by Chuck Hoven

   (Plain Press August 2024) On July 10^th at the Rhizhome House in Cleveland Heights the Greater Cleveland Housing Collective hosted an anti-gentrification teach-in and discussion with Andrew Lee, the author of Defying Displacement: Urban Recomposition and Social War.

   At the workshop, Lee shared some of his experience organizing against displacement of communities by gentrification. He described gentrification as aided by public policy that favors wealthy individuals and institutions over the working class and low-income residents already living in communities targeted for displacement. Lee says gentrification is not a natural consequence of invisible market forces, but deliberate public policy designed to increase profits for developers and payroll taxes for City coffers by removing whole populations of working class and low-income residents from neighborhoods to make way for the newcomers with higher incomes.

NEWS ANALYSIS

   Lee’s interest in researching displacement stems from his personal experience working alongside community members fighting displacement in San Jose in the San Francisco Bay area and more recently in Philadelphia. In May of 2018, in the Silicon Valley city of San Jose, residents battled against the creation of a Google mega campus planned for public land in the city’s core. In the introduction to his book Lee says, “Community members feared that the arrival of tens of thousands of well-paid tech workers would force an even greater number of residents out of the region or onto the streets.”

   Also, in the introduction to the book, Lee describes a 2018 protest by a group called the Stadium Stompers led by two grandmothers in the North Philadelphia neighborhood to stop the public subsidy of an off-campus stadium proposed for Temple University. Lee cites an article in the Temple News and writes, “The group demanded that the $130 million earmarked for the off-campus stadium be spent on affordable housing and public education instead.”

   Lee’s research includes examples of displacement and gentrification throughout the world where working class and low-income residents are pushed out of neighborhoods to make way for wealthier newcomers.

   In describing the process of gentrification, Lee says, “Each gentrifier makes the area more palatable for those to follow. Some imagine their new neighborhood as terra nullius waiting to be pacified and civilized by the enlightened white professional-class frontiersman, with a video doorbell and histrionic Nextdoor posts in place of a musket and coonskin cap. The result is a massive, forced economic displacement until the entire character of the neighborhood is transformed.”

   “A whole range of institutions and individuals profit handsomely” because of gentrification, according to Lee. He says, “Gentrifiers get appealing amenities in a relatively inexpensive urban environment. Their employers concentrate pools of workers. Property developers and real estate investors make a killing. Politicians watch their tax base grow. The banks that write loans for new businesses and mortgages for new homeowners do nicely, as well. Even nonprofits campaigning against displacement might benefit from the donations of wealthier and guiltier new neighbors.”

   Clevelanders can easily relate to Lee’s description of the displacement that results from gentrification. They can see examples of neighborhoods where residents have been displaced by gentrification such as Ohio City, Tremont and more recently in the Detroit Shoreway neighborhood. Cleveland also has examples of neighborhoods displaced by institutions such as in the University Circle neighborhood or the neighborhood vacated to make way for Cleveland State University.

   The recent proposed property value notices from Cuyahoga County are an example of one of the means that contribute to displacement. Some Cleveland residents living in old houses in a neighborhood where new expensive housing has been recently constructed, or where a house has recently been substantially rehabbed, may find the proposed property value from Cuyahoga County as much as triple its current assessed value.

   Down the road this may mean a substantial increase in property tax. While the upcoming November school levy will be based on the current value of the property, future school levies and City, County, Metroparks and Cleveland Public Library levies will result in substantial property tax increases for existing homeowners. For some, it will mean they will find it difficult to remain in their home.

   Lee describes some of the incentives offered by cities to attract new residents such as tax abatements. He also mentions some of the tactics used by cities to drive out low-income residents such as selective code enforcement, police harassment and incarceration of residents, and token representation of some residents in jobs, political positions or institutions involved in displacement to help mitigate criticism of displacement.

   Lee’s research includes many examples of displacement occurring around the world and calls this struggle of people trying to remain in their communities the organizing challenge of our age. He outlines some strategies communities have used to try to oppose gentrification in their neighborhoods. He also notes the difficulty in organizing political pressure from people who in many cases will not be in the neighborhood by the time the next election comes along, thus they can be ignored by politicians who know they won’t be their constituents for long.

   In the book, Lee includes some examples of tactics used by residents to disrupt the efforts of those that profit from displacing the working class and poor from their neighborhoods. He offers hope that community activists will be able to come up with new strategies to help residents disrupt the powerful entities that would like to profit from displacing them from their homes and their neighborhoods.

   Editor’s Note: Information about obtaining a copy of Defying Displacement: Urban Recomposition and Social War is available at the Institute for Anarchist Studies, P.O. Box 90454, Portland, OR 97290; https://anarchistsstudies.org or at info@anarchiststudies.org.