Overview
This week we will focus on gentrification, the concept that we turned to from time to time. The term “gentrification” was originally coined in the 1960s by Ruth Glass to describe the transformation of working-class London neighborhoods into middle and upper-class neighborhoods.
What to read:
Brown-Saracino, Japonica. The Gentrification Debates: A Reader, Taylor & Francis Group, 2010. ProQuest Ebook Central,
http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/bmcc/detail.action?docID=1397036.
Get the chapters here:
The_Gentrification_Debates_A_Reader_-_PART_I_WHAT_IS_GENTRIFICATION_DEFINITIONS_AND_KEY_CONCEPTSFrom Redlining to Gentrification: The Policy of the Past that Affects Health Outcomes Today (2021): https://info.primarycare.hms.harvard.edu/review/redlining-gentrification-health-outcomes
What to watch:
7th Street – Josh Pais (East Village NYC)
A documentary about one block of 7th street (between Avenues C and D) in New York City’s East Village where actor and filmmaker Josh Pais has lived since his childhood in the late 1960s. Filmed between 1992 and 1999, the film captures the transformation of the street from a drug-dealing and freewheeling low-rent area for artists and young bohemians to a fully renovated and gentrified spot for trendy art galleries and French restaurants.
What to discuss:
- View the documentary 7th Street about the gentrification of New York’s Alphabet City. If your knowledge of gentrification were limited to the film, what definition of the process would you generate?
- If you could film your own documentary about gentrification based on your personal definition of the process, which people, places, policies, and interactions would you document?
You can comment right below this below. Please post one original comment and two replies to your classmates. Deadline November 20th.
If my understanding of gentrification was solely based on this documentary I would come to the conclusion that gentrification is a process where a neighborhood is upgraded both physically and esthetically and in the process old residents are forced out and replaced with new ones.
The film actually did a great job of illustrating what I personally believe gentrification is. A dangerous neighborhood that was ignored by the city for so long, but the residents figured out a way to survive by looking out for each other. Then one day the city decided to get rid of the dealers who prayed upon the neighborhood, but by clearing one threat to the residents they made way for another. Real estate brokers swoop and buy all the properties and renovate them and pricing out all of the current tenants, radically changing the neighborhood.
If I were to film a documentary about gentrification I would first start with filming the interactions between people, or lack there of, in gentrified neighborhoods. In the film 7th street the director did a great job of capturing the interactions between the people who were being forced out of the neighborhoods, I would go the opposite route and capture just how cold and hollow these neighborhoods become. No one really knows each other, and I feel that through gentrification these neighborhoods act as a revolving door. New tenants moving in and somewhat old tenants moving out. I would also want to document the lack of policies that should protect tenants from predatory rent hikes.
Thank you, Maurice, for starting the conversation! I look forward to reading more contributions.
By watching this documentary, my thoughts about gentrification kind of changed. I do think gentrification could be a good thing if done in a more empathic way. We are not able to stop the world from modernizing and changing, however, what we can do is preserve the spirit of the neighborhood and the people who make that neighborhood what it is. New York city is already a cold and fast place and our daily life does not allow us to connect with people the way we should.
A neighborhood should be a place where we feel welcomed, comfortable and safe. As humans, one of our most important needs is to belong. All the people from the documentary spoke about their families and their childhoods with emotions and happy memories with sadness in their voices. That is where the importance of neighborhoods lies. The importance of knowing who lives next door, where our kids play, what memories will they have, and many other things that gentrification has been changing.
I definitely think modernization is great for a city, but I just feel that the process of gentrification is too predatory. To me the process is all for profit with little regards for the people who live in these poor neighborhoods. The only goal of these property developers is to make money, not preserve the neighborhood. Which is really sad.
If my knowledge was limited about gentrification based off of this documentary I would think that gentrification is the change over time of a neighborhood. Throughout the film we can see the shift of the residents, how the buildings look, and how local businesses have been modernized. The film starts off with the family atmosphere that the neighborhood is surrounded by and overtime the neighborhood increases in violence that was now getting out of the residents hands. Drug dealers were arrested and real estate took the opportunity to move new residents in and slowly kicking the currents ones out with evictions and raising rent prices.
If I were to film gentrification process in my neighborhood I would take the same approach as Josh Pais because I feel that there is no one better to describe personal meaning and feeling then the people who are going through it. Residents who are watching this happen in front of their eyes are primary resources and can speak on this topic. Especially the older residents living, I would focus my questions on them because from 2000’s to present 2022 there has been DRASTIC changes, so I would feel that they have the perfect idea of gentrification. I would also go around the neighborhood and record local businesses. Based on how local businesses look you can picture if the neighborhood you are in is safe or not. All these elements are important to keep in mind and be aware of because if neighborhoods keep getting gentrified then there will never be street families like we know.
