Abstract: In this paper, I’m going to do a research essay. I would focus on how the theory of the rent gap caused Harlem to be gentrification and how it affected the original residents. For the last 30 to 40 years, the Gentrification of Harlem has been the main issue. Throughout this essay didn’t attack any audience because I want everyone to have the opportunity to read my research. Moreover, my purpose was to point out the cause and effect gentrification has on the community.
Gentrification has been an ongoing issue over the last decades in New York City. A movement of the wealthier individuals moved into the community and increased the values of the property. This transformation is a long-term process to complete the plan, along with the influence of the rent gap theory, produced by capital reduction, “cycle of disinvestment in the inner-city and the rise in potential ground rents levels” (Smith, 57). As we know, Harlem has always been a community for Black Americans, the low-income residents, and the working-class. A neighborhood that is affordable for them to pay the ground rent. While gentrification has taken place in Harlem, it mostly has affected the original residents due to the increase in the land’s market. This paper aims to demonstrate how the rent gap’s idea caused Harlem to be gentrification and how it affected the original residents.
To begin, we need to understand how the theory of the rent gap is associated with Harlem. Matthias Bernt illustrates that Harlem became a representative example of the rent gap in the 20th century. The community experienced several conditions, such as discrimination, widespread disease, and other events that caused the increase of available supply land. “The neighborhood had a fairly high potential ground rent, while in practice, the capitalized ground rent was much lower and continuously decreasing” (6). Harlem developed its land value at the lowest cost and high land value, leading to the rent theory. Although the rent gap has emerged, it took long periods for capital and investors to go under gentrification. Due to the appearances of wartime and followed up by the Depression period during the 20th century. Neil Smith explains that during World War I, construction had virtually stopped, but in the Great Depression, it took a turnover for futures beneficial for investors. “Housing disinvestment deepened during the Depression. There would be little significant private reinvestment in Harlem unit 1980” (139). The era of the Depression produced the availability of land for the rent gap process.
Throughout the 20th century, many properties were abandoned by the local landlords in Harlem, which led to progressive disinvestment and abandonment. In the Depression, the community has increased housing disinvestment to support the societies within this event by indicating ten-years public housing programs through the capital landlords. After the Depression and the public housing program was over, the capital landlord wanted to fix the economic market, considering the city government was the community’s most prominent landowner. “The city government ended up owning some 60 percent of the entire housing stock,” and the capital landlord “developed an intense interest in returning abandoned properties to the private market, and getting back onto the tax roll” (Bernt, 7). The capital government established the private market to increase the property value in return for the economical market. As the land markets increased, private investors continued to expand on reinvesting the property, which was instituted as an investment sequence in the community, and reinvest to increase the land values.
Furthermore, there are many housing rent that increased as an example of the private market who restored the land market at a profit level. “In modernized housing, half of the tenants who moved in after renovating paid almost twice as much as previous tenants with rental cap in place” (Bernt, 13). The landowners were most likely focusing on the new residents who move into Harlem, as they noticed that outsiders or new tenants would be capable of paying the cost of housing rents. The landlords’ movement has increased the housing stock by targeting the new incoming residents, which helped develop Harlem’s market.
The rehabilitation had caused Harlem into gentrification. The idea of the rent gap has increased the neighborhood’s value and develops its gentrifying characteristics. “Harlem in the early 1980s, then was susceptible to gentrification primarily because of two defining characteristics: on the one hand, its location close to one of the highest rent districts in the world; on the other hand, despite this proximity, the neighborhood’s sustained disinvestment throughout most of the twentieth century led to its having inordinately low rents and land values” (Smith, 140). Throughout the Depression, the capital landlord and private investors undergo the rent gap as a process. It increased the housing stock market in Harlem and became the highest rent community in the world. This process increased Harlem’s potential for gentrification.
