Gentrification "Cleans" Minority Neighborhoods

Jaylen Ragudos

Introduction

        For the final project, I wanted to incorporate a sense of urgency and come up with a topic that is very prevalent in an area that is close to home, or for some, in the proximity of the school we are all attending. Seattle is a bustling city, surging with many technological jobs and major corporations, where expansion in certain areas are almost a given at this point in time. Coming from a family of immigrants, we lived in South Seattle, Rainier, where most of the minorities in the city inhabit. For the past 10 years, I would see small businesses and homes in my neighborhood slowly get demolished one by one, as well as the homeless population steadily getting larger and larger. The neighborhood I once knew as a child is slowly being erased and individuals are being pushed out of their neighborhoods that they once called home. After hearing about the final project for this course, I knew I wanted to do something pertaining to my home, which many individuals who attend our university should know. Gentrification is sweeping a community of minorities and although, makes a neighborhood look “nicer”, the action itself contributes to the climate crisis in a way that is subtle to the individuals who are not affected. Coming from a neighborhood that has slowly been gentrified over the course of my lifetime, I simply cannot ignore the effects.

        Not many people associate Gentrification and Climate Climate change together because we are all so desensitized to urban expansion and consumerism. Gentrification is a process of urban development where wealthier individuals or groups move into a previously lower-income neighborhood, often leading to changes of the affected area’s culture and socioeconomic makeup. This typically leads to increased property values, improved infrastructure, but also leads to the displacement of lower-income residents who have inhabited the area for generations. For instance, gentrification in an urban setting leads to increased construction and development, which is a contributor to the pollution of the atmosphere and environmental changes. Also, the displacement of the lower-income individuals of the area may push them to areas with higher environmental risk, rendering them susceptible to climate change impacts. The urban planning decisions are not always progressive either, as they may influence infrastructure choices that may worsen climate-related challenges.

Correlation to Chemical Valley

        One of the readings from class that jump started my idea for my project was the Chemical Valley portion by Jessica Mulvogue of The Routledge Companion to Contemporary Art, Visual Culture, and Climate Change edited by T.J Demos, Emily Eliza Scott, and Subhankar Banerjee. Specifically, the following quote from page 56, talking about a documentary called Indian Givers.

“As such the documentary frames Chemical Valley as just one symptom of a long history of racist, violent colonial practices and attitudes. The recurring image of barbed-wire fences in the opening shots speaks not only to the private land status of and potential dangers involved with entering the area of chemical plants but also to the entrapment of the indigenous community in this area. It illustrates their lack of power in the face of a force whose central node of power no one seems able to locate”

I see gentrification no different than this excerpt from the Chemical Valley reading. Although the minorities in these neighborhoods that are being gentrified are not surrounded by chemicals as extreme as the conditions of chemical valley, they are being pushed out of their homes and onto the streets. Individuals whose homes are next to construction sites, as one of the photos in my series, must endure the fumes of chemicals and fossil fuels until the building process is over. If you were to look at the historical redlines of Seattle, the south side of Seattle was the only place where minorities were able to afford housing and were allowed to live. Fast forward to now, these individuals who have lived here their whole lives are being pushed out, some with nowhere to go. They try to find places to live on the streets but are also being pushed out of those places with fences to keep them from setting up camp.

Redlining in Seattle, 10/29/21, Doug Honig

The areas that are marked in red are Hazardous and the ones labeled with an E mark the industrial areas. South Seattle, where most of the minorities inhabit the city, is labeled Hazardous and Industrial, yet these are the areas where the minorities were allowed to live and were able to afford housing. These chemical areas which were inhabited by the minorities for decades, are now being slowly gentrified now that the area is not seen as hazardous anymore. It is similar to what happens often to the Indigenous communities by the injustice of systemic wealth.

Rise of Living Costs in Seattle

These individuals don’t receive as many resources and people don’t seem to care. The cost of living in Seattle is continuously going up and many people are struggling to afford to live here and are having to work multiple jobs to survive. In an article by Seattle Times, You’re not imagining it — costs in Seattle rose faster than San Francisco, it is stated that:

“In the last three years, costs in the Seattle metro area climbed over 20%. Before the pandemic, it took nine years for costs to grow that much, according to a Seattle Times analysis of Consumer Price Index data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Inflation in Seattle was higher than the average rate, 18%, recorded across U.S. cities in the same period. Meanwhile, wages in the Seattle area grew just 16% after dropping significantly at the start of the pandemic, an analysis of federal data showed. While most professions saw incomes recover and surpass pre-pandemic levels, wages in leisure, hospitality, government and other services have yet to recover from the downturn.”

I’ve experienced this firsthand, as I have lived in Seattle my whole life and I’ve been working at a grocery store for the past three years. I have witnessed the cost of basic necessities at the store rise at exponential rates over time. One of the photos I have captured in my project, of a local vegetable grocery store called MacPherson's Fruit and Produce, was open for decades, but had to close down due to the rising costs of staying open while continuing to sell their produce at a reasonable cost.

Integrating Rifkin

Another one of the readings from this course that heavily influenced my inspiration for the project was Rifkin’s The Age of Resilience. He provides an interesting perspective on how political, economic and cultural effects of the people around the world should shift from an economy based on efficiency to one based on resilience. Although he presents points that are in support of the capitalist society and how we should adapt, I would say that the individuals inhabiting areas that are targets of gentrification, have learned to be resilient and adapt to their environment.