You made a good point about how businesses in a neighborhood can signify if it is safe or not. In the documentary there didn’t seem to be a lot of thriving businesses in the neighborhood before the gentrification process started. A safer neighborhood would attract more people to start a business in said neighborhood.
I would also be interested to see what businesses change over time in a neighborhood that is going through gentrification.
i also saw the change in drug dealers as i believe the drop in crime rate led to landlords renovating buildings to take the opportunity to make money in a now safer neighborhood.
When I saw documentary 7th street film it was really sad to see how the people lived in that bad neighborhood and talk about there life’s . People didn’t even pass through the neighborhood because it was to dangerous. The people just protected each other at time. The community didn’t even show up for help until the situation got out of control with problems in the neighborhood 7th street. Then 7th street neighborhood had made a big change by taking away all the dangerous people and it’s was more protection for people. They was also repairing the building and fixing everything up for people could live in safe neighborhood. It’s amazing how they cleaning up the neighborhood 7th street and made it a better place to live.
If had chance to film a documentary of a dangerous place I will make a report. Make change of the place quickly and I won’t wait for the last minute to make my community more safer for the people could live with out no problems happening . I will fix everything thats damage in neighborhood and I will take away all the people thats causing problems. I will also keep the community safer and protected.
The document shows us something obvious and detailed about how gentrification is because based on the documentary we can see from the beginning how a neighborhood is isolated but united, as time goes by everything changes we see how violence increases, new people arrive with a high economy that was usually seen, the buildings were modified, which was used to raise the rent and evict those who lived there.
A neighborhood is a place where we can feel good, become familiar with the people around us, try to create memories, live together, build a safe place where there is support, and help as much as possible, in the documentary we also see how people express a great feeling for their neighborhood, seeing how the people who are no longer there who died have changed, but who continue to see their children grow.
I agree I saw how at first this neighborhood was left isolated and without attention or care from the city. we even saw how crimes often went unnoticed and without care from law enforcement. after time landlords started to change the residential buildings which kicked started the gentrification.
Based on the documentary the gentrification would be in the racial change as well as the residential and commercial change in the 7th street neighborhood. The documentary showed how the building underwent renovations as well as a once a poverty neighborhood turned into a trendy area with new businesses. The gentrification came with a racial change first as the diversity increased which in turn I believe led to the gentrification of businesses and buildings. The economic growth came in and turned this once dangerous and drug-filled neighborhood into a gentrified middle to upper-class neighborhood.
If i could create my own documentary on gentrification based on the ideas of this documentary i would first study the type of people living in the neighborhood such as their social class, ethnicity, and education. Then i would look at the structure of the neighborhood such as the crime rate, infrastructure growth and changes in new businesses coming in. Finally i would like at the policies set in place in the neighborhood by legislatures that might have led to the gentrification taking place. All these different aspects must be looked at when determining if a place is being gentrified or not. Gentrification does not just involve a change in social class.
View the documentary 7th Street about the gentrification of New York’s Alphabet City. If your knowledge of gentrification were limited to the film, what definition of the process would you generate?
If you could film your own documentary about gentrification based on your personal definition of the process, which people, places, policies, and interactions would you document?
The 7th Street documentary by Josh Pais was an extraordinary view of New York through different periods of time. The document illuminated how gentrification can change every aspect of a community. Without prior knowledge of gentrification this documentary would make me feel it is a good thing. Some people seemed much happier to have a new 7th street while others felt their significance was eliminated. Watching the film would make me feel that the outcome of gentrification is indefinitely better than the alternative. Better housing, better community, no drugs, and much safer than when it was before. From the documentary you can also see how gentrification pushed out the poor and low income families to make room for people with more money. I know people will only view that as collateral damage.
If I were to film my own documentary about gentrification I would probably go to somewhere that was just recently gentrified. I do not know the exact area, but I know I would film in Brooklyn, New York. My current neighborhood at the moment has been going through a lot of reconstruction. There are many new apartment complexes, and the community pool is being remodeled. These are small changes at the moment, but I know that plenty more things will come. If I were to make a documentary about this I would speak to all of the older people that have lived here for years. I would also interview the new people that moved into these new complexes to see what they think about all the changes. I would want to focus on whether these changes are better for the community or not.