What has changed, indeed.

White people living according to their perception of what other races want is the problem.

I wonder if we'll ever get it "right".

The same people who think electing Obama makes us "all even-Steven." And who think he's actually black.

ZOMG - I agree with Bellevue Ave. Someone punch him in the face!

Poorer people always get pushed aside, regardless of their color. And everyone always wants to buy low and sell high, and will justify that by any means possible. All the hand-wringing does nothing except possibly make some of the gentrifiers feel less guilty about what they're otherwise happy to do; profit at the detriment of others.

I always felt that gentrification had more benefits than people are willing to admit. As long as middle income housing is still available and not just the million dollar condos like they're putting up here.

A lot of the people profiting here, Tiktok, are the African Americans that bought houses in this neighborhood two, three, and four decades ago. They're selling them now for ten, twenty, or thirty times what they paid for them. And good for them.

THE BLOW HAS A LOT OF THOUGHTS ABOUT WHITE PEOPLE SURPRISE

Great post. The whole "white flight = bad" and "gentrification = bad" hypocrisy is crazy. It seems the only acceptable alternative is for minorities to start moving into "white neighborhoods". Oh, wait, that's what happening when black families in gentrifying neighborhoods take the money and run to the suburbs. So, what's the problem again?

Racial integration is happening week-by-week, day-by-day, hour-by hour. It's happening faster and faster. Some people still think it's too fast and want to hold onto their ethnic and racial enclaves. Others think it's taking too long (or deny it's happening at all) and want it all done tomorrow. The adults fuss and fight over all of this, while the children look on, mystified.

Talking about it is a great way to make you think they care about you before they push you out of the neighborhood anyway.

There were some positive things mentioned in the article. For example, White people learned about discrimination in lending.

But yeah, the point should be to fight lending discrimination not feel guilty about who's moving where.

Dan,
Well put. I agree it's duplicitous. I believe gentrification & integration have value. I don't have an iota of guilt regarding either. My sister, who happens to be black. (She's adopted as I am) wants to live in an integrated neighborhood. Largely for safety. If neighborhoods change, so be it. In Chicago, where I'm from ethnic neighborhoods have indeed transformed from one group or race to another. Gentrification rendered the once ghetto blighted Westside of the city into a beautiful urban corridor. White liberals need to get over this guilt.

New York's traditionally black neighborhoods, Harlem and Bed-Stuy are incresingly becoming integrated. Harlem. because its a part of Manhattan, is much more white. Some have protested the changes, reluctant to see the history in their neighboorhood disappear.

but that's the problem, they aren't 'integrating' into their new racialy diverse neighborhoods. often it begins by finding the new neighborhood not cosmetically up to scratch, new city council codes start to get enforced which add to the economic burden. people who frequent those business are thought to be problematic so they need to pay for police enforcement. community members get put down as thugs, drug dealers, and prostitutes and recieve police harrassment. those old home owners who don't want to move recieve hostile notes when its percieved that their older homes, larger families, more run down cars are perceived as bringind down the tone of the neihborhood...a negative environment is built up and people, often of color leave.

so its a soft racism, and people on the receiving end feel it. and they want people to understand them. not just scurry them off to a new lower income neihborhood where they have to start all over again.

The best source the NYT could find was Khaela? Ain't that girl from Olympia by way of Anacortes? Straight ghetto all.

You might be happy to know that Alberta still has some affordable housing and very little new development. The main strip had about 1/5 of its storefronts abandoned even as recently as a year or two ago. People who are moving into Alberta are generally fleeing the gentrification of the NW and the SE of Portland.

They go to Alberta but they also go to Selwood (which is white) and Brooklyn (which is mixed). As long as the pace is slow and the change is organic, I think the community will survive gentrification.

I think there's good gentrification and bad gentrification. Bad gentrification creates a segregated, affluent, nearly all-white population and pushes out middle-income, low-income, and ethnic minority residents. Good gentrification adds enough affluent white residents to offset existing segregation without pricing out the existing residents.

Liberals (and everyone else) should support policies that produce diversity in neighborhoods, in every respect. That means ethnic and class diversity but also diversity of building types and ages, diversity of activities and uses (including transportation modes), and non-ethnic forms of cultural diversity.

If we fail to produce liveable urban neighborhoods, discourage diversity, and increase segregation by income or ethnicity, we should feel bad. But rather than simply wallowing in guilt, we need to make sure that we're not contributing to the problem. I'm all for "liberal/white guilt" if it produces action, but if it's just a whiny substitute for doing the right thing, then forget it.

Dan, sometimes you truly are dense. The problem historically has been that as soon as a neighborhood became "black" in response to white flight, it was redlined: real estate agents stopped showing houses to white people, insurance companies refused to write policies, lenders refused to lend, then city services declined, and the neighborhood went into a downward spiral. Once white folks decided there was value in the neighborhood, all of a sudden, the institutional support for the neighborhood that was completely AWOL while it was black magically reappears: financing, insurance, new parks and sidewalks, etc. And of course, the new residents don't want to patronize the existing black businesses, churches and neighborhood organizations, they want their own, so what few businesses survived are driven out of business. This has been happening for decades. No wonder so many blacks are pissed off.

