The materials that we have engaged with this week – the readings by Peter Moskowitz & Alfredo Huante, the film The Last Black Man in San Francisco, and the interactive Mapping Inequality Redlining in the New Deal America website – speak more broadly to the process of gentrification, not only as an economic shift within communities, but also as a racialized process and a process of the commodification of neighborhoods and resources. More specifically, Peter Moskowitz’ chapter “San Francisco” in How to Kill a City, details the social and legal construction of gentrification in San Francisco. The author first opens with a contextualization and conversation of the film we watched and Jimmy Fails. An important theme that this text presents is the connection between a city and a native of the city, as he describes how Jimmy feels like an anomaly within the city as it has changed over time, becoming a distinct version of what he once knew. The article by Alfredo Huante specifically talks about gentrification within the Los Angeles barrio of Boyle Heights. Huante emphasizes gentrification beyond its economic shift and impact, providing an understanding of the racialization which simultaneously occurs, given part of the Mexican-American community and their proximity to whiteness. I think that both of the readings can be simplified by a statement I found interesting from the film, which considers gentrification as the “final frontier of manifest destiny.” Gentrification is a process which I believe inherently fosters inequality. In a class I took Fall 2023 with Dr. Jessica Stewart on Housing Politics, we explored a lot of what the readings, film and website cover, and in one of our conversations we talked about if housing developments could be ethical and not cause mass displacement of entire communities. Considering the statement made in the movie and what I learned in that class, these modern day housing developments can not be ethical as the very underlying legal construction of neighborhoods does not allow the process to be. The different zones created– single-family, multi-family, commercial and industrial – inherently create divisions in cities that in turn have greater effect on the health & available resources of communities. Another interesting concept that I think plays an important role in gentrification as an economic and racial project is NIMBYism (Not in my backyard) specifically for the opposition of affordable housing.
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