Call for experts & impacted individuals’ opinions: How can we improve low-income areas without committing gentrification?

By Ariana Velasquez

February 5th, 2023

This has been a question I have been wondering for sometime now. For context, I come from a middle class family from one of the poorest areas of the country in Appalachia. I have lived in cities for my education, and this has always left me scratching my head no matter where I go. I’d love to see things improve for people. Food deserts are a huge issue where I am from among other things. I’d love to see my home, as well as the urban areas I have lived in, improve without making life harder for the people there. I think low-income people deserve a nice place to live, and I just want to figure out how to give that to them in the best way possible.

Additionally, a significant portion of my employment history includes experience working for the state government on assessments of property values for individuals. It’s this experience combined with my current studies of law and business that has left me pondering this question. I’d like to think there’s an answer out there where everyone benefits, and we can avoid this problem altogether.

If low-income areas of the city improve and become better for the existing residents, is it always a bad thing in the long-run because it will make the area more expensive to live in? I don’t think so, but how do people usually mitigate the risk of making the area so unaffordable for the current residents? Logically, it follows that if a low-income area becomes more attractive to consumers, existing businesses (i.e. those often owned by people of color) will get more traffic and make more money. That seems pretty good, right? However, we don’t want the rent on the building that they are located in to become so high that they cannot operate there. That’s obviously bad. So, what’s the answer to this problem? I don’t know. 

And as for housing, we have a similar issue…

Naturally, when an area “improves”, the property value will rise, leading to an increase in tax expenses to the residents. It’s a natural consequence, however, how can we improve those areas without making it nearly impossible for the residents to continue living there? After all, it’s impossible to predict the future and the natural rise and fall of property value and sale price based on a number of externalities completely separate from any improvement in the area. So, is it impossible to improve the area without the risk of gentrification? 

Well, what does gentrification actually mean?

“the process whereby the character of a poor urban area is changed by wealthier people moving in, improving housing, and attracting new businesses, typically displacing current inhabitants in the process.”

Oxford Languages

To be clear, I am not defending gentrification, I am just wondering if there’s a way to improve the quality of life of people in low-income areas where you can benefit the existing residents and businesses, without making it unaffordable to stay.

If you have any ideas, I’d love to include them in a follow-up post.

Email: ariana.velasquezky@gmail.com

My first inclination would be to simply ask community leaders in the area what they suggest before adding value to the area from a large outside project, but is this enough? Should experts be routinely consulted? What type of economic planning is necessary? Please let me know your ideas & experience in dealing with these issue.