Weekly Poll: What Do You Think Of When You Hear The Term “Affordable Housing”?

Earlier this month I participated in a two-day conference on affordable housing sponsored by FOCUS-St. Louis (agenda- PDF):

FOCUS St. Louis, in partnership with the Des Lee Collaborative Vision, presents Housing: Building a New Foundation for Economic Prosperity. This symposium explores affordable housing in Missouri and Southwest Illinois, taking a close look at the disparity between the location of many jobs and the location of housing that is affordable for workers who fill those positions, and ways to resolve these issues to help build sustainable, prosperous communities.

You are thinking, “Why bother in St. Louis?”  Our housing is cheap, right?  I was on a panel discussing land use policy as it relates to affordable housing.

Affordable Housing is the subject of the poll this week (upper right of site). Results and commentary on Wednesday April 6, 2011.

– Steve Patterson

Is Gentrification a Problem in St. Louis?

The word “gentrification” is often used as a negative term against many developments in St. Louis, but is the use valid?  The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines gentrification as:

“the process of renewal and rebuilding accompanying the influx of middle-class or affluent people into deteriorating areas that often displaces poorer residents”

To me a key part of the definition is “often displaces poorer residents.”  The dictionary says the first use of the word was in 1964, a very different time than 2011.

Here is the opening to the Wikipedia entry:

Gentrification and urban gentrification are terms referring to the socio-cultural displacement that results when wealthier people acquire property in low income and working class communities. Consequent to gentrification, the average income increases and average family size decreases in the community, which sometimes results in the eviction of lower-income residents because of increased rents, house prices, and property taxes. This type of population change reduces industrial land use when it is redeveloped for commerce and housing. In addition, new businesses, catering to a more affluent base of consumers, tend to move into formerly blighted areas, further increasing the appeal to more affluent migrants and decreasing the accessibility to less wealthy natives.

Urban gentrification occasionally changes the culturally heterogeneous character of a community to a more economically homogeneous community that some describe as having a suburban character. This process is sometimes made feasible by government-sponsored private real estate investment repairing the local infrastructure, via deferred taxes, mortgages for poor and for first-time house buyers, and financial incentives for the owners of decayed rental housing. Once in place, these economic development actions tend to reduce local property crime, increase property values and prices and increase tax revenues.

Political action, to either promote or oppose the gentrification, is often the community’s response against unintended economic eviction caused by rising rents that make continued residence in their dwellings unfeasible. The rise in property values causes property taxes based on property values to increase; resident owners unable to pay the taxes are forced to sell their dwellings and move to a cheaper community.

Gay men have often been accused of gentrification because we’ve seen the potential of many rundown areas, back to the same Wikipedia entry:

Manuel Castells‘s seminal work about gay men as “gentrifiers” in San Francisco, California, shows that “many gays were single men, did not have to raise a family, were young, and connected to a relatively prosperous service economy” is a pattern replicated in other North American cities.

The documentary Flag Wars (2003), directed by Linda Goode Bryant, shows the social, class, and gender tensions in the Silk Stocking neighborhood in Columbus, Ohio, between an urban African-American community and the mostly white gays and lesbians moving in to the neighborhood, whom the original residents accused of gentrification and racism. In turn, the new residents accused the community of homophobia.  In 2006, in Washington, D.C., a religious congregation in the black Shaw neighborhood opposed the granting of a liquor license to a gay bar that was to open across the street from the church.  The bar was successfully opened and has since been replaced by another gay bar at the same location.

Gay people are not always the gentrifiers: real estate valuation trends can push out poor gay people, as in the Polk District in San Francisco: radical gay activists saw the value of a poor neighborhood as refuge for the economically and socially marginal.

Gentrification is the topic of the poll  this week (upper right).

– Steve Patterson

Poll: Must St. Louis Public Schools Improve To Stop Population Loss?

For years it has been suggested that underperforming St. Louis Public Schools must be turned around to stop the loss of population. Do you agree? If so, how?

The counter argument is  fewer and fewer households have kids.  St. Louis should focus on attracting aging Baby Boomers & Busters (Gen X) whose kids are grown and Generation Z who don’t yet have kids. This is the subject of the poll this week (see upper right of blog).

– Steve Patterson

Readers: City Better Than A Decade Ago

In the poll last week readers could pick up to three answers, the top answer shows many felt the city has gotten better in the last decade, despite a loss in population.

Q:Reaction to the 2010 Census showing a loss of 29k residents? (pick up to 3 answers)

1. Fewer residents but the quality of the city has improved in the last decade 111 [33.74%]
2. Previous estimates showing a slight increase gave me false hope 67 [20.36%]
3. Very disappointing 61 [18.54%]
4. Happy the losses are getting smaller each decade 26 [7.9%]
5. Partly the outcome of low density housing policy 22 [6.69%]
6. The numbers must be wrong 16 [4.86%]
7. Surprised the loss wasn’t greater 13 [3.95%]
8. Other answer… 11 [3.34%]
9. No opinion 2 [0.61%]

The “other” answers were:

1. St Louis to Jennings
2. Our schools need to be improved if we are ever going to retain our population
3. i am very curious to know how the ave resident/house and income/house changed
4. so many people were not counted.
5. many people didn’t bother to send in cenus forms
6. The numbers Might be wrong
7. Note we gained amongst 18 , MUST fix schools
8. My pride is hurt, but as long development doesn’t slow; it’ll heal.
9. Obviously better with fewer low income African Americans
10. Mixture of some areas (n. St. Louis) and emptyin and fewer large families.

Much work remains but for me the total number of residents is less important than the quality of life of those of us who didn’t leave.

– Steve Patterson

Weekly Poll: Do You The St. Louis Rolling Stop?

In the news last week:

Roberta Haynes, 62, was reportedly walking her dog when she was hit. Police say the driver ran a stop sign and then fled the scene on foot. (KMOV: Woman in critical condition after hit-and-run crash near Tower Grove Park)

Which leads me to the poll question this week: When coming to a stop sign or red light I? The poll is in the upper right corner of the main page.

– Steve Patterson