Gentrification The more we continue to develop new neighborhoods the more we are alienating and avoiding the problem of homelessness. Gentrification is the process of renewal or the rebuilding of deteriorating areas that in many instances displaces poorer residents. This displacement of the poorer residents may have an increase in homelessness since the poorer class of that area cannot afford a higher cost of living in other neighborhoods. While some may believe gentrification helps all economic classes other believe it excludes the lower-class. “WEAK CENTER” GENTRIFICATION The research is based on one of the poorest neighborhoods of the United States, Skid Row located in Los Angeles.
Most of the homeless you see in Skid Row are recent discharge prisoners, have mental illnesses or have some type of drug addiction. They are all placed in this one neighborhood which are often called “Service Dependent Ghettos”. According to the research conducted by Ellen Reese, Geoffrey Deverteuil and Leanne Thach, the most common strategy of gentrification is the demolition of public housing followed by mixed income development (2010). They also point out that gentrifications main objective is to make cities and neighborhoods of a higher class. The study tackles this issue in two ways. First, the political struggle over the efforts to deconcentrate poverty in these “service dependent ghettos’.
Secondly, by exploring the deconcentrating efforts within terms of “weak center” gentrification. The efforts of deconcentrating poverty shows to be ineffective and harsh. These strategies are created by the local government and private capital. The outcome are authoritarian policies which repress the poor. For example the implementation of “Zero Tolerance. .
ications, and organizations against it. Another key thing to mention is that I was able to find one research with a small sample size but also a large sample size. The results are different yet similar which may help our group when searching for the right sample size. All three research have thing we may like to consider doing for our local research questions. For example, we may like to interview people that work for the Lotus House that are willing to help the homeless and see what they think of the process of gentrification in Downtown Miami. Just like in Skid Row gentrification may look like a good or bad thing depending on who you are talking to in Downtown Miami.
Therefore when we are interviewing we should also take into consideration on who we are talking to and also if gentrification has impacted them directly or indirectly, positively, or negatively.
