Oct. 10th
In A Changing Mission — The Story, the author mentions how families, small businesses, and nonprofits are leaving, “sometimes voluntarily, often not”. People are facing eviction from their homes, and most times, only few people know their rights. L.A is changing and as many people may not see a problem with it, long time residents most times do and as Father Tom Seagrave said, and as the chart on page 3 points to, the block where the Mosqueda’s family home was on Folsom Street will “never be the same”. In the Mission district, the Spanish and Latino population are no longer the majority and neighborhoods are now becoming more white, causing the rent to inch up.
In the article Is Gentrification Ruining Los Angeles, or Saving It?, Art Tavana and Stephen Ziegler each make five key claims as to why readers should say yes/no to gentrification. Tavana argues that gentrification isn’t such a bad thing, one of her reasons being that crime is reduced and the streets become much safer — she even goes as far to say that crime rates in L.A have generally dropped “as a result of gentrification”. Tavana believes that gentrification improves the economy because since more money is being invested into “rundown areas”, more businesses will be created which could lead to more jobs. Tavana also believes that gentrification is multiculturalism, and that it is in fact a good thing because it forces desegregation by connecting the creative class with the working class. She also brags about Downtown L.A no longer being embarrassing, and being a “cool” city.
Ziegler on the other hand, different from Tavana, makes the claim that gentrification isn’t such a good thing and he points out the cons of it. He mentions that the results of gentrification for people of color include “displacement, eviction, forced homelessness, police violence, & destroyed communities” which he also calls oppression. One of the reasons why wealthier people move into low income neighborhoods is because the rich are envious of tight-knit communities, which is why “smart” developers build homes for the rich in low-income areas. This ultimately prices the low-income people out of the area because housing cost skyrocket and then everything else in the neighborhood does too. Ziegler mentions that “everyone has good intentions, no one seeks to destroy community”, but this is unfortunately the results.
