Abstract: I had to have a clear statement of my intended topic focus – narrowed down appropriately, as much as possible because it was a pre-research for my research essay. Adding my rationale for choosing the topic – why am I interested in it and why I want to write about it. This includes the research questions that I will be looking forward to when I am writing my essay. Also with prior knowledge and a brief background of the subject, as well as any ideas I have to proceed as well as angles of exploration as I move forward into writing the final essay. Then I had to do an annotated bibliography that consists of the 3 sources that I have deemed relevant to my topic and proposed research question. 

Instructor Megan Skelly

FIQWS 10115

Fall 2020

Lissette Lucero 

Many urban communities around New York City and the world have gone under gentrification. This change has come with both negative and positive impacts for the community. Gentrification doesn’t happen overnight; it takes decades and major factors for a community to go under gentrification. Supply and demand is a big factor of why a community might go under gentrification. The demand for supply causes real estate developers to start bringing what the community needs to stay satisfied and stay in a community that is desirable for living as well as having what they need inside the community. 

I am interested in this idea of the supply and demand that gentrification is part of. What the paper will discuss  more about how communities are affected as well as the causes. I want to go beyond just residents’ necessities and look into the big picture of gentrification as well how the neighborhood goes under a transition. What the communities need to be or have to be gentrified. How are the traditional residents affected? Who will benefit the most from gentrification? How much power does real estate have over the communities? To what extent does the community have the power to indicate what is good or bad for them or once the community is already going under gentrification the community can no longer have a voice or indications of how they want their community to change. I want to know the factors and the cause that takes the supply and demand of gentrification. Are the supply and demand one of the causes that gentrification brings to the community or supply and demand is what causes the community to be gentrified. 

Supply and demand impact gentrification. As well as to know who is behind the supply and demand of communities that are going under gentrification. I want to inform how not only communities benefit from gentrification. 

Marcuse, Peter. “Gentrification, Abandonment, and Displacement: Connections, Causes, and Policy Responses in New York City.” Washington University Journal of urban and contemporary law 28 (1985): 195–. Print.

Marcuse explains how abandonment and gentrification are opposites. Abandonment arises from a “precipitous decline in property values”, gentrification from a rapid increase. Gentrification improves the quality of housing, contributes to the tax base, and revitalizes important sections of the city through private initiative. Abandonment also drives lower-income households to adjacent areas, where pressures on housing and rents are increased. Gentrification attracts higher-income households from other areas in the city, reducing demand elsewhere, and increasing tendencies to abandonment. Gentrification displaces lower-income people increasing pressures on housing and rents. In which abandonment and gentrification are linked directly to changes in the city’s economy, which have produced a dramatic increase in the economic polarization of the population. Lower-income residents are displaced when gentrification takes place because the buildings and the neighborhoods are too expensive for them. The housing industry shapes the nature and extent of the demand for housing. The demand for housing includes the shift of economic activity from production to services and from high wage geographic areas to low wage areas and abandoned. Economic activity has caused increasing unemployment, population loss, and a resulting decline in the effective demand for housing among lower-income groups in New York City by also causing an increasing demand for office space and decreased demand for manufacturing space in the central city. Displacement from gentrification is between ten thousand and forty thousand households per year. The real estate market is the indicator of the type of change that is occurring in a neighborhood. Gentrification contributes to the increasing residential polarization of New York City by income level, education level, household composition, and race. Government reduces public expenditures in major areas of abandonment while increases expenditures in major areas of gentrification.

The source is useful because it explains the negative aspects of gentrification as well as how abandonment and gentrification relate to each other. It also adds more explanation about gentrification. This source adds a particular perspective about the whole picture of gentrification. I am adding this into my research paper to indicate how gentrification is something to look into and be well informed as well as have some understanding of the causes and effects of it.    

