gentrification

where the entering families with school-age children place them disproportionately in privateschools, often translating their relatively lower housing costs (compared to the suburbs) into tuitionpayments.Nevertheless, if incoming families were to strengthen local school quality, the benefits wouldaccrue to new students as well as longtime residents of the area (assuming they had thewherewithal to remain in the district). Better schools increase life chances for original city residents,and increase their ability to stay in gentrifying communities and take advantage of improvements, orto go to other communities and succeed.9. Preparing Groups to NegotiateMany of the key components of the gentrification process—including job creation andincreased commercial demand—can also offer solutions to original residents with low incomes, andoriginal businesses with marginal demand for their products. Effective negotiation amongcommunity groups, developers and public sector officials can increase the likelihood of communitybuy-in for revitalization efforts and their ultimate success, can improve job opportunity and incomes(both goals shared by many stakeholders), can improve the community’s fiscal and physicalenvironment, and can improve a city or region’s ability to promote revitalization and avoid theadverse consequences of gentrification.When a well-organized community has a clear plan in hand and buy-in from local publicofficials, its negotiating power is enhanced dramatically. As noted earlier, the Tenderloin district ofSRO housing in San Francisco has very strong non-profit leadership, which effectively forestalledredevelopment and gentrification of the area into an extension of the downtown hotel district. Thisfeat was accomplished through intense negotiations with the City’s leadership. In Cleveland, a forprofitdeveloper was able to secure a large parcel of land from the city. The price: a commitment tobuild middle-class housing in an area that had seen no new development in generations, and toclean up a strategically-placed woodland area with a polluted creek and set it aside for recreationaluse.Much of the linkage fee and set-aside activity described in the regulatory tool section aboveis successful only when advocates are well-placed to negotiate effectively. Finally, Mayor JerryBrown of Oakland recently conceded that his effort to build housing downtown for 10,000 newresidents should include a set-aside for affordable housing, after negotiations and give-and-take inthe local press with anti-gentrification activists. In each of these cases, community residents and cityofficials were informed and powerful, both bottom line requirements for effective negotiation efforts.10. Creating Forums to Unify the Gentrifying CommunityWhether community members are affirmatively seeking new neighbors, or feelingoverwhelmed by the recent influx of new neighbors, neighborhood change will occur. Community38