How gentrification really changes a neighborhood

March 19, 2016 7:34 AM

I knew the price of my new home in Kirkwood, just not what it would cost the neighbors who’d lived there for generations An examination of the racial and economic cycles of change in one Atlanta neighborhood, with a nice touch of soul searching and empathy.
posted by hydropsyche (26 comments total)

I liked the article overall. But given the amount of it that focused on the author's feelings of guilt and maybe even shame, it would have been interesting to know what other options they had. He says that they were priced out of their old neighborhood, but not what other areas were possibilities, and what the moral implications of those areas might have been.

I also couldn't help but notice that he gave a whole set of prices for the lots and houses owned and sold by the neighbors, but avoided mentioning what he paid for his house. It's enough of a part of the story that the absence of that number stood out a bit, particularly in contrast to how the neighbors' prices are discussed.

It's also worth considering how different the experience was for the neighbors because they had been able to own outright, in contrast to the people in the neighborhood who were renters. Even if property taxes price someone out, they will have equity gains -- but renters are going to just face the higher costs without any benefit from the rise in property values. Knowing which story is more typical of that neighborhood would be good for context for this story.
posted by Dip Flash at 8:32 AM on March 19, 2016 [1 favorite]

Huh, if a couple if those photos were angled different, I might literally be able to see my house. I've lived in Kirkwood a few years longer than the author and, if anything, I think they might be underselling the speed of how the neighborhood has changed. As a you white professional (a... Ywppie?), I've been a part of that change, but a lot of it also just has to do with the resurgence and just plain surgence Atlanta has been having in the past decade or so.

I rent, not own like the author, in the neighborhood, having looked for the cheapest rent I could find that I could still bike to grad school. When I moved into the divided house I still live in, the street light had a special "security light" that shone directly onto my lot, which did not stop someone stealing the window a/c units the day before I moved in. My landlord said he "knew who did it" and got them back promptly, re-installing them with chains to hold them in place.

Not to far from me was a ramshackle apartment complex on Bixby street, nicknamed the "Bixby Corral" due to the frequent gunfire. It was rumored to have been formerly own by members of the Black Mafia Family. The hipster El Myriachi restaurant mentioned in the article was a Mrs. Winners. In fact the whole Kirkwood Station "downtown" area was a mix of dilapidated and just hanging on.

Now though? The Bixby Corral has been town down and is scheduled for a shiny new development. Kirkwood Station is bustling, having found a good mix of old businesses that have succeeded and new ones that have moved in. Trees Atlanta rolled through a few years ago and lined our sidewalks. Our drab underpasses have been festooned into murals. The security light on the street light outside my home is long gone, as is the regular sound of gunfire. The upstairs of the house I rent, having been refurbished, is now priced at literally twice what I pay downstairs. And remember, I didn't move in 20 years ago, I moved in 6 years ago.

The area is changing fast, but there is a sort of gentle ambivalence to that fact. I previously lived in Reynoldstown, another rapidly gentrifying neighborhood which felt like it was under siege as a result. In Kirkwood, there is the fact that part of what is spurring the change is the older generation, which desegregated the neighborhood, is passing away. Their kids and grandkids grew up in the rough times of Atlanta in the 80s and 90s, so they've all (somewhat ironically) moved out to the suburbs. My girlfriend and I were doing some house pricing, and Kirkwood (and Edgewood next door), is this bizarre mix of of the older homes mixed in with newer homes (either renovated or torn down and rebuilt), so that one street might have a house going for <200K and one going for 600K two doors down. And I'm not sure how I feel about that.

One the one hand, all the new development , businesses, and families are great! It makes the neighborhood come alive and feel vibrant. It's good for the economy and the schools. On the other hand, there is always the issue of people who have lived here their entire lives facing the prospect of being forced to sell and move because of surging property taxes. It's the typical gentrification balancing act, and I'm not sure if Kirkwood is doing it well or just hasn't had simmering issues come to a boil yet.
posted by Panjandrum at 8:55 AM on March 19, 2016 [19 favorites]

It's good for the economy and the schools.