The topic and focus of my essay are about how abandonment and gentrification are connected in the overcome results of the community. My argument will be about the changes a community goes through under gentrification. The connections I am beginning to see between my source with my research paper is about the aspects of gentrification as a whole and how abandonment contributes to my arguments. Abandonment happens because of a decline in property values while gentrification from a rapid increase. The private initiative improves the quality of housing as well as tax bases throughout gentrification. Gentrification attracts high-income households from every part of the city which reduces demands elsewhere that increases direction to abandonment. Both abandonment and gentrification drive low-income households next to where pressures of the rents are increasing which they both also bring positive economic change into the city. When gentrification occurs it causes a negative outcome for low-income residents to move out of the community because they can no longer afford to live there. The demand for housing creates a positive shift into the economic activity for production to services by high wage geographic areas to low wage areas. Economic activity also has negative outcomes because it causes an increase in unemployment, population loss, and decreasing demand for housing for low-income groups and also causes an increased demand for office space that decreases demand for manufacturing space. The real estate market plays a big factor in gentrification because it introduces the type of change that is happening in the neighborhood. Government reduces the public expense in major areas of abandonment while increasing them in areas of gentrification which is a good thing for the real estate as well as for the community because the government is helping them both. Abandonment needs to happen first for gentrification. 

  Zapatka, Beck. “Does Demand Lead Supply? Gentrifiers and Developers in the Sequence of Gentrification, New York City 2009–2016.” Urban studies (Edinburgh, Scotland) (2020): 4209802094059–. Web.

Zapatka introduces how White gentrifiers moved into poor and working-class neighborhoods which causes the retail and housing demand to go up, thus driving up the housing prices. According to production theorists, landlords, and real estate agents changing the supply of housing increases gentrification. The real estate elites invest in housing by renovating old buildings into new units that increase rents and attract wealthier tenants by which long-term tenants are being evicted. Hybridists groups argue that both changes in the social composition of an area and residents are changing the supply of housing due to gentrification. And also the consumption and production dynamics continuously shape each other on middle-class demand and developer’s investment. Both demographic and economic changes are readily observable during gentrification. The consumption of housing presents a demand for housing reinvestment. Demand and supply lead to gentrification. Landlords and developers reinvest in neighborhoods with the highest potential rate of profit. The dynamic of gentrification reflects the neoliberal nature of capitalism: maximizing profits and utility from valuable capital. The real estate elites are responsible for maximizing the profits, therefore they are “active pioneers” and not reactors to gentrification. The supply-side focuses on the property owner and the demand side arguments focus on both the owners and the gentrifiers. The five years data that she measured indicated that the real estate will increase in the future in preparation for gentrifiers. According to the New York City census data the denser the community, the higher the property values and gentrification. The results of her five years of data gave a result that demand predicts supply. Also, the moving of new residents into the community causes gentrification to happen early. 

This source is useful because it adds evidence to my research paper about the topic I am discussing the supply and demand of gentrification and how it contributes to my argument on which aspect of gentrification argues the supply of demand by which happens first the demand and supply theory first of gentrification or gentrification first for supply and demand to occur. This article discusses all aspects of supply and demand on how the demand occurs in order for supply to happen as well as in which area is the demand higher for residential purpose or business-wise. It also talks about the causes of the supply and demand aspects of the community that is going under gentrification. 

The sources argue a lot about the supply and demand theory of gentrification in which gives me concrete evidence about how the supply and demand lead to gentrification in which is one of the topics my research paper focuses on. This article shows how the moving in of white gentrifiers into low-income communities causes the retail and houses demand to go up meaning that the demand for new residential condominiums causes the rent to up for the new apartments the supply aspect will not be affordable for low-income residents of the community since they will no longer afford to live there. The real estate and landlords are the main cause for the supply aspect of residential buildings to be so high which causes gentrification to happen. By the investment of the real estate elites in housing which renovated old buildings into new units that cause the rent to increase which brings wealthier tenants that harm the long-term residents from that community to be relocated. The change of social consumption of an area and residents is changing the supply of housing meaning that gentrification had to occur first in order for that to happen in which the consumption and production dynamics aspect is continuously shaping each other on middle-class demand and developers investment. Both demographic and economic changes are big aspects of gentrification as well. In the already gentrifying community causes, the consumption of housing presents a demand for housing reinvestment. Landlords and developers first see the highest potential profit rate in the community in order to reinvest. Gentrification reflects capitalism. Supply-side focus on the property owner and the demand side arguments focus both the owners and the gentrifiers which explain how the supply aspects introduced demand into the community in which gentrifiers are the causing demand and the supply to be given to the residents. demand predicts supply by which is being given by the results of her five years data plan. 