Hmmm ... I don't think the problem with gentrification is racial integration or segregation, per se, but rather steeply rising property values. It might work out great for longtime residents who don't mind moving out and cashing in on their suddenly valuable homes, but for those who want to stay, paying property taxes on a house that used to be worth $20K and is now worth $500K might be impossible. That's when people get forced out of the neighborhoods they've lived in for decades.

I wonder if one way to keep truly integrated neighborhoods would be to have some sort of "rent control" kind of thing, but for property taxes. For instance, in gentrifying neighborhoods, property taxes could be restricted to rising only a small percentage each year, even if homes are doubling or tripling in value yearly. Once a home is sold, taxes could be repegged to the assessed value. Wealthy people could move into the neighborhood, but longtime residents wouldn't be financially punished if they wanted to stay. Any cities out there tried something like that?

Nothing has changed. Then, as now, white liberal guilt is a hollow ritual atonement for actions that require none.

White flight in the 70s was a perfectly legitimate response to someone putting your kid on an hour-long bus ride to a dilapidated, overcrowded school, years behind your local school academically and dominated by violent, hostile gangs. Moving away from that is the right response regardless of the race of the kid's new classmates.

And buying a house from someone who willingly sells it to you and then working to improve the aesthetic and amenities of your new neighborhood is also perfectly legitimate, regardless of the race of your new neighbors.

White liberal guilt is a palliative for people who have abandoned religion but still fell the pull of the self-negating religious impulse. They want something akin to Cathloic confession, something that provides expiation without requiring any change in real behavior.

Here's what sucks, Dan.

Once the prohibitions on racial discrimination in housing were lifted, there was no corresponding income redistribution. So racist redlining practices, plus accumulated disparities in wealth from over a century of racial segregation, served to keep most American cities (including Seattle) racially segregated.

The main thing that open housing did was destroy the resistance of white working class neighborhoods (ie in South Seattle) to nonwhite people moving there. Once wealthy white people (not ALL) decided to live in Central and South Seattle, they could drive up rent so that poor whites and nonwhites alike would be forced to "choose" to move elsewhere, mainly out of the city. They would say it was a "natural" process without talking about all the state coercion-- the property taxes and prohibitions on affordable housing that kept people in the neighborhood from controlling it or stopping its gentrification.

Instead of full employment programs, we have a war on drugs. Instead of having a livable city for all, we have a city where condo conversions are increasing rents by destroying supply and where the average home price in many if not most neighborhoods is over half a million dollars. More and more, without a mass base for economic justice campaigns, Seattle's politics are increasingly dominated by wealthy white homeowner "sustainability" projects. The Stranger's news section reflects more than it challenges this shift.

Wealthy white people are making neighborhoods exclusive at the same time that they're "revitalizing" them. Admit it instead of presenting us with these false dichotomies and ahistorical rants.

@20 -- The Central District in Seattle has been historically black for 30 or so years. Many long-term residents here qualify and take advantage of city- and non-profit sponsored property tax relief.

@19 -- Many, many, many people believe The CD was "redlined" in the 70s and 80s.

Many Japanese, Italian and Jewish people would object to calling the CD "traditionally black." It's been "traditionally " since the city was founded.

This is happening in Hilltop here in Tacoma. White middle class families are buying houses all across the Hilltop corridor and the Tacoma lefties(yes there are lefties in Tacoma) are bitching about gentrification. I dont understand how Hilltop could be negatively affected by an increase in median income and home owners.

@16: "The best source the NYT could find was Khaela? Ain't that girl from Olympia by way of Anacortes? Straight ghetto all."

Olympia by way of Queen Anne Hill, i think

If you want to freeze property tax increases I suggest you look at California for the effects that can have.

What are the options available regarding property taxes and why are they tied to property value? What would the effects of tying property taxes to income have on the real estate market?

Imagine if the entire city was Chinese except Capitol Hill. Then imagine Chinese developers tearing down all the local institutions and putting up Chinese shops. Chinese people start flooding into Capitol Hill and pricing you out of the neighborhood. Now imagine all of Chinese Seattle is too expensive for you so you have to move to Renton where the community is nothing like you once had in Capitol Hill.

More than a little annoying.

There's a difference between segregation - forced separation of races - and a neighborhood having a distinct cultural identity. Segregation is obviously bad because minority groups don't get the same access to services. However, isn't it nice to have the International District? Wouldn't we be bummed if House of Hong was replaced by Applebees?

White guilt about both "white flight" and gentrification makes sense because the underlying guilt is about opportunity. That is, those with the financial means have the opportunity to make such decisions. Those without the financial means suffer the consequences, whether its being stuck in a dangerous neighborhood when the money leaves, or being priced out when the money returns.

At risk of sounding like Charles here, nobody can get rich without somebody else getting poor. That's capitalism, and that's why those who benefit feel guilty about it.

poppy, sense of community isn't a right.

At risk of sounding like Charles here, nobody can get rich without somebody else getting poor.

