wide variety of places – nearby poor neighborhoods, more distant low-cost suburbs, or even distant cities or regions – the only definitive way to measure gentrification-induced displacement is to track down individual households who have moved out of neighborhoods over time as gentrification proceeds, and to ask them detailed questions about their reasons for moving. This is extremely expensive and time-consuming.” [2]

Put simply, tracking displaced people is largely an impossibility because they are gone from the places where one would look for them. Those affected by gentrification tend to be poor, which makes tracking them all the more difficult. Surveys and studies that focus on “households” miss those who move in with friends and family, while the fact that many people frequently move in and out of neighborhoods for any number of different reasons further complicates the matter. [3]

Other academics studying gentrification have pointed out that there is often “a substantial time lag between when the subordinate class group gives way to more affluent users” [4]. Displacement isn’t always immediate, leading some researchers to argue that what is key is that it involves the construction of space and the creation of an environment hostile to existing residents. Kathe Newman and Elvin K. Wyly argued that we shouldn’t “… consider residential displacement as a litmus test for gentrification” and that we should consider “…the impact of the restructuring of urban space on the ability of low-income residents to move into neighbourhoods that once provided ample supplies of affordable living arrangements.” [5]

Social and Cultural Displacement

In academic discussions of displacement, there is a lot of debate around how gentrification displaces people culturally and/or socially. The idea of “social displacement” as a key aspect of gentrification was articulated by Michael Chernoff who described it as:

“…the replacement of one group by another, in some relatively bounded geographic area, in terms of prestige and power. This includes the ability to affect decisions and policies in the area, to set goals and priorities, and to be recognized by outsiders as the legitimate spokesmen for the area.” [6]

This works in many different ways:

For example, the loss of political control in an area can lead to demoralization, or a sense of one’s lifestyle being threatened. At some point, residents or businesses may feel compelled to leave the area; thus physical displacement may stem from social rather than economic pressure. Social displacement might be marked by a gradual withdrawal from neighborhood activities of the displaced. They drop out of local organizations or remove themselves from political activities. Thus, they complete their own displacement by relinquishing attachments to the associations which were formerly the bases of their power.” [7]

The former 20th Century Dogs & Meats on Bridge Street.

“Cultural displacement” is another important aspect of the displacement debate. It concerns the effect that gentrification has on those who are able to stay in a gentrifying neighborhood. What does it mean to live in a neighborhood that is being transformed by outside forces?

“The neighborhood context is being taken over and changed beyond recognition. Displacement is experienced in this regard as a process of effacement at the neighborhood scale, where the signs personal and cultural heritages are erased. What does it mean when the salon where one’s mother had her hair done every two weeks closes down?
…
In short, gentrification is experienced as a loss of self, community and culture. The threat of erasing of ‘my grandmother’s house,’ ‘my history’, and ‘my neighborhood’ is accompanied by feelings of anxiety and anger. ‘I don’t belong here’: this anger expresses a sense of not feeling welcome in one’s own community.” [8]

This creates an environment where existing residents beyond those immediately displaced, feel an acute “pressure of displacement”:

“…displacement affects many more than those actually displaced at any given moment. When a family sees its neighborhood changing dramatically, when all their friends are leaving, when stores are going out of business and new stores for other clientele are taking their places (or none at all are replacing them), when changes in public facilities, transportation patterns, support services, are all clearly making the area less and less livable, then the pressure of displacement is already severe, and its actuality only a matter of time… We thus speak of the ‘pressure of displacement’ as affecting households beyond those actually currently displaced.” [9]

If we’re going to be honest, we must acknowledge that displacement due to gentrification and development has happened in Grand Rapids, it is happening, and it is going to happen in the future. There is no way around it. It’s more a question of what type of displacement—physical or cultural—is happening. And of course, the even more difficult question, what can be done about it?

Sources

1. Caitlin Cahill, “Negotiating Grit and Glamour: Young Women of Color and the Gentrification of the Lower East Side,” from >City & Society (2007), in Loretta Lees, Tom Slater and Elvin Wyly, eds., The Gentrification Reader, (London: Routledge, 2008), 305.
2. “Introduction to Part Four,” The Gentrification Reader, 319.
3. “Introduction to Part Four,” 318-319.
4. Tom Slater,“The Eviction of Critical Perspectives from Gentrification Research” from >International Journal of Urban and Regional Research (2006), in The Gentrification Reader, 578.
5. Kathe Newman and Elvin K. Wyly, “The Right to Stay Put, Revisited: Gentrification and Resistance to Displacement in New York City” from Urban Studies (2006), in The Gentrification Reader, 544.
6. Michael Chernoff, “Social Displacement in a Renovating Neighborhood’s Commercial District: Atlanta”, in Japonica Brown-Saracino, ed., The Gentrification Debates, (New York: Routledge, 2010), 295.
7. Ibid., 295.
8. Cahill, 307.
9. Peter Marcuse, “Abandonment, Gentrification, and Displacement: The Linkages in New York City” from Gentrification of the City (1986), in The Gentrification Reader, 335.