Urban Flair and Outbound Fun:
Exploring the Gentrification Spectrum in the GLAA
Political discourse is rampant everywhere, but each area has its regional issues, and Los Angeles is not without its own. Within the last few years a hot button issue has been the problem of gentrification, what the Dictionary of Sociology defines as “The upgrading of decaying, normally inner-city housing, involving physical renovation, the displacement of low-status occupants by higher-income groups, and (frequently) tenure change from private rental to home ownership”. The racial factor of this phenomenon cannot be ignored, however, as gentrification “often has racial overtones insofar as the central-city neighborhoods most often involved are generally home to minority populations”, and further disenfranchises already-suffering minorities (“gentrification”, Calhoun). This phenomenon is interesting and troubling, but not always so easy to recognize in real time. In order to better understand how to proactively protect the low-status occupants of areas prone to gentrification, we must find a way to define gentrification from the first, before it creates a displacement effect on the residents.
In her journal article, “The Intertwined History of Class and Race Segregation in Los Angeles”, Laura Redford details a chronology of the way separation by race and separation by class are historically linked in Los Angeles, detailing the way that the city and its surrounding regions doomed itself from the first by “creating a city with distinct neighborhoods defined by class and race”. She addresses the way that building restrictions and more explicit race restrictions have segregated Los Angeles in the past, concluding that these “present-day debates about gentrification and mixed-income neighborhoods… are all grounded in the history and intertwining of class and racial segregation”. This history of segregation of race and class is an important backdrop for the current issues of gentrification in Los Angeles today, a city and region still very rooted in its racial enclaves.
My interest in this topic was piqued by a series of conversations I have had about the changing aspects of my hometown with friends these last few years. The gradual changes to the small city became more apparent, and I’ve been concerned that it is becoming an environment uninhabitable for its own residents. With the issue of gentrification so pressing in parts of Los Angeles, I became curious about how city developers can create improvement without laying brickwork for disenfranchisement. Therefore, I aim to explore where to draw the line between city improvement and gentrification, focusing on the Greater Los Angeles Area, or GLAA, and giving particular attention to my own hometown. To delineate what sort of urban planning tends toward gentrification, I looked toward the intended audience of the structures and developments being built. For references, I drew upon Jamaica Kincaid’s A Small Place, “Sightseeing and Social Structure’ by Dean MacCannell, a chapter from the book, Incomplete Streets: Processes, Practices, and Possibilities, “Understanding Gentrification through the North Oakland Farmers Market” by Josh Cadji and Alison Hope Alkon, and Jan Lin’s “Los Angeles Chinatown: Tourism, Gentrification, and the Ethnic Growth Machine”.
A recent development for Azusa came in March of 2016 when the Metro Gold Line was extended to Azusa, creating a cheap and direct pathway to and from LA Union Station. This creates an opportunity for people of Azusa that was not there before — access to inexpensive, effective, and consistent long-distance transportation. It is an invaluable tool of mobility, but the caveat of this line is that it welcomes others in as much as it lets Azusans out. In order to define whether the Gold Line is a gentrifying factor, the question then becomes, who is this development for? For some perspective, I turned to a very similar situation in Chinatown in which “The completion of the Gold Line Metro station in 2003 [had] spurred tourism and urban redevelopment, bringing tangible benefits to Chinatown in the form of jobs, economic growth, and tax revenues,” but that same economic growth had “also caused displacement” (Lin). Jan Lin describes the way that the rising property rents and prices forced the local businessmen and residents to leave, giving rise to an influx of white middle and upper-class people in their place. Forebodingly, the addition of the Gold Line extension has inspired the city to plan a “Downtown Azusa,” a boutique strip next to the train station.