I think this is an important point. I don't know anything about the Atlanta public schools, but in my neighborhood (UWS, Manhattan, NYC), we hare currently having a battle of controlled school choice, where parents in the wealthier areas of the neighborhood are fighting hard not to have their children go to school with the children who live in the Section 8/project housing, because those schools are so underfunded and dangerous.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 8:58 AM on March 19, 2016

Schools are one of those simmering issues. A lot of the new arrivals either don't have kids (like myself) or are in the "stroller mafia" or early school stage. There's been a K-8 charter school nearby which has been the first choice for parents, but the influx of people means that it simply does not have the capacity to take them all. Our elementary school isn't great, but more students from more households with more money have absolutely helped out there.

The middle school situation is a bit of a mess though. The local middle school actually closed down a couple years ago and merged with another school, in part because of competition from the charter school, but also because of generally declining attendance. I've heard mixed feelings about whether that has been a net positive or a net negative.

One thing to keep in mind though, is there is a pretty significant baby bump going on a result of both population increase and particularly population increase in young families. Both middle schools were facing declining attendance even before competition from the charter school. The elementary school also had another school with declining attendance merge with it. And, of course, Atlanta Public Schools have simply been a mess for a while now. All in all, I think it's a bit of an unresolved issue.
posted by Panjandrum at 9:48 AM on March 19, 2016 [1 favorite]

One of my best friends bought a house in Reynoldstown, adjacent to Cabbagetown, nearly ten years ago before I moved. In our phone conversations, he tells me how much the neighbourhood has changed in the time he's been there. It's weird; I lived in Cabbagetown until the tornado struck but the neighbourhood other side of Estoria was always a little rough. To see it as nearly pin drop neat and tidy as, say, most of Inman Park, is disconcerting.
posted by Kitteh at 10:04 AM on March 19, 2016 [2 favorites]

But given the amount of it that focused on the author's feelings of guilt and maybe even shame, it would have been interesting to know what other options they had. He says that they were priced out of their old neighborhood, but not what other areas were possibilities, and what the moral implications of those areas might have been.

I'm betting our household income is similar to theirs (my public 4-year college assistant professor salary is pretty equivalent to a tenured public school teacher's and my stand-up comic/freelance graphic designer spouse's is pretty equivalent to his freelance writer's). We currently rent in a fully gentrified area nearby. Other than Kirkwood, which we are rapidly being priced out of, if we wanted to buy a small house in the city (and we don't need anything near their 2000 sq ft), we would be looking at neighborhoods nearby that are in similar or earlier stages of gentrification and thus living out the same story (although I'm much more interested in actually buying one of the houses and living in it than in buying a tear-down infill house like his). We could also afford a smaller condo in other fully gentrified or always middle class parts of the city. Or we could move to the suburbs, which in Atlanta means losing access to any sort of pedestrian oriented life or public transit and losing hours every week to sitting in traffic. Or we can keep renting until our landlords figure out that they could be charging twice as much than they are.

Atlanta has among the highest income inequality in the country, and there is simply not much room here for a middle class.
posted by hydropsyche at 10:08 AM on March 19, 2016 [3 favorites]

This is similar to the story of my neighborhood in Oakland: originally built by Italian immigrants, then as African American residents moved in it was cut in half by freeway construction. Solidly black on this side of Highway 24 from the 60s to the 00s, now it’s back to mixed and the house prices are going up. The major tech buses (Google, Apple, and maybe Facebook) all stop nearby. Actually, one longtime African American neighbor just sold her place and moved to Atlanta.

We chose it for all the usual reasons: a place we could afford, proximity to public transit and downtown, and a house that was ready with needing major renovations.
posted by migurski at 10:24 AM on March 19, 2016 [1 favorite]

I was also a Ywppie when I bought my first home in Kirkwood in 2009, within throwing distance of the apartments on Bixby (kids there would literally throw rocks at my windows). I didn't know much about the place before I moved there but I grew fond of my new neighborhood very quickly. A coworker of mine also rented in Kirkwood, and we were lucky enough to have a downtown job close enough to a MARTA stop that made our commute really easy. Kirkwood Station was kind of struggling to find its legs then, but the neighborhood was still really walkable and accessible with a few nice businesses and a pretty decent central park.

Then there was the time a resident was shot while mowing his front lawn during a phase where sometimes it seemed like the whole city was being besieged by Black Mafia Family and the "blue jeans bandits." It took a few months for me to realize I was neglecting my own yard because I was afraid to go outside.