 Zukin, Sharon. “Gentrification: Culture and Capital in the Urban Core.” Annual review of sociology 13.1 (1987): 129–147. Web.

Zukin indicates how gentrification incorporates it by production and consumption rather than the demographic structure or individual choice. The investors make choices in the amount of housing the real estate has. Gentrification could affect social dynamics. The supply-side focus on the amount of housing and the demand-side focus on the behavior of consumers based on what’s available to them in order for the community to become gentrified. Both homeowners and renters cause property values to rise when their interests are different. The grants offer incentives for urban renovation. Pre-gentrification residents have lower-income than the new gentrification residents. Existing residents allowed the gentrified to associate with the property values will increase which leads to their own displacement. When community organizations fight against gentrification they act as “vanguard of the bourgeoises”. When new residents come into the community it increases rents and commercial use that causes the already existing residents to relocate. Since tax revenue increases during gentrification policy leaders tend to favor it.  Life-style and life-cycle factors have created consumer demand for new resident’s styles. Gentrification allows for an increase in capital that includes a cycle of increasing wealth. The supply-side argument provided the resources for gentrifiers to make a decision about moving to the gentrified community. Historic preservation acts as a profit by producing goods and services for a “preservationist” consumption.  Gentrification produces cultural goods and services who seek housing in central city areas by providing short turns of insertions into the urban economy and by contributing to the downtowns cultural capital by resigning housing prices in which they can no longer afford to live in. Gentrifiers respond to economic institutions. Property values rise in middle-class residential areas that cause an increase in jobs for high statues consumption. Gentrifiers are in the expansion of middle-class styles of life and a market situation that creates lifestyles in the community. 

This source is useful for my research paper because it adds to evidence about the causes of gentrification into the supply and demand side of my argument. It also adds aspects of gentrification into the community as a whole. It also adds perspective to the arguments I am discussing for my research paper. It provides evidence on how gentrification affects the community as well as real estate. 

The focus of my essay will be about the effects that gentrification has on the community. The problem is that new residents displaced long-existing residents of the community. My argument from this source is how the supply and demand are affecting the community. The connection I am beginning to see between my source and my argument is how gentrification is all about supply and demand rather than demographic structure. Investors play a big role in the production side of housing since they make choices on the number of houses the real estate has to invest in the production of residents. The source indicated the supply-side focus on the amount of housing and the demand side focus on the behavior of consumers based on what’s available to them in order for the community to become gentrified which implies the bigger picture of gentrification on how it’s all viewed under the demand side of consumption. Homeowners and renters are the cause of property values to go high in which it causes the rent to be only affordable for people that can afford the new apartments which will benefit gentrifiers. The own community allows gentrifiers to associate with the property values that cause them to increase by that it causes them to be displaced since they no longer can afford to buy them back or able to live in the new economic income created by gentrification. When the community wants to fight against gentrification they act as “vanguard of the bourgeoises”. Gentrification increases rents and commercial use that causes the already existing residents to relocate.  Gentrification causes tax revenue to increase which favors policy leaders that cause them to invest even more.  Life-style and life-cycle factors have created consumer demand for new resident’s styles. Gentrification also causes an increase of wealth for the gentrifiers that invest in the community. The supply side allows gentrifiers to move into the community. Gentrification also causes an increase in jobs in the community.