gentrification

• In San Francisco, where rapid gentrification is occurring, gentrification became a centralissue in the recent mayoral race and subsequent elections. San Francisco Mayor WillieBrown’s opponent in the 1999 runoff election ran on an anti-gentrification platform, and in thefinal days of the election, Brown argued that he, too, was opposed to gentrification. Yet nogentrification policy emerged from his new Administration through most of 2000. Then, in thefall of 2000, a furious but thus far inconclusive election fight was waged over competingballot initiatives that offered strong or moderate controls on property development in theMission, South of Market, and other areas, with the Mayor and the development sectorhaving put forward the moderate version. (Both versions failed, although the stronger onelost by a small number of votes; the moderate version lost by a wide margin.) This wasfollowed in December by runoff district elections for the Board of Supervisors that put intooffice a large number of anti-gentrification activists who had run against the mayor’sapproach.• In Washington, D.C., plans for a new retail development on city-owned parcels around a newsubway station have sharply divided local residents on how to revitalize the ColumbiaHeights neighborhood. The division pitted a longstanding community developmentcorporation against another well-organized group of neighborhood residents over both thetype of development that will occur and the process for involving community residents indecision-making processes.• A former Atlanta city planning commissioner fears impending displacement and knows thatrent control would not fly in this city that prizes property rights.• A CDC official in Cleveland confides that the neighborhoods he targets need somegentrification.Stakeholders can and often do use gentrification in a very politically charged way to framereal impacts and attempt to stimulate an effective political response. For instance, neighborhoodadvocates can attempt to quantify the displacement created by gentrification, publicize “horrorstories” of families displaced, and argue for more affordable housing, or for workable rent controls.Cities can recognize that gentrification is leading to increased values for planned housing units, anddemand affordable housing set-asides and other concessions from developers.Gentrification creates costs and financial resources that can offset them. At the regionallevel, the gentrification process as a whole is driven by factors that can help resolve its adverseconsequences. The key issue is how best to link local residents and institutions with resources atthe neighborhood, city or regional levels. For instance, in Washington, D.C. the DevelopmentCorporation Columbia Heights (DCCH) is a full partner with a private developer in the commercialdevelopment near the new subway station. Under this arrangement, DCCH will receive a portion ofthe profits of this development and will channel these profits into additional housing and economicdevelopment ventures to benefit the neighborhood’s low-income residents. In East Palo Alto, CA,26