Gentrification: Transforming Neighborhoods Into Vibrant Communities - Essay Sample

Introduction

According to the Cambridge dictionary, gentrification is the process by which neighborhood upgrades to a vibrant community. The old buildings are perked up or replaced altogether. In short, the region is bought by rich people. This definition however, only considers gentrification as a physical process of the more impoverished people moving out and being replaced by the wealthier people. (Smith & LeFaivre1984)) define gentrification as the process of rehabilitating a working-class neighborhood for upper-middle-class consumption. The process takes place when the upper class and the lower class all have the same interest in the same district.

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The migration of a neighborhood is caused by various factors, including demographic transition, the housing market, availability of social amenities, and a change in the primary industries which provide employment to the locals. The demographic shift of people causes demographic changes. People will also move to a neighborhood with all the social amenities. Basic social amenities include the availability of education, health, rental houses, water, and sewage systems. The relocation of a significant economic base will undoubtedly lead to the movement of people out of place. An industrial base is an industry that provides employment to the locals, but they sell their products to other sites (Watkins, Silicon Valley & Tornado Alley USA,2010). In case such an industry migrates, the people will be left unemployed. Therefore, they will move elsewhere in search of employment. All these factors could cause the migration of people from a specific district.

Gentrification is the movement of transformation of the inner-city working class to middle and upper-middle-class in an attempt to close the rental gap (smith,1996). The poorer residents are displaced by, the more luxurious level who can now afford to pay rent, which must hike. (Sabri & Yaakip 2020) in the developed world, gentrification is motivated by the possible gains that real estate investors could make. Real estate investor takes a neighborhood that is almost dying, obviously at a lower price, and invest millions in improving the district. The improved community then attracts the middle-upper and the upper class in society. The inhabitation of the rich bends up displacing the poorer. The investor makes good profits from doing this.

Craft beer making is USUALLY connected to the geographical place in which the brewing takes place (CityLab,2017). The main reason it is connected is that the art craft is usually passed down generations by the action of apprentice (Miller, 2017). The experts in crafting beer give the skills to their students by spending time together, and the students simply learn by observing what the teacher does. The apprentice will then try this himself. Eventually, though try and error, the students themselves learn how to prepare the beer themselves. The traditional methods used by the craft breweries are usually connected to the physical place because those who have the specific process remain in those places.

Smith (1996) explained the process of gentrification by approaching it from the supply side. Investors think it is worth investing in dying urban areas due to the increase in land rent and land value. By supplying new houses or refurbishing the old house, the demand will be created. The more abundant guys who can afford the houses will be attracted to those areas while those already living there but cannot afford will be forced to migrate. Refurbishing a home is a sure way of increasing its value. That way, the supply has increased the demand. The action of real estate developers reinvesting in old houses triggers gentrification. The middle-class upper and the upper class will find gentrification useful to them because they will not be able to travel conveniently to their place of work because they are now living in the inner city. Gentrification is fueled by the fact that people in a certain social class always prefer to live together in the same neighborhood. The government has now tried to control this migration within the city by putting in rules and regulations to be followed. Gentrification only happened in developed countries like the U.S. and European countries, but in recent times the process has been witnessed even in the developing countries.

Commercial Gentrification

With the replacement of the social class in the neighborhood, the economic temperatures of the inner city also change. The middle-working class usually depends on the small retailers available to them for their shopping. However, the new owners of the neighborhood with deeper pockets will need more supply and even better services offered to them. Retailers are willing to pay more, and therefore, they expect more. The old retailers will take this opportunity to try and improve their businesses by selling more at a higher price. All this in an attempt to understand the demand of the new owners. However, the need for better facilities and the availability of high-quality products introduces a new problem to the old retailers, the capital. The old retailers are not exposed to the kind of financial resources needed. The early merchants also struggle to understand the needs of the new social class, which themselves are not part of. Therefore, they will be forced to pave the way for merchants who will be able to supply the needs of the new social class. The local I retailers will be replaced by big shopping stores with the type of goods needed by the immigrates in the neighborhood.

