I had never really been to Detroit before I went there for a concert with my older sister (providing that a fifth grade field trip to Greenfield Village doesn't count). Growing up, my older sister has loved to show me the scenic routes of cities with which she's familiar, whether that be taking exit 7 to go into the heart of Lansing to see where she works, or driving the backroads of Lansing that I probably won't be on again to see where she interns, or, in January, taking the roads hardly out of the business district of Detroit to show me where she could've been going to school.
The car ride itself, while we twisted left and right, was fairly quiet, aside from the music we were playing, the opposite of how it was driving to Detroit—lively, the car filled with our voices belting out the wrong notes and filling each other in on all that had happened in the time that we had been apart. However, I was more concerned with studying every building; each broken window and cracked sidewalk etching itself into my mind.
My glances at the neighborhoods we drove past weren't subtle, and after a couple minutes, my sister asked me if I had noticed something else: the juxtaposition of each broken down home next to another that was renovated and scintillating against the dark clouds above. After she pointed it out, I realized that this phenomenon was not an isolated event. Every neighborhood thereafter was a conglomerate of suburban two-stories and ramshackle homes with toys strewn in the yard among crystal slivers of broken glass.
She told me the word for this situation, and I repeated it slowly, getting a feel for how foreign it sounded.
Gentrification: "the buying and renovation of houses and stores in deteriorated urban neighborhoods by upper- or middle-income families or individuals, thus improving property values but often displacing low-income families and small businesses."
How she explained it then was that essentially wealthier parties were obtaining these homes at an attractive price and would then renovate them to their liking, improving the neighborhood in some areas, but in the process of doing that, would push out those who cannot afford better homes to another low-income neighborhood or apartment.
My macroeconomics teacher echoed her explanation but added another aspect to it: this was just another way the individuals in these neighborhoods were being marginalized.
In my eyes, gentrification is a tangible explanation of trickle-down economics; it is benefitting the wealthy and leaving those who aren't at a disadvantage. Instead of improving the economic opportunities for low-income families, the wealthier are inserting higher-value buildings into an area where its inhabitants cannot afford such investments.
It's no secret that those who can afford to renovate such buildings are predominantly the upper-class white individuals and that those living in low-income neighborhoods, while of course is not limited to any race, are comprised of predominantly minority groups. For me, the irony is almost comical: early in the twentieth century, the white population was concerned with living in suburban neighborhoods, leaving minorities to live in the urban district. Now the tables are turning, and gentrification has become a class conflict with aspects of white privilege intertwined.
Closer to home, gentrification is a growing concern in Grand Rapids. As demand to live nearer to the center of GR grows, it comes at a price for the low-income families who live there. Two or three weeks hardly go by before another high-rise's construction is executed, and rent is raised once again.
Although gentrification may indicate a growing job market, it is displacing the communities already settled. The question arises as to whether this development must occur in order to create an even greater demand for jobs, thus incentivizing employers to create more jobs and employ more people—eventually benefitting the entire community and economy. The greater questions that comes to mind is whether that is worth the immediate impact upon those being marginalized yet again and when their chance at experiencing this development positively will be.
