Gentrification and Displacement in Conversation

But how do these stories mesh? Some of the first and most important questions surrounding gentrification and displacement make reference to the different actors at work in each scenario. Who is being displaced? Who is doing the displacing? Who are the gentrifiers? Who is being gentrified? Yet this dichotomous scenario fails to acknowledge the spectrum of positions between the two sides of this narrative. These issues draw lines on neighborhoods and communities, but people rarely fall entirely on one side of the other.

Take for example Mark and Luigi’s restaurant that will soon be opening in Melrose:

We go in, we cater to a different demographic. Now, obviously the pricings of the menu items are much higher and for the people who now moving into the neighborhood, they are looking it as, it’s a bargain ’cause compared to where they used to go: Village, or Midtown, it’s a bargain, and they get the same quality of food or better. So they feel like this is great. Yet, the neighborhood people, … the old-timers who’s lived there for a while, then they realize wait, then my favorite Spanish restaurant just closed, and I can’t afford to go to that wine bar to have $12 a plate prosciutto. (Lu 10-11)

Mark encapsulates the process that many would call gentrification: people from outside the neighborhood buy a storefront and instead of maintaining the status quo and opening, say, a Mexican restaurant in the space of a Mexican restaurant, they open a shop that does not cater directly to long-standing community needs and tastes. This, in turn, means that they are catering to a different group of people, usually younger clients who are not originally from the neighborhood, often with more disposable capital than current neighborhood residents.

In “Geographies of Displacement: Latina/os, Oral History, and the Politics of Gentrification in San Francisco's Mission District,” Nancy Mirabal describes that:

One of the first signs of displacement is gentrified consumption, the hallmarks of which are businesses—expensive restaurants, antique stores, upscale bars and lounges, boutiques, specialty food stores, cafes—that are deliberately built to attract wealthier populations to the area. Their arrival signals that older businesses—liquor stores, check-cashing storefronts, furniture rental businesses, pawn shops—which cater to the poor and working-class populations, will be replaced, eventually forcing this community to travel outside of their neighborhood to get their needs met. (Mirabal 18)

These two scenarios sounds analogous, and in many ways they are. Yet, this narrative of gentrification only situates the consumers: substituting low income neighborhood residents for wealthier people moving in.

The other group Mark mentions are people who had previously been living, dining, and shopping closer to the city center in places like the Village or Midtown, where prices are exceedingly high and can in many ways only be comfortable for the luxury elite. The people who are still relatively affluent but do not possess that level of wealth then begin to look further and further from that city center for experiences that fit their tastes. These tastes then priviledge something like a wine bar over a mom-and-pop restaurant, and their business in effect begins to change the neighborhood they settle in.

Still, this conversation also excludes the actors behind these new storefronts that cater to different needs, like Mark and Luigi. As business owners, they understand the high risks associated with opening a restaurant in the city center, and see the potential of “developing” areas gaining more traction. Because of the gap in services for what they aim to provide, the market is wide open and makes prospects favorable.

However, Mark and Luigi also live in Melrose. They consider it their home, and care about what happens here. “What’s our role in this whole gentrification? Are we the bad guys? Are we the good guys? Who are we?” (Lu 10). In the end, Mark considers it to be, at least with regard to the restaurant, that, “We are complementing … the transition, that we providing product and service to people who’s coming in, who’s need it” (Lu 11). But this role is still deferential to longtime community residents: “We do the best we can to understand the people who are already here, what they are looking for, incorporate into what we are thinking we can serve” (Lu 12).