Craft Brewers

Craft breweries operators are the small and independent breweries of beer (Kleben, Nickerson & Barry University,2020). Craft brewers make beers that have enhances tastes because they use different styles of fermenting their beers. They use both traditional methods and modern methods of making beer. Conventional methods of making beer usually take more time to prepare beer but result in better tastes. Traditional methods are used by those people more interested in making the beer taste better more than they are concerned with the time taken to enhance the flavor they need in their beer. Craft breweries target consumers who are interested in the taste of the beer.

Craft breweries make sweeter beer in an attempt to differentiate their products from regular breweries. Their aim is to have more consumer satisfaction than regular breweries (Boeing, 2017). However, regular breweries have economies of scale advantage, meaning that they produce their beer at a relatively lower price compared to the craft breweries. Regular breweries have better economies of scale because they provide their goods in large quantities, and they use modern methods of producing beer. Current methods of producing beer are more economical because a lot of research has been used to make improvements. However, the improvements do not enhance the tastes. The regular breweries have experienced more competition from craft breweries and also from the wines and spirits sector (Adams, 2006).

The craft brewery industry has snowballed in recent years. The growth in craft breweries can be credited to the increase in the technology world. According to (Miller 2019), the use of social media and other blogs has provided craft breweries with new platforms to market their products. The internet has successfully been able to connect the craft breweries to their consumers, thus reviving the industry (Jake, Shaun & Calvin, 2019). Craft breweries can also use the internet to research on ways to enhance the taste of their beer. They are challenged to come up with more preferences for their products; therefore, they need to be more creative. The new merchants will improve the physical infrastructure of a neighborhood in order to enhance the image of the area and therefore earn more consumers.

Gentrification in Portland

Portland is the largest city in Oregon, with part of it being occupied with forests. After the end of the second world war, the economy of the town of Portland experienced instantaneous growth (Walker & Miller, 2018). The increase in the economy went hand in hand with growth in the population. The people of Oregon had adapted new technology in farming activities. For example, they adopted the use of farm machineries and farm chemicals like pesticides in their farming. They build dams in order to irrigate their crops more efficiently. The introduction of farms machineries meant that the machines did what the people did and therefore most people were left unemployed. The unemployment in the farms caused a majority of the people to travel to the city in search of job opportunities. The government allocated funds for the construction of roads. The roads helped more businesses grow including the tourism sector the shipbuilding industry is what mainly contributed to the growth of the city of Portland. The suburb areas grew as a result of the rapid growth in the population of the people in the city. Most of the people preferred to live in suburban areas, and this resulted in the suburban areas growing more than the original Central Business District.

The CBD died until the government realized that it needed to step to prevent the decay of the city. To achieve this, the government decided to improve the transport system. The improved transport system would increase the number of people traveling to the CBD and, at the same time, make help the people move more freely. The government also established a growth boundary that would prevent the growth of the suburbs from continuing and encourage the reinvestment of the inner city.

Real estate developers foresaw the development of the inner city into regaining its former glory. They reinvested in the almost dying CBD, and their efforts bore fruits because the people wanted to be rented the houses. The area was now inhabited by artists and architectures who wanted houses to display their work, media houses that were being developed, and craft breweries. All these newly developed industries provided more employment to people and therefore attracted more people to the town. The city also attracted tourists from all over the country due to its heritage and beautiful beaches. The population in the CBD now started increasing. Surely gentrification was now taking place. High tech industries have continued to grow in the city and are now part of the city's major economy booster.

Gentrification did not take place only in the inner city but also in the Northeast neighborhoods, which mainly consisted of the African-American people. The majority of the residents in the neighborhood were from the lower and middle-lower working class. In the late 1999s, the white middle-class people started moving into the region. The migration by the white people continued until the region was now heavily inhabited by the white people. The presence of the African-American people was not felt as it was before. The migration of the white people also had a commercial effect on the businesses of the local people. Businesses that were formerly being owned by the African-American merchants were now owned by the white people. The white people could offer services to the new middle class, who were mainly white people.

Oregon state produces 1,032,369 barrels of craft breweries per year, and it ranked ninth in the U.S. (Brewers Association. 2018) (Jake, Shaun & Calvin, 2019). Craft breweries have been able to connect to the local community by making because of their marketing strategies. These strategies involve showing the community what they are doing by displaying using large transparent mirrors. They make society have a sense of belonging to their breweries processes. Thus, they are able to attract other interested investors to the area, and thi...