“With this comes fresh thinking about the nature of governance and how we see ourselves as a social organism. In the Age of Resilience, governance transitions from sovereignty over natural resources to stewardship of regional ecosystems. Bioregional governance, for its part, becomes far more distributed, with local communities taking on the responsibility of adapting to and stewarding their nineteen kilometers of the Earth’s biosphere that encompass the lithosphere, hydrosphere, and atmosphere– the region of Earth where life unfolds.

In this very different world where we break down the walls between civilization and naturalization, representative democracy, long held in high regard as the fairest and most inclusive governing model, is perceived as increasingly removed from the hands-on engagement with nature required of every member of our species.” (Page 5, Paragraphs 3, 4) The Age of Resilience by Jeremy Rifkin.

As I have stated earlier in this paper, low income communities are the targets of gentrification in Seattle, and those communities when historically redlined were labeled as hazardous and industrial areas. The local communities present in the south end of Seattle came together and adapted to the toxic environment until it was no longer seen as a hazardous place to live. However, the minorities in these areas that adapted to the toxic living conditions of these areas and were able to thrive are now being displaced. The area no longer “hazardous”, is now being torn with constant construction emitting fossil fuels and toxins that erupt from constructing new buildings, making these communities “hazardous” again in a sense. The individuals thrown into the streets are forced to endure the effects of these environmental changes, as well as the effects of the climate crisis. There are hotter summers and colder winters. These individuals resort to starting fires in order to stay warm and survive the winters that are gradually getting colder and colder each year. These fires emit more carbon monoxide into the atmosphere. In one of the photos I captured in my project, there was an abandoned strip mall that was set on fire recently “suspects and reasoning unknown”. The abandoned strip mall has a large homeless population that is spread out around its vicinity, and the day of the fire was very cold. The firefighters waited until the whole building burned down before putting the fire out.

        From Rifkin’s other book, The Zero Marginal Cost Society, I was also inspired by one of the paragraphs from the assigned reading we had for the course. In the section labeled The Eclipse of Capitalism, there was a paragraph that touched on how marketability is heavily emphasized in our society and it basically defines us.

“Capitalism’s raison d’etre is to bring every aspect of human life into the economic arena, where it is transformed into a commodity to be exchanged as property in the marketplace. Very little of the human endeavor has been spared this transformation. The food we eat, the water we drink, the artifacts we make and use, the social relationships we engage in, the ideas we bring forth, the time we expend, and even the DNA that determines so much of who we are have all been thrown into the capitalist cauldron, where they are reorganized, assigned a price, and delivered to the market. Through most of history, markets were occasional meeting places where goods were exchanged. Today, virtually every aspect of our daily lives is connected in some way to commercial exchanges. The market defines us.” (Page 8, Paragraph 2)

When you think about gentrification in a way that pertains to this quote, the individuals who are higher on the socioeconomic ladder see these neighborhoods as an opportunity to make these places marketable to individuals who move here for the high paying corporate jobs. “Cleaning up” an area and building apartment complexes and condominiums on plots of land that used to be inhabited by minorities and their local businesses. In this instance, however, minorities are being displaced, cost of living rises, the neighborhood is renovated to look more marketable and people who find the area attractive move into the area. The market truly does define us.

Similar Art Pieces

Don’t Gentrify East New York, by Doug Chayka, Illustration

One of my art inspirations for this project was Don't gentrify East New York by Doug Chayka. Doug Chayka is a famous illustrator who has illustrated several picture books, including Four Feet, Two Sandals, chosen as a Notable Social Studies Trade Book for Young People and a Notable Book for a Global Society. Here you see the hand of a minority trying to stop the apartment buildings from expanding into their neighborhood. This piece really stuck out to me when I was researching pieces of art that relate to gentrification because it is similar to what we can see happening in Seattle. I also feel as if art is the best medium to address the topic of gentrifying neighborhoods, especially those full of minorities. A lot of the minorities that inhabit these areas have no other way to speak out verbally against the issues impacting them so many of them resort to art. The communities themselves are art, and the issue of gentrification is not only impacting the climate that they must live in, but it is snuffing out the art that the community altogether is. There is nothing artistically beautiful about a box shaped condominium or apartment complex. These neighborhoods that are full of culture are truly artistically beautiful and they are being dissolved by individuals of higher socioeconomic status who want to profit off of the dissolution of a community by attracting others of higher socioeconomic status to inhabit the area. I see it as no different from colonialism, as a group of “higher status” is taking control of a bustling community of minorities, making it into their own land.

            Image taken by Vanishing Seattle, Untitled, 11/12/23

I also was inspired by a website called Vanishing Seattle, which is a media movement group dedicated to documenting the displaced and disappearing institutions, small businesses, and cultures of Seattle due to development and gentrification, celebrating the places and communities that give the city life. This particular photo inspired me to take photos on Rainier for my project because this restaurant was on Rainier, across the street from the high school I attended. The caption of the photo is:

“After 30 years, Viengthong Lao Restaurant announced yesterday that November 12 would