After I left Atlanta, I rented the place to a friend for a while. Visiting now, it is strange watching it change, but I'm glad that places like Le Petit Marche are succeeding there, and I cannot say I'm sorry that the Bixby apartments are gone.
posted by ijoshua at 10:51 AM on March 19, 2016 [2 favorites]

Glad to see Josh Green on the blue. Dude's been doing the largely thankless work of writing for Curbed Atlanta for years, so it's nice to see him getting to stretch his legs. He's also a pretty good fiction writer.
posted by Maaik at 10:59 AM on March 19, 2016 [2 favorites]

Ok, if so many of you are fellow residents of Atlanta (and apparently in similar life circumstances) why don't we ever have IRL MeFi meetups here? Aside from DragonCon that is. I wrote a long screed about gentrification (or two long screeds!) on my Facebook... It's impossible not to notice if you live here a few years.
posted by Schmucko at 11:34 AM on March 19, 2016 [3 favorites]

This is similar to the story of my neighborhood in Oakland: originally built by Italian immigrants, then as African American residents moved in it was cut in half by freeway construction. Solidly black on this side of Highway 24 from the 60s to the 00s, now it’s back to mixed and the house prices are going up.

I've been picking up my semi-monthly fish CSA from a backyard in Oakland a few blocks from highway 24, right by 53rd and Market. During the almost three years I've been doing this, nearly every house on the block I visit has sold and then rehabbed. I passed the corner barbershop on 53rd on my way to pick up fish this morning & wondered how much longer it'll stay in business. It's so strange to watch the slow-motion transformation of an neighborhood.
posted by sobell at 12:28 PM on March 19, 2016 [1 favorite]

In earlier America, manufacturing was in cities and towns. People made money and were able to move to suburbs. Inner cities developed. Manufacturing went out of the nation. New kinds of economies moved into cities, ie, tech. People moved to cities and they had money. They gentrified. That is what is happening in most if not all cities. Will it be stopped? no. Should it be? You decide.
posted by Postroad at 12:48 PM on March 19, 2016

We had a meet-up last fall I think. But if you want to get together, feel free to organize a meet-up! I bet there's a decent amount of interest.
posted by LizBoBiz at 1:11 PM on March 19, 2016

In earlier America, most things were in cities and towns, not just manufacturing. Then the car happened, and people with money were able to move to the suburbs, where the poor couldn't follow. Inner cities suffered from disinvestment, and what 'investment' happened was also built around cars, which never got very good results (for the cities anyway). Eventually even the poor got cars, and it turned out that a car-based urban form doesn't scale very well when everyone is driving. So people had a renewed interest in the surviving inner cities, especially the ones that hadn't been subjected to wholesale demolition, but those were few in number and prices shot up.
posted by alexei at 1:57 PM on March 19, 2016 [1 favorite]

But it was the visitors with AIDS who most worried Anita. Word got out that Anna was a registered nurse, and the afflicted came to her doorstep for counseling and warm meals. To assuage her daughter’s fears, Anna used only disposable utensils, cups, and plates.

Well that's an ugly little memory, reported without comment.
posted by layceepee at 2:22 PM on March 19, 2016

"On the other hand, there is always the issue of people who have lived here their entire lives facing the prospect of being forced to sell and move because of surging property taxes."

I've been working on a project about the cool old architecture of a decaying streetcar neighborhood of my city; really I just love the architecture and wanted to document it because nobody bothers because it's rundown and not picturesque like the local whiskey mansions. The local newspaper was doing a story on the history of public transit in the area and called me to interview me about the neighborhood, and after we talked a while about its development and architecture and infrastructure, the reporter asked me, "So what should the city be doing to revitalize it?" and there was this awkwardly long pause as my brain went "... wait how do I answer this without advocating mindless gentrification that drives out poor, elderly owners and poor, youngerly renters in favor of young professionals buying cool architecture which on the one hand is cool but on the other hand doesn't seem like the sort of thing to drive people out of their homes for but on the third hand could put a lot of money in the pockets of those elderly owners but on the fourth hand what happens to the young renters and the legacy businesses and ..."

Finally I said something about the roads needing repaving and form-based zoning codes. I've been uneasy about it ever since. What DO I want to happen to the neighborhood? I don't want it to fade away and fall apart, but I don't want to displace all the people who live there either, but they deserve a safer and more economically vibrant neighborhood, and I don't really know how you achieve that without displacing people when those people don't own. It's been bugging me all week. Credit unions offering rent-to-own programs? House rehabbing training programs from the city so local residents can get some of the benefits of flipping those houses? Community ownership like some Chinatowns do?

