GENTRIFICATION: A SHORT INTRODUCTIONALAN MALLACH, SENIOR FELLOWCENTER FOR COMMUNITY PROGRESS

NEW JERSEY REDEVELOPMENT FORUMMARCH 11, 2016

WHAT IS GENTRIFICATION?

A fuzzy, often pejorative term – “the most loaded, least understood word in urban policy” (Emily Badger)

Most definitions are about displacement.Working definition: “increased housing

costs and demographic change in lower-income neighborhoods resulting from in-migration of more affluent households.”

WHAT IS GENTRIFICATION?

Gentrification may involve public sector intervention, but is basically a market-driven phenomenon.

Gentrification is one dimension of an ongoing process of urban neighborhood change, which is constantly taking place, and moves in all directions.

Gentrification is not the same as redevelopment of downtowns and other previously non-residential areas into residential neighborhoods.

WHAT ARE THE KEY ISSUES?

Displacement Loss of affordable

housing Change of community

character, or ‘cultural’ displacement

Question: when should these become matters for public action?

NATIONAL TRENDS 1

“Hyper-Gentrification” in a handful of places: Brooklyn, Washington DC, San Francisco

Sales price increaseby 25% or more from 2009 to 2014by zip code

NATIONAL TRENDS 2More limited, incremental gentrification, along withwidespread neighborhooddecline, in many older cities,like Baltimore, Philadelphia,St. Louis or Cleveland

Sales price declineby 15% or morefrom 2009 to 2014by zip code

BALTIMORE

Scattered pocketsof what may begentrification

WHAT ABOUT NEW JERSEY?Outside of Jersey City, little evidence of

gentrification in New Jersey’s larger urban centers.

Yet, New Jersey has its share of people looking for urban, walkable places –

Where is that demand being satisfied?

WHAT ABOUT NEW JERSEY?New Jersey’s ‘quasi-urban’ municipalities – smaller, safer, places with walkable centers, like Red Bank, Montclair or Morristown, are filling the gap.

A CLOSING QUESTIONAre we likely to see significant urban gentrification in New Jersey in the near future, as distinct from downtownredevelopment?