Although the way a Gold Line extension and subsequent creation of non-local business places affected Chinatown is a concerning note for a place like Azusa, which has the potential to go a similar route, it is not a death sentence. Josh Cadji and Alison Hope Alkon illustrate the ways that city improvement in low-income racial enclaves does not have to equivocate itself with the supplanting of its residents. They recount the creation of a café and farmers market in the historically African American-populated city of Oakland, CA, of the Bay Area. Granted, this is not a case study in the GLAA, but it demonstrates a more ambiguous type of development, and showcases how it could be potentially beneficial, rather than disturbing, for a community. It follows a food justice organization called Phat Beets, and while they acknowledge that “Phat Beets’ customers differ significantly from those who have historically inhabited the neighborhood”, they also work “with long-term community members on the issues most important to them can support food justice work without the above described accompanying displacement” (Zavestoski). Unfortunately, Phat Beets became the victim of their own half crime when they were displaced by Grease Box, an organization not as willing to accommodate the locals, and one that does not recognize its potential to affect the community. Still, there is something to be gleaned from the mission and integrity of Phat Beets. The group recognized their influence on the community, and ability to attract gentrifiers, so they hired residents and worked with them to try to create an environment that is for locals as much as tourists. Similarly, if Downtown Azusa is modeled to attract and employ locals, then it too has the potential to be a quality addition to the city, rather than a displacement factor.
The addition of the Gold Line aggrandizes the problem of the tourist in a place like Azusa, making the Canyon City into a spectacle, rather than a home. MacCannell sheds some light onto this issue, by musing that “modern man has been condemned to look elsewhere, everywhere, for his authenticity, to see if he can catch a glimpse of it reflected in the simplicity, poverty, chastity or purity of others”. Similarly, tourists flock to ethnic places of Los Angeles like Chinatown, Boyle Heights, and now perhaps Azusa, looking for their escape in our disenfranchisement. MacCannell also declares that even if unconsciously so, “the thing [the tourist] goes to see is society and its works”, making a performance of the places they visit. Tourism in a place like Azusa happens on a much smaller scale than classic tourism, but the threat is still very imminent. More affluent Angelenos looking to Azusa may be pulled in by the recently-opened boutiques, the Hispanic charm, or the cheap food.
Laura Nelson writes about the addition of the Azusa downtown station, and is careful to mention the Rosedale community as well, noting that “The homes, targeted at older adults, are one way to draw more residents onto transit” (Nelson). Rosedale is a community along the foothills of Azusa that offers houses in the range of $500,000 to $1,000,000, a far cry from the houses and apartments occupied by the people of the rest of the city. A glance at the Rosedale website describes “a sweet spot for stellar shopping and dining, sporting events, family attractions, academic pursuits, major businesses and Southern California’s hotspots”, and urges anyone “in the mood for urban flair or outbound fun” to consider buying real estate there. Although an amenity like the Gold Line is useful to residents, and popular among them, it is part of the problem of bringing outsiders to the city looking to buy the real estate with “urban flair”. The tourist decides they want to move to a hip, ethnic setting, and it creates this intense discord; any Azusan could take a walk through Rosedale and feel alien in their own hometown. As Kincaid puts it, “they are too poor to live properly in the place where they live”, and it is exactly this circumstance that pushed people out of Chinatown and Oakland.
Nelson also observes in her article that the “Metro hopes to attract students [of Azusa Pacific University and Citrus College] who want to go to Pasadena or downtown and can’t or don’t want to drive.” True it may be that Citrus, the local community college, is abound with locals, but APU is known for enrolling students from outside of the city, most of whom are white, in contrast with Azusa’s highly Hispanic student population. APU enrolled 47.1% white and 26.1% Hispanic undergraduates in 2014, a far cry from the 3.7% white and 92.1% Hispanic students that the Azusa Unified School District recorded in the 2014–2015 school year (“Total Student Enrollment”, “Enrollment by Ethnicity”). Although the Gold Line offers benefits to locals, the direction that the city takes this development will prove whether the amenity is for the people who live there, or the tourists and students from outside of town.
