WHAT IS GENTRIFICATION?

By Echo Park Community Coalition (EPCC)

GENTRIFICATION: IS IT URBAN RENEWAL OR URBAN REMOVAL

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Keywords: Social Issues, Economy,



NO TO GENTRIFICATION! YES TO PEOPLE"S RIGHTS!

EPCC NEWS

August 15, 2009

GENTRIFICATION: IS IT URBAN RENEWAL OR URBAN REMOVAL

Let city leaders, banks, and big developers know that we will not be forced out of our neighborhoods!

With massive tax breaks and generous loans granted by big banks and the city administration, big developers are pushing forward in their attempt to remove poor and working families from the vibrant and colorful neighborhoods around Los Angeles.

Signs of gentrification are everywhere. Rents are increased to drive families out of their homes, to be replaced with luxury apartments. Big national mega-stores are replacing local mom and papa businesses.

As residents are forced out, stable communities are torn apart. Immigrant working families, who have lived and worked here for generations, are being pushed out by a profit-driven campaign of racist gentrification.

As an example, several old housing apartments in Bonnie Brae street have been demolished to give way to new and high cost-housing for the rich and the yuppies. Old renters were forced out of state into low-cost states like Colorado and Nevada.

WHAT IS GENTRIFICATION?

Urban gentrification is affecting cities across the country. Rents go up, homes are bulldozed and replaced with luxury condos and lofts for the well-to-do. Trendy and expensive restaurants replace local restaurants featuring exceptional home-style cooking at affordable prices. Cohesive communities and neighborhoods are torn apart.

A PATTERN OF RACISM.

From Washington, DC, to Los Angeles, Black and Latino communities have been the hardest hit by gentrification as communities are pushed out to make way for wealthy professionals who are drawn to the glamour of the newly established trendy stores, bars and cafes. Meanwhile, local residents and businesses are forced out by skyrocketing rents as old buildings and houses are torn down to make way for high rent luxury condos.

CITY LEADERS BACK PROFITS FOR GREEDY DEVELOPERS

NOT NEIGHBORHOOD PRESERVATION.

Gentrification, urban renewal and redevelopment are in fact a form of theft by bankers and developers, who steal from working class communities. Driving families out of their homes violates the basic right of everyone to a safe and secure dwelling to live in. After paying rent and mortgages for decades, making the landlords and banks rich, poor working class families are pushed out of the communities they have helped create.

THE TIME IS HERE TO ACT. UNITED WE CAN SAY NO TO REDEVELOPMENT AND GENTRIFICATION. WE MUST STAND TOGETHER TO PRESERVE ECHO PARK!

EPCC (Echo Park Community Coalition)

Historic Filipino Town, Los Angeles

1740 W. Temple St. Los Angeles, CA 90026

Contact: Jerry Esguerra, Media Advisory, (818) 749 – 0272

Let's not mince words about it. Some of the hardest hit communities have been Asian, and the dynamic is tricky, because some of the gentrifiers are also Asian.

Chinatown was colonized a decade ago by art galleries and hipsters, and the older residents were pushed out to the suburbs like Monterey Park.

Little Tokyo was gentrified the first time in the 70s, by Japanese investment pushing out local Japanese American businesses. Today, it's facing another wave of gentrification due to the train, the police station, the Arts District lofts encroaching on the area with a lot of temples and old businesses (and pushing out the artists too). I often read laments by J-As that they'd consider living there, if it didn't cost so much for a condo.

It's nice to see LT jumping again, but, it also seems like it's becoming a wealthier community that isn't so welcoming to older residents. This time around, the new residents are a kind of global upper-middle-class bourgeoisie mostly of Korean descent.

Echo Park's gotten pretty expensive, meaning the old working class communities, which include not only Filipinos but also people of all races, is getting squeezed.

In Koreatown, the old Korean residents, many elderly now, are being squeezed out by wealthier Korean global bourgeoisie. It's almost like an invisible displacement, but, someone paying $400 a month in rent from the old K-Town days probably can't afford to pay the new rent of $1200 for a studio apartment, or 400k for a condo.

What's been going on in Historic Filipinotown?

What's been going on in the Bangladeshi / South Asian area off of Vermont?

To be sure, Asians do pretty well economically, largely because immigration laws prevent working class people from immigrating, but there's a community of undocumented and relatives-of-residents who are working class and feeling the squeeze that other communities are feeling these days.