Please explain gentrification to me

[MyGodWearsAHoodie]

Brian, please explain why the city of New York chooses to allocate funding to that area differently now that upper-income whites live there.

You don't pay taxes for your block, and public schools are not individually funded by the taxes of the parents who send kids there.  The increased spending is because NYC officials decided to reallocate money to those areas, pure and simple.

Is that something that is factually documented or just going by Spike Lee's rant?

I don't know what it is like right now in NYC, but I know there was a study in the 1980's the poor section schools were getting more dollars per student, but in the wealthy sections still had better schools.  Why? Because in the bad schools the schools were spending much of their budget repair vandalism while in the better schools the money got put to better uses.

Likewise if a low crime area has 50 cops and a high crime area has 100 cops, the 50 cops might be able to deal with things like loitering and noise violations while the 100 cops can barely deal with the gang wars.  Doesn't mean that the low crime area is getting more money just better able to make the most use of it. 

[masterfins]

I understand Spike's viewpoint of the local vibe being pushed out by new residents.  But why didn't Spike keep living there if it was so great??  Did he invest in the area to make it a better place to live??  Why does he have a mansion on the Upper East Side of Manhattan??  I live in a relatively small city and hear people complain that the city is not the same as it was in the 60's or 70's, well yeah its called change.  That's what happens in life, for good or bad.  There are always going to be people that don't agree with the change that has occurred.

[Buddhagirl]

I understand Spike's viewpoint of the local vibe being pushed out by new residents.  But why didn't Spike keep living there if it was so great??  Did he invest in the area to make it a better place to live??  Why does he have a mansion on the Upper East Side of Manhattan??  I live in a relatively small city and hear people complain that the city is not the same as it was in the 60's or 70's, well yeah its called change.  That's what happens in life, for good or bad.  There are always going to be people that don't agree with the change that has occurred.

Lee still keeps an office in Fort Greene and films as much as possible in Brooklyn. He insists on hiring locals and people in the area. So, I suppose that's his way of investing in the area.

[Spider-Dan]

Is that something that is factually documented or just going by Spike Lee's rant?

I don't know what it is like right now in NYC, but I know there was a study in the 1980's the poor section schools were getting more dollars per student, but in the wealthy sections still had better schools.  Why? Because in the bad schools the schools were spending much of their budget repair vandalism while in the better schools the money got put to better uses.

It is entirely possible that Lee was lying or mistaken about the claims that he made (increased police presence, more money in the schools, more frequent trash pickup).  If so, then I agree there is no problem; if the same resources simply go farther when you have different people living there, then fine.

However, would you agree that if that's not the case and there is a change in city-allocated resources since the upper-class whites have moved in, there is a problem?

[MyGodWearsAHoodie]

However, would you agree that if that's not the case and there is a change in city-allocated resources since the upper-class whites have moved in, there is a problem?

Yes.
 
If it is the case that more total resources are allocated than I agree that would be a problem.  If it is a matter of changing of how the resources are used, (e.g. more frequent trash collection but less money spent on removing graffiti), than it is not a problem. 

[Spider-Dan]

So if your neighborhood has freshly paved streets or a shiny new park, that means you get a reduced head count for your local fire station?

I don't think the funds should be fungible in that manner.

[CF DolFan]

It really depends and you'd have to know the whole story before you could actually make an educated assumption.

In our county they have been putting in reclaimed water lines in the upper class neighborhoods over the last few years. This doesn't include mine which is middle class. I'd love to have reclaimed water as it's much cheaper to irrigate and promotes healthier grass.

The problem is the affluent neighborhoods use much, more more than ours as their lots are larger and they irrigate at every opportunity.  Unfortunately for me it only makes sense for the County to give them reclaim before me as its more beneficial to our drinking supply.

In other areas more affluent HOAs donate to projects that directly impact their areas. Again ... using the same resources from the government more can be done to improve it.

[MyGodWearsAHoodie]

So if your neighborhood has freshly paved streets or a shiny new park, that means you get a reduced head count for your local fire station?

I don't think the funds should be fungible in that manner.

I am not going that far.  But if the cities DPW handles both trash collection and graffiti removal, I have no problem with different neighborhoods each using their limited DPW funds in different ways.   

This thread reminds me of an incident from high school:

A black activist from the urban city next to my suburban town was making a huge stink about the inequities of the two school systems, including that despite my school being fourth the size inner city school my school had 3 AP English classes to the other schools only one.  Could this fact be related to another statistic: that 1/3 of the kids in the city high school were in ESL, while my town had several elementary aged kids in ESL but due to the combined effort of the school and PARENTS absolutely none in the upper grades?  (A question only pondered in an opinion piece in my high school newspaper but nowhere else.)  The editorial writer was born in Cambodia moved my town in 1st grade knowing only 6 words of English.  Two weeks after they moved here his parents barred the speaking of anything but English in the house until all the kids were out of ESL and in mainstream English.  He was now a senior and getting an A in AP English.  Over 60% of the ESL students in the urban school were born in the USA and over 30% were second generation or later. 

Another "FACT" about how the schools got disparate treatment was the desks & lockers.  Photos were shown of the student desks and lockers.  One set looked like they were battered destroyed and about 100 years old, the other set looked practically new. 

This second poin bothered one of my classmates ( and as an inspiring investigative reporter and using the freedom of information act she did some research.)  Here are the facts she uncovered: the lockers in the suburban schools were 12 years old, the lockers in the urban school 7.  The average age of the desks in the suburban school 8, in the urban school 3.  She also uncovered a wide disparity in the level of enforcement regarding school vandalism. 

This and more about the actually funding allocations were published in my high school's newspaper on the front page.

The original allegations made the front page of the local paper and the lead story on all the local TV stations.  My classmates investigation made none of the TV stations and was got a small article buried inside in which the newspaper said something to the effect of, "a student a XXX is alleging but we have been unable to independently verify"  this despite the fact she provided all the media outlets with photocopies of the FOIA reports she had obtained.   

When the adviser of school paper contacted the various media outlets about the lack of coverage of the follow up report most ignored him, but one told him the truth, "if we pay attention to her report we will be accused of being racist."  The lack of news converge was the lead story in the high school newspaper the following month, but noticed nowhere else.   

[CF DolFan]

As Paul Harvey would say .... Now you've heard the rest of the story.

It really hard to know all the facts unless you are involved but it has been my experience that most things that seem ludicrous really aren't true.