It's still largely theoretical as even very nice housing is dirt cheap where I live (the market tops out around $350,000 in the ugliest, stupidly large McMansion you don't need to own; you can get a 3-bedroom, 2-bath cottage in a middle-class neighborhood for $125,000) but some of the older neighborhoods surrounding the whiskey mansions have been "gentrifying" as creatives and hipsters and university-affiliated people move in and create beachheads, so it's not TOTALLY outside the realm of possibility, although there's a lot of old, run-down urban housing stock to run through before they get to the neighborhood I'm studying. But even so, I'm very troubled by the question and by what the right answer is.

"The middle school situation is a bit of a mess though."

To be fair, middle school situations are a mess everywhere, we do a bad job with them in the United States. You often see urban districts with decent elementary schools and good options for high schools (with choice programs where you can attend outside your attendance area at a selective-enrollment school for academics or arts or athletics or whatever), but the middle schools are UNIVERSALLY nightmarish, even in the wealthy areas. You see schmancy suburban districts with great elementary and high schools and mediocre middle schools. I have no good answer for what parents facing middle school should DO about that, but it's tough to judge a school district by its middle schools, middle school is awful.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 3:32 PM on March 19, 2016 [4 favorites]

I'm glad other folks appreciated the article. The thing I really liked about it is that he is uncomfortable with the changes in his neighborhood (including those caused by himself) and he doesn't pretend to have answers. I don't either. I want to own a place to live somewhere that is pleasant to live without hurting the people who currently live there. I don't know if I ever will or if it's even possible.
posted by hydropsyche at 4:05 PM on March 19, 2016 [7 favorites]

so, people who are rich, white, and privileged decide to live in a walled garden. a few people who are not privileged but managed to accumulate some amount of wealth and financial stability try to move in. rich white privilege folks basically turn into a living mob to drive them out. law enforcement/federal govt/etc intervene and the violence subsides. rich, privileged whites decide, well fuck this, I'd rather give up our land and our history here than live with [expletives], and they move elsewhere to create another walled garden with walls so high that not even public transportation initiatives can penetrate

50 years of economic booms and busts pass. rich, white privileged folks decide to move back into the city. poor blacks give up land and history in order to secure financial stability. writer feels slightly guilty that he's super white, married another super white person, has super white babies, and is able to sell his art to a respected publishing platform, noting how his own financial and racial privileges got him into a position where hard work was enough, talks about stuff like redlining, Jim Crow, etc.

oh no, sorry. actually, the writer feels guilty that his vague feelings of unease are finally materialized into the actual destruction of somebody's familial history, that he gets to see how hopes and dreams die but doesn't get far enough to see how this could be a trend. so he forgets to pen an epilogue that shows how impoverished rural and suburban communities with significant minority populations are on the increase far away from anything resembling social services, how if you drive anywhere outside of Atlanta down country roads you'll go through a few rural wasteland areas where the people are largely Latino or black, towns where the only entertainment is the local bar, towns where non-profit and doctor types would be extremely unlikely to move to, forgets to comment on how our federal government and our state government (esp Georgia's) is decreasing services all the while, maybe commenting on the paradigm of how rural doesn't necessarily just imply impoverished redneck types, doesn't do a little bit of research on the political landscape of Georgia politics or the hugely and still contentious Medicaid expansion that the GA govt continues to block, how this is barely even close to a step one, etc

neat
posted by runt at 4:33 PM on March 19, 2016 [8 favorites]

as a sidenote, I'd love to live in a world where things like the Works Progress Administration and the Tennessee Valley Authority could exist alongside a transportation/water/sewage/electrical/etc infrastructure that is properly maintained, or a similar political body that pays out-of-work or underemployed people from all backgrounds to do work that builds up their own community and gives them a sense of pride and wide engagement but I guess that's why I'm not a senator
posted by runt at 5:01 PM on March 19, 2016 [6 favorites]

