Do Latino Neighborhoods Have More to Fear from Gentrification?
*A fascinating read! It turns out that traditional Latino neighborhoods are more prone to gentrification because new white residents are less likely to move into a neighborhood that has a majority of black people. VL
By Daniel Cubias, Huffington Post Latino Voices
Say you open a small business. You run it for a few years, do pretty well, and always pay your debts (especially the rent) on time.
Then you arrive at work one morning to find a bulldozer parked in the pile of rubble that used to be your store.
You might get the impression that something was slightly amiss.
Well, recently, a piñata store in Austin was demolished, without the storeowners’ knowledge and with their possessions still inside. The storeowners, who are Latino, say that the greedy landlords bulldozed the store because they could get more money from the tech companies that are moving into the area.
The storeowners had a lease through 2017 and had just paid the rent for the upcoming month. When confronted about their reckless destruction of the store, one of the landlords (yes, a rich white guy) used the term “roaches” to describe the storeowners. Remember that the storeowners are Hispanic. Clearly, the term “roaches” was not an accident.
The incident shows how Latino neighborhoods are literally and figuratively being displaced for upscale residents. There have been numerous flare-ups in Austin over gentrification, with many Latino leaders claiming that rich newcomers are driving out long-time residents. And there have been similar disputes in New York, Los Angeles and other cities, often in Hispanic neighborhoods that are changing rapidly.
And here’s where it gets conspiratorial.
[pullquote][tweet_dis]A recent study implied that Latino neighborhoods are more likely to be gentrified than African American neighborhoods.[/tweet_dis][/pullquote]A recent study implied that Latino neighborhoods are more likely to be gentrified than African American neighborhoods.
Harvard researchers analyzed patterns across Chicago and found that gentrifying neighborhoods tended to be predominantly Latino or white working class, with fewer African Americans.
The study implied that Latino neighborhoods are more likely to be gentrified in the traditional sense (i.e., young white newcomers moving into the area). And they are also more likely to receive the theoretical benefits of gentrification (e.g., urban renewal and municipal investment). No word, however, on what happens to Hispanic residents when the bulldozers get revved up.
Keep in mind that the same study also implied there is a tipping point, where the percentage of African Americans in a neighborhood either makes gentrification …
This article was originally published in Huffington Post Latino Voices.
The Hispanic Fanatic is Daniel Cubias, who lives in Los Angeles. He is a business writer and has had fiction published in numerous obscure literary journals that you have never read.
[Photo by Kate Raynes-Goldie/Flickr]