The potential of Harlem for gentrification has affected the original tenants. Harlem had always been a place with the highest population of Black-Americans and low-income residents status. Gentrification had overseen into two sides attitudes, depending on which social class. “With this much at stake, it is little wonder that on the other gentrification is seen as a supreme test for the gentrification process, while on the other hand gentrification is seen as a powerful threat to Harlem residents, who are dependent on the availability of housing at rents well below Manhattan market-level…” (Smith, 1400). The urban restructuring and the process of gentrification in Harlem would most likely be advantageous to the developers, landlords, and investors as an economical process. However, on the other side, its movement forced early Harlemites to move out of their homeland and find another affordable place for living.
Moreover, Smith applied the source, “US Department of Commerce 1972, 1983; City of New York, Department of City Planning 1981; Real Estate Board of New York 1985,” into his article to support his argument. In “Table 7.1 Statistical profile of the Central Harlem (New York) population, 1980,” demonstrate a statistic of different social status in Central Harlem and Manhattan. There are “0.5 percentage high-income households ($50,000+)” in Central Harlem and Manhattan have, “8.4 percentage high-income households ($50,000+).” For low-income households that less than $10,000, in Central Harlem, it has “65.5 percentage” and “37.4 percentage” in Manhattan. This showed Harlem was a neighborhood with the highest percentage of low-income household populations and few in high-income. While this community was mostly poverty, most of the tenants have a lower education level. In Central Harlem, there are “5.2 percentage college graduate (adults with 4+ years)” and “33.2 percentage college graduate (adults with 4+ years)” (143). The gentrification of Harlem would most likely affect low-income tenants.
The impoverished residents in Harlem have been affected by gentrification. While the community ground rent level raised, it has increased social mix and displacement through rent and price increase. Shum and Williams interviewed Bailey, a resident of Harlem for over 30 years, explains, the urban renewed plan was a movement to push the individuals in a low-status stander out of their home and replaced with “fancy shops and modernized apartments that once were affordable”(Shum and Williams). The landowners increased the ground rent at a higher price to target the city’s individuals to move into Harlem. “Landlords and businesses have known that these people can pay higher rents and can afford higher prices, so they want to get the lower-income residents out” (Shum and Williams). Harlem landowners increased the community land rent, under the city’s rent cost, to increase the outsiders’ consumer. As the city’s residents are more capable of paying the rent cost in Harlem due to their earning income was higher than Harlem’s tenants with higher education levels. The increase in the value’s property became a problem for the primary tenants in Harlem.
The increase in housing rent cost in Harlem has affected the early Harlemites. Since the residents have the lowest income earned, they would be unable to pay for Harlem’s housing rent cost. Most of the early individuals that live in Harlem were working at a wage “less than $6 an hour” (Shum and Williams). Smith utilizes the sources, “Profile of a winning sealed bidder” 1985 to support his article, stated, “Rehabilitation costs in the mid-1980s were estimated to be more than $135,000 for a medium-sized townhouse, and this requirement a minimum annual household income of between $50,000 and $87,500 for potential renovators” (158). The tenants can’t pay for a medium house unit’s rent because more than half of the early Harlemites have their income below $10,000, and only “262 households in Central Harlem that had an earning income of more than 50,000” (158). Harlem became a place that no longer affordable for the Black- Americans, working-class, and low-income residents or known as a community available for poverty due to the gentrification. “She told us that between 1987 and 1995, over 330,000 homeless people were living in the city shelters, and the number is rising” (Shum and Williams). This transformation has led to an increased rate of homeless due to the high cost of land. Harlem’s potential has bought a shift from affordable housing to loss of affordable housing for the early residents who live in the community.
The idea of the rent gap has influenced Harlem into gentrified and affected the early residents on a disadvantage. Through the period of the Depression, have produces an opportunity for a rent gap process by the capital landlords to start the urban restructuring. In this period, Harlem has increased its potential to go under gentrification. This transformation has affected most of the early Harlemites since Harlem is always a neighborhood for poverty with the highest population of low-income residents and affordable housing. The early tenants were the one who suffers the most under gentrification. As the housing rent increased, most of the individuals ended up displaced on forced them to leave their homeland and look for another neighborhood that can pay for the rent cost. Today Harlem recognizes as a commercial area for real estate with luxury-style housing and a diverse community.