Then, what does a new, hip, non-gentrifying development look like? If Cadji and Alkon are to be believed, then it must work “to build its appeal to local residents, developing relationships with community members”. The establishment should be one in communication with its locale so that it can be operated in conjunction and may serve the community. That is why I see a glimmer of hope in another recent addition to the Azusa community, Mantra Coffee Company. Mantra practices a 51% policy, meaning that 51% of their profits are spent “supporting local and global community development” (“Our Philosophy”) They also declare a passion for “adding to the quality of life in this neighborhood”, a claim that they prove by supporting local businesses and art through their 51% policy. This is an establishment that cares about its communities, and demonstrates their concern by supporting it financially, employing residents, and giving exposure to local artists. Although it is an establishment likely to be enjoyed by anyone, by virtue of placement deep within the city, it is unlikely to cater solely to a tourist consumer base. While it embraces the character of city, it does not tout an “urban flair” that the Rosedale community peddles to its own consumer base.
Delineating between developments that are city improvements and ones that gentrify an area remains a foggy affair. It is not always easy to see where the line between utility and tool of exotification begins and ends. Perhaps the most influential factor in making a city improvement is its intent. For whom is the development intended and to what end has the locale been consulted on its creation? The GLAA is a region fraught with history of housing separation by race and class, a history that has fueled a now growing opportunity for gentrification of the very places to which minorities were initially limited. Whether this problem persists or is amended depends on two things: the integrity of the developers of a city, and the tourists who could potentially change the character of a place. I’m not sure that I can make a plea against exotifying urban areas to the ever-pragmatic capitalist, but to the tourist I would say this: heed the words of Jamaica Kincaid, “There must have been some good people among you, but they stayed home. And that is the point. That is why they are good”.
Works Cited
“Enrollment by Ethnicity.” Azusa Unified District Summary, Education Data Partnership, www.ed-data.org/district/Los-Angeles/Azusa-Unified.
“gentrification.”A Dictionary of Sociology. Ed. Scott, John. : Oxford University Press, 2014. Oxford Reference. 2015. Date Accessed 1 Dec. 2017 <http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780199683581.001.0001/acref-9780199683581-e-919>.
“gentrification.”Oxford Reference. Ed. Calhoun, Craig. 2002. Oxford University Press. Date of access 9 Dec. 2017, http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780195123715.001.0001/acref-9780195123715-e-686
Kincaid, Jamaica. A Small Place. Macmillian, 1988.
Lin, Jan. “Los Angeles Chinatown: Tourism, Gentrification, and the Rise of an Ethnic Growth Machine.” Amerasia Journal, vol. 34, no. 3, 2008, pp. 110–125., doi:10.17953/amer.34.3.v545v63lpj1535p7.
MacCannell, Dean. “Sightseeing and Social Structure.” The Tourist: A New Theory of the Leisure Class, University of California Press, 2013, pp. 39–56.
Nelson, Laura J. “Metro Gold Line Extension Tests San Gabriel Valley’s Support for Transit.”Los Angeles Times, 5 Mar. 2016, www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-gold-line-opening-20160305-story.html.
“New Neighborhoods in the San Gabriel Valley Foothills.”Rosedale, a Master-Planned Community with New Homes in Azusa, California, liverosedale.com/.
“Our Philosophy.” Mantra Coffee Company, www.mantracoffeeco.com/about-mantra/.
Redford, Laura. “The Intertwined History of Class and Race Segregation in Los Angeles.”Journal of Planning History, vol. 16, no. 4, Nov. 2016, pp. 305–322., doi:10.1177/1538513216676191.
“Total Student Enrollment.” Detailed Fall Enrollment Statistics, Azusa Pacific University, www.apu.edu/oira/statistics/2014/.
Zavestoski, Stephen, et al. “ONE DAY THE WHITE PEOPLE ARE GOING TO WANT THEIR HOUSES AGAIN: Understanding Gentrification through the North Oakland Farmers Market.” Incomplete Streets: Processes, Practices, and Possibilities, Routledge, 2015, pp. 154–173.