Jesus, did Charles really say something that stupid? And somebody else really believed it? Anyone who thinks that doesn't need a introductory economics course, they need to be institutionalized for psychosis.

Take a hint: nearly everyone on the planet is much richer today than nearly everyone on the planet 500 years ago. And we didn't all go rob space aliens to get that way.

People get richer when, motivated by greed, they develop ways to produce more outputs from fewer inputs. That's capitalism, and that's why none of us who benefit need to feel guilty about it.

Mahtli, you'll need to be more specific on how the rich get rich by taking from the poor.

People get richer when, motivated by greed, they develop ways to produce more outputs from fewer inputs.

More outputs = more expensive stuff to buy
Fewer inputs = less expensive stuff to make it with.

That's capitalism, and that's why none of us who benefit need to feel guilty about it.

Unless "more outputs" means artificially creating demand by restricting alternative supplies.

or

Unless "fewer inputs" means cutting labor prices, robbing raw material suppliers, or bribing governments for subsidies or handouts.

Black neighborhoods don't become white neighborhoods unless black homeowners start selling their houses for higher and higher prices, effectively excluding home-buyers from lower socio-economic groups. I'm not saying that black=poor... but the trend is that gentrification happens in poorer sections of black neighborhoods. Greed among the original inhabitants is a big factor.

you cant get the ball of gentrification rolling without a few uncle toms pushing it.

so many people here are assuming that these neighborhoods are made up of homeowners of color. and are selling up and moving out. many people in these communities are actually renters and being priced out.

@30/@31 - It all comes down to inflation. Look at this.

I didn't mean to imply that the rich actually take cash from the poor. It's far more subtle and institutionalized than that.

Housing is a perfect example. Those who have owned property for a long time have greatly benefited from the rapidly increasing price of housing. Those who do not own property are becoming less and less likely to ever do so.

As property owners' wealth increases, so does demand for "outputs", and the prices increase. Unfortunately for the non-landowner class, wages do not keep up with this price inflation. Keeping wages low is the only way for employers to make a profit (i.e. get rich) in this competitive world.

Throw in globalization, which makes stockholders (the rich) happy as profit margins increase, but makes blue-collar workers (the not rich) unhappy as the number of decent paying jobs decrease.

All I'm really saying is the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. And, it's not like I made THAT up (everybody knows Afrika Bambaataa and John Lydon coined that phrase). And I certainly didn't think it would be that controversial.

@30 - It's a bit disingenuous to compare the world today with the world 500 years ago (or even 50 years ago). Technology has changed everything (and I'm talking about things like mechanized farming and transportation, not big-screen TV's). The real test is will we better off 50 or 500 years in the future?

Full disclaimer: I'm not saying that socialism is the answer, god forbid. I'm a proud member of the land-owning class and I don't feel guilty about it.

jiberish, why do people who have a contract to live somewhere for a definitive period time have more rights to use the property after the contract has expired than the owner of the property itself?

You'd basically have to convince yourself that right to inhabit an area is guaranteed based on length of time living there, not on a contractual obligation that both parties fulfill.

Theres also the conundrum of allowing people to rent out their property at all if we disallow them from selling the property at all.

robo@33: Assuming (as Jiberish@35 notes) that the blacks are in fact homeowners, they often are forced to sell their houses because on fixed or working class incomes they can no longer afford the property taxes and insurance that rising property values bring. Assuming they still have to live somewhere, they have to buy something else somewhat less expensive--usually further out of town. So even though their house may have increased in value, it's not as though they can spend that money. And they've lost their neighborhood. It's farily easy to see how that would create tension in a rapidly gentrifying community.

@37 - I think Jiberish is just pointing out that people are getting priced out of the neighborhoods they used to live in (you might say, these people are becoming poorer) ...

He/she didn't say anything about landowner or renter rights.

define rich. and to what end do those with more money use that money to do things or buy things that a poor person can't? what are the ways we can measure inequality between rich and poor?

@37 -- Bellevue -- The issue isn't about individual rights or contracts. The issue is about social good and social bad.

And I believe we can all agree that quickly disrupting the social institutions and ways of life of a group of disadvantaged people without providing them alternatives is a social bad.

Leave the "you're to blame" and "you're responsible for the fix" out of the equation and think like someone who cares about more than just himself.

and the problem of wealth accumilation being accesable is entirely the result of what people value. if there wasn't such an incentive to own property and if it wasn't a cultural preference of people in the u.s. then the problem of having enough capital to aquire land wouldn't be as much of an issue. the fact that land is scarce would still be a factor but the desire would be less so.

social good and social bad is a very relative concept.

six shooter, Im tackling the rights angle head on because it is integral to finding a resolution that satisfactory to the many parties involved

Nice to see some dialogue on this subject & story. What a surprise once again--it's on the slog--barely nothing on the Mercury blog. What is it about Portland?

@44 - Maybe people in Portland have jobs

@44&45
I live in Portland and read Slog because I prefer the writing at the Stranger. Take a look at the Mercury blog sometime.

All you really have to remember after reading the article is how to spell "dysfunctional."