It was already a really long article, but no, he didn't address all of the things that are screwed up about Georgia. I agree with you on all of those things. I have spent the past 5 years teaching at a college that serves exactly the populations you are talking about, trying to make the state a better place. I have spent the past 3 weeks emailing and calling legislators and the governor about the terrible laws they are wasting time passing while our state is screwed up, while Medicaid still hasn't been expanded, while the poorest of the poor keep getting poorer. I would like to stay here and keep trying to make things better. I still don't know where I should live.
posted by hydropsyche at 6:08 PM on March 19, 2016 [2 favorites]

the prospect of being forced to sell and move because of surging property taxes

Well, California has completely eliminated this problem... but, if anything, it makes gentrification worse.
posted by alexei at 6:59 PM on March 19, 2016

Yeah, that's a real thing, because it doesn't matter how much value is theoretically in the house if you're just living in it.
posted by corb at 7:06 PM on March 19, 2016

hydropsyche, I don't see anywhere in Georgia where real estate developers won't have a hand in the pocket of local officials and how much of an impact that will leave on future generations

I thought Decatur was doing a good job of it but so much of their money is going towards development projects like the proposed Costco or Whole Foods anchors. I was using DPL regularly for studying for my GREs and, amazing as it is, it's even more amazing to me that sections of it like the furniture or the computer stations can be as bad as my memories of Southport Library in the 90s, which was in economically depressed Indianapolis

the people there do their best but it's obvious that they just don't have the funding in spite of huge support generated by the book festival. and part of me wonders if that isn't because the majority of the daily patrons while I was there were black teenagers who don't check the proper boxes for empathetic engagement

and if Decatur can't manage, I can't imagine a place like Brookhaven will ever come close. and there are more Brookhavens and Buckheads here than there will ever be Decaturs
posted by runt at 8:12 PM on March 19, 2016

Decatur has finished gentrifying, and most of it was done with the explicit endorsement of the city. The black middle class that used to live in Oakhurst (which was once a twin of Kirkwood) is completely gone. There are a few public housing projects left, but most have been torn down and replaced with "mixed income" developments that, totally coincidentally, have left many fewer places for poor people to live within the city. Most of the former residents of Decatur public housing now live in Atlanta.

I moved to Decatur because I believed the crap about how progressive the people here are. They are progressive only until you threaten their (increasingly preposterous) property values or try to integrate their schools. Then suddenly they act an awful lot like the people in Buckhead. (That said, neither the Costco nor the Whole Foods will be in City of Decatur, and as far as I have heard, neither is receiving any incentives to build in unincorporated DeKalb. It's just that they have been so successful in changing the local demographics that they are now attractive to those companies.)

I'm looking to City of Atlanta because diversity is still there. There is still a black middle class, although they are increasingly pushed to the suburbs, as in this article. I would much rather move to a currently gentrifying neighborhood, where middle class people still live, and throw in my lot with the poor of Atlanta and have my tax dollars go to support their much-maligned public schools, which the state is now trying to finish destroying through this mean-spirited rent-seeking school takeover initiative, than stay in Decatur and have my tax dollars support their tiny, intentionally segregated school system.
posted by hydropsyche at 3:43 AM on March 20, 2016 [2 favorites]

The author lives a few blocks form my old place in Kirkwood. I had a place in the middle of Clifton Street; moved in in 2003 and sold in 2007. The folks who bought it just listed it for a good bit more than they paid for it then, well over a quarter mil. It's so strange to think of Kirkwood as a hifalutin neighborhood.

We had wonderful neighbors, like Mr. John and the old woman who would shake her walker at the misbehaving teens. And the dealers living kitty-corner who would keep an eye on our house when we were out of town, because they knew we wouldn't rat on them. It's nice to see that Kwood has come up, but it certainly feels bittersweet.

I'm in Adair Park now, which is much like the Kirkwood of 15 years ago, but with a more active neighborhood association and the threat/promise of the Beltline. My partner and I already can't afford to buy here, so we're looking for options elsewhere - despite the hookers who work outside my house, and the daily gunfire/regular shootings in the neighborhood.
posted by sadiehawkinstein at 6:19 PM on March 20, 2016 [1 favorite]

Say hi to Angel for me if you see him around your hood Sadie.

My wife and I moved to unincorporated Dekalb about a decade ago, rented for a long time and finally bought a house in Scottdale. I'm in love with the idea that I'm going to be able to walk my kid to his (public) school.

We never really considered moving further in-town, though we did check out a couple tiny carriage houses in City of Decatur. Price (and work) always kept us close to the perimeter.
posted by Maaik at 6:31 PM on March 20, 2016 [1 favorite]