Gentrification in Los Angeles

Gentrification in Los Angeles: 

Fostering an Environment for Displacement and Homelessness 

"Alter for the Displaced" at Espacio 1839, a public art center in Boyle Heights ( Photo Credit: Monica Almeida, The New York Times)

One of my fondest memories of my childhood takes place in my neighborhood within the Northeast of Los Angeles. Hot, summer days at the Glassell Park Recreation Center were made sweeter with my favorite Tweety Bird popsicle from the paletero who cheerfully rang the familiar bell to announce his presence. If you were hungry, there were bacon-wrapped hot dogs and tamarindo raspados to satisfy the cravings. 


The Northeast of Los Angeles has experienced an accelerated change in recent years. I see the community creating new businesses but these new businesses are not created with the existing residents in mind. This transformation inspired this action project to understand the phenomenon of gentrification and how other local residents felt about the changing dynamics in the area.

The objective of this blog post is to create awareness on the impact that gentrification has at the community level and on an individual basis. 


At the community level, gentrification has led to an increase in homelessness from the displacement of low-income households in Los Angeles. My personal experience and regional context of the information presented is focused on the Highland Park area in Northeast  Los Angeles and Boyle Heights in East Los Angeles. On an individual level, this blog will share the voice of a community member also impacted by the gentrification of their neighborhood. 

Defining Gentrification 

York Blvd, Highland Park. Photo Credit: Alexander Spit

Income and wealth disparity has reshaped the urban landscapes in the large metropolitan cities of the United States. Governmental policies, economic inequality, and a change in locational preferences have accelerated the population change within these cities. 

By definition, gentrification is the "process of reinvesting into deteriorating, urban areas accompanied by the influx of middle-class and upper-middle-class people that often results in the displacement of earlier, typically poorer residents"(Merriam-Webster, 2019). Urban Displacement Project, conducted by UC Berkeley in conjunction with UCLA, and Portland State University, identify indicators of a disadvantaged neighborhood that the census considers eligible or susceptible to gentrification. The bulk of the criteria is delegated between socioeconomic factors and are compared to the regional median. These factors include the percentage of low-income households, members with a college education, members who rent their housing, and those who are nonwhite. 

A neighborhood is considered gentrified once it meets another similar set of criteria that documents the change in the previous socioeconomic factors. For example, two of the four criteria consider the change in median gross rent and change in median household income. This project has indicated that Los Angeles has seen a 16% increase in the number of gentrified neighborhoods between 1990-2015 (Zuk and Chapple, 2015). 

These neighborhoods tend to be concentrated among the public transit stations in a push by policymakers to revitalize the area. This transit-orientated housing development results in upscale, luxury housing to attract middle-class professionals. While this can increase tax revenues for the city from higher property values, it compounds the need for affordable housing in these cities that have been historically inhabited by those who could not afford other areas of Los Angeles.

While the cost of living is rising, the job market in areas like Highland Park and Boyle Heights is stagnating. Projects, like a new sports stadium, create low-wage jobs that force residents out of their own neighborhoods. This creates pockets of poverty such as Skid Row in Downtown Los Angeles which contain an estimated 2,521 homeless persons within a 0.4 square mile (LA Chamber of Commerce, 2015). Los Angeles County has seen a median rent increase of 25% with a 9% decline in income during the same period (Bergman and Keller). These statistics quantify the failure at addressing issues attributable to the socioeconomic disparities between the city's residents. 

Photo Credit: KCET,
"Families Make a Living Precariously through Street Vending"

Homelessness in Los Angeles 

There are variations about how homelessness is defined. Generally, homelessness can be defined as an individual who lacks stable and adequate nighttime residence. This includes those living in temporary living facilities (National Health Care for the Homeless Council, 2019). Causes of homelessness are multifaceted but share common factors. In a publication from YaleGlobal Online, Joseph Chamie, former director of the United Nations Population Division summarizes the factors such as shortages in affordable housing, investment speculation in housing, unplanned and rapid urbanization, poverty, unemployment, mental illness and substance abuse (Chamie, 2019).

In the U.S., the cost to buy or rent housing is disproportionately higher than wages. The National Low-Income Housing Coalition documents the gap between wages and the cost of rental housing across the country. It uses an estimate of the hourly wage a full-time employee ( 40 hours) must earn to afford a rental home at fair market rent without spending more than 30% of their income on housing costs. 

For 2018, California residents would need an hourly wage of $32.68 to afford a two-bedroom rental home. At the current minimum wage, it would take 119 hours per week to afford the same two-bedroom home. These situations often lead to unsafe living arrangements like slums, squatter settlements and homelessness (Chamie, 2019). To conclude, urban gentrification leads to rising property values and rental rates that further marginalize low-income households. 

Northeast Native

Robert Infante, Glassell Park Resident

" Glassell Park has seen a heavier police presence in the recent years. Small infractions are more frequently getting tickets. We used to be able to have family parties in the house but now the police are getting called on and receiving fines. There are also new street parking laws that criminalize and target people who sleep in their RV's at night. Glassell Park is my home and gentrification has not helped with any of the issues that are in the community now. "

Concluding Thoughts

Protester at the opening of a new coffee shop in Boyle Heights.
Photo Credit: LA Weekly

Highland Park's bubbling popularity is not hard to understand. The food and art scene is thriving. With close proximity to other major cities like Downtown Los Angeles or Pasadena, the Northeast has a unique mix of generational and cultural influences. 

My goal for the Northeast Los Angeles would be a healthy balance between businesses that cater to residents and those geared towards visitors. This balance can relieve some of the tension existing now towards the gentrifiers and the gentrified. Equitable distribution of resources, like increasing financial literacy and incentives for business owners, can help meet the city's objectives to increase revenue and make a positive experience for those of various income levels.

References:

1. “What Is the Official Definition of Homelessness?” National Health Care for the Homeless Council, 2019, www.nhchc.org/faq/official-definition-homelessness/.

2. Aurand, Andrew, et al. Out of Reach: The High Cost of Housing. National Low-Income Housing Coalition, 2018, reports.nlihc.org/sites/default/files/oor/OOR_2018.pdf.

3. "land and housing should be used as a shelter, not a commodity 

"https://knock-la.com/los-angeles-is-quickly-becoming-a-place-exclusively-for-the-white-and-rich-c585953e0614

4. Zuk, M., & Chapple, K. (2015). Urban Displacement Project. Retrieved April 17, 2019, from http://www.urbandisplacement.org/map/socal

5.Ben Bergman and Chris Keller, “high rent, few options,” Southern California Public Radio, http://projects.scpr.org/longreads/high-rent-fewoptions. 

6. https://www.latimes.com/opinion/livable-city/la-oe-christensen-parks-green-gentrification-20181012-story.html

7. https://opportunityurbanism.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Toward-More-Equitable-Urban-Growth.pdf