The Diversity of Gentrification: Multiple Forms of Gentrification in Minneapolis and St. Paul
Description
In 2015, there was an impasse in discussing the realities, perceptions and implications of gentrification in the region. CURA partnered with Equity in Place, a coalition of community-based groups, to define research questions that would bring clarity to the conversation and inform the research design. Through a mixed methodological project, we examined the following question:
Do quantitative indices tell us gentrification is happening?
And does resident perception and experience match what the data tell us?
Dr. Brittany Lewis led the framing, data collection and analysis of the qualitative component of the study. Additionally, she designed and executed the policy section of the report which centers the policy imperatives of those community-based organizations doing work to curb the negative effects of gentrification.
Key Findings
The qualitative analysis of the gentrification study had two primary objectives: (1) to assess whether or not our quantitative indices of gentrification match resident perception and (2) to analyze how local residents from a broad range of demographic realities (homeowner, business owner, renter, and long-term residents [10+ years]) are defining, experiencing, and identifying the slow processes of a gentrifying neighborhood. The qualitative research findings highlight the values that are expressed in different views of gentrification and the nature of the debates about gentrification within particular neighborhoods of the region. After providing a review of our qualitative methods, we outline the commonalities found across the five cluster neighborhoods, which are representative of the classic discourses of gentrification. Then we provide an analysis of the narrative distinctions shared by our interview participants across neighborhood clusters to highlight the nuanced realities of gentrification that undoubtedly vary by race, class, and geography even within a larger community.
Impacts
Dr. Brittany Lewis’s research used to successfully win Minnesota Supreme Court case on landlord retaliation
In the Minneapolis Innovation Team’s Evictions in Minneapolis report it states that nearly 93% of the city’s eviction filings were for nonpayment of rent. Similarly, of the 68 tenants who were interviewed in Dr. Lewis’s study, 81% (55) of their evictions were filed for nonpayment of rent. However, Dr. Lewis’s research findings highlighted a need to demystify what nonpayment of rent really means from the perspective of those most impacted. From the perspective of landlords (both nonprofit and for-profit), most stated that because they cannot get the support from local law enforcement to appear in Housing Court, particularly for lease violations, filing nonpayment of rent becomes the easiest way to get rid of “problem tenants.” What is not captured in this analysis and the existing literature, however, are the ways that nonpayment of rent is being used by many to disportionately evade tenants’ rights to be free from retaliation. Two Minnesota laws protect tenants from retaliation by landlords. One applies when a landlord seeks to terminate a tenancy as a penalty for a tenant’s attempt to enforce rights. The other bans retaliatory evictions under the Tenant Remedies Act (TRA).
On August 3, 2018, Dorsey & Whitney, LLP, submitted an amicus curiae (Latin for Friend of the Court; a legal brief submitted on behalf of a party outside of a case that has expertise which may inform the case). On behalf of InquilinXs UnidXs por Justicia (“United Renters”) in support of Aaron Olson to the Minnesota Supreme Court in an appeal. Dr. Brittany Lewis was sought out for her research findings and proceeded to analyze the 38 tenant interviews that had been completed at the time and wrote an official declaration for the amicus curiae.
“This feeling that change was happening to them and that they were not present when important decisions were being made about their neighborhoods was a common theme in our neighborhood cluster interviews.”
In the final section of the gentrification report, we examined the work of 10 Twin Cities community-based organizations. While not an exhaustive or even representative sample of groups working on gentrification issues in the region, the variety and extent of their activities allow for a broad understanding of how community activists are attempting to forestall and/or manage the neighborhood changes that lead to displacement. The work of these organizations expands the scope of what can be considered anti-gentrification work. The policy toolkits that are frequently offered focus primarily on a set of public policies related to affordable housing preservation and development and/or on tenants’ rights. These 10 organizations and their strategies suggest that anti-gentrification work can take on many additional forms. Also, these groups borrow from the policy toolkits that have characterized anti-gentrification work, but they also engage in a range of efforts from community organizing and storytelling to community planning and leadership training that they argue are critical in creating the level of empowerment and access to decision making necessary for gentrification-vulnerable communities to exercise community control.
The groups conceptualize gentrification as taking place along an extended time period characterized by four stages. Each stage suggests its own set of policy interventions, resource redirection, and organizing strategy.
Disinvestment and decline, in which powerful public and private institutions redirect resources away from a community.
Devaluation, in which a “deficit narrative” comes to dominate elite and public discourse about communities that have been subject to disinvestment.
Reinvestment, in which low land values and rents are exploited, housing costs rise, and businesses and cultural institutions may turn over.
Displacement in various forms, in which the loss of affordability pushes out long-term residents and businesses (direct displacement), changes conditions for those who are able to remain (cultural and political displacement), and precludes the entry of new, lower-income households (exclusionary displacement).