The online article above titled “How Oligarchs Destroyed a Major American City Partner” by Anis
Shivani discusses a controversial and relevant to Houston real estate in recent
years; gentrification. Gentrification refers to shifts in urban community
lifestyle and an increasing share of wealthier residents and/or businesses and
increasing property values. As stated in the very opinionated article, the
author claims that the gentrification of central Houston has turned the areas
around Alabama and Kirby into “an exclusive playground for the rich” and that
Houston itself has “transmogrified into a city ruled by a brutal strain of
neoliberalism”. Those statements are pretty overdramatic
but being from Houston and living there most of my life, I can confirm that major
gentrification is and has been taking place across all areas of the city, especially central and downtown Houston.
Is this necessarily a bad thing? The people who would be
affected negatively would be Houston’s less affluent pre-gentrification
residents who are unable to pay increased rents or property taxes to be eventually
forced out of the area. The positive side is that gentrification has led to a
massive increase in business all across the city with new restaurants, music
venues, bars, living complexes, etc. in areas that were nowhere near as
attractive to businesses five years ago. This has the potential to increase the
average income of all residents who live and work in those areas and displacement
might not occur to residents who were already making a decent income. I think
gentrification benefits the entire city of Houston as a whole, but there are
definitely individuals that it can affect negatively as well.
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