Facebook Publication Date: 7/10/2022 23:07

Yet another book on the list.

Here is what I’m hoping is addressed in the book, because I haven’t read it yet and I’m not sure I saw it in the article to which I clicked through.

I am hoping that they talk about not only white flight but white economic disinvestment.

I am also hoping that they talk about economic integration without residential integration.

And I’m also hoping that they talk about spaces like where I live, where there was indeed white flight but it stayed relatively stable.

But it made for a different kind of two caste system.

In my neighborhood, which is largely Latino black and filipino, and comprised of middle class and skilled Tradesmen what some people might call Upper working class which, at the beginning of the transition to it being a largely Latino and black area put them at least on a par and sometimes at an economic advantage to their white neighbors. That’s a lot of dynamic.

The white people that were here when I first moved in in the year 2000 there were two different white cohorts. Perhaps three. The first one is the most organic and in my opinion the most preferable.

These are the families who lived through white flight but chose to stay, and now they, or other family members if they’ve since passed away have stayed in these houses bringing economic stability and a certain humility.

They did and do not hold themselves above or apart their black and brown neighbors, in fact even through integration they have integrated themselves into the communities as they changed.

Appreciate the nuance.

There is a second cohort that is more problematic. Those are white families who stayed because they didn’t have a choice, and other white families who, as they moved down the economic ladder capitalized on the fact that predominantly Latino and black houses and apartments cost less.

There’s a lot of reasons for this. A lot of times during white flight the white owners of these houses held on to the properties themselves but because they devalued the neighborhood they didn’t care who moved in.

The third cohort is what I have noticed over the last 20 years since I have been where I am.

White people are coming back.

And this is where the tension between reinvestment and revitalization as opposed to gentrification comes in.

There has been good and bad.

The most obvious bad is that as white people move in and change the demographic ratio prices have indeed gone up, not as much as in mostly white areas but they have.

That has priced black and Latino renters and potential homeowners out of the market.

For balance, I will mention a potential good.

These new homeowners tend to be younger. Younger than myself; for the most part under 50; even under 40. Which means they have, or potentially have, less racial residue than their parents are grandparents did.

This is by no means guaranteed.

But in 2020, repopulation by white cohorts is a different animal than when gentrification became a thing here in San Diego in the 1980s through the mid 2000.

At that time people would swoop in by properties and then Flex on governments and police against the people they were now rubbing shoulders with.

This feels different, but the trend is only about 5 years old.

It will be interesting to see how it plays out.

Now I realize that this is San diego, and the housing market is so brutal here that perhaps there’s not a whole lot of generalizations to be made.

I mean I live in a city where the most ramshackle Shack on a lot the size of a Cheez-It is going for half a million dollars in what white people would consider a sketchy part of town.

So even people with good household incomes in the low to mid 100,000 have to look elsewhere.

But they still want the same quality of life and the same amenities that they feel that they would get another area.

This is what can turn. Are they doing it on behalf of themselves at the expense of existing residents, or are they flexing and using their power and social capital in service to the Greater Community where they have now chosen to live?

Again, appreciate the nuance.

This turns on power. The power to change a market for good or ill.

As I am writing this, I am thinking of what might be a counterintuitive example, but bear with me.

I’m thinking about walmart. Maybe about 15 to 20 years ago about the time I moved here, there was a book that came out that was literally called the Walmart effect.

The author himself is agnostic about Walmart, which I appreciated when I read it.

What he highlighted though, was the fact that Walmart is the 800 lb gorilla.

Walmart moves markets.

For example, there’s a reason why you no longer have to take your Stick deodorant or antiperspirant out of a box.

Walmart decided it didn’t want to pay to ship paper boxes and prevailed upon both Procter and Gamble and Unilever to do away with that packaging so that they could pack more product in because the boxes themselves are bulky and shipping costs were less.

Both of them did comply, I’m not sure which went first.

And because they were doing it for walmart, the biggest player in retail, the rest of the retailers followed suit.

This is an instance of moving a market that was an unmistakable gain for walmart, but was also a gain in terms of environmental impact and in terms of price point.

Walmart took the bulk of the penny or two that it saved, but there was a little bit that was given back to the consumer.

Let’s pivot here back to housing.

Moving markets is in itself value neutral.

That is to say that it is not automatically a bad thing when white people move back into residential areas that have been abandoned by white people before.

*It turns on who they are as they do it and what they do when they get there*.

Are they out for themselves or are they ingratiating themselves with authenticity and humility into the community that they now live in?

I’ll have more to say about this when we talk about housing Justice in the upcoming series.

But for now, what are your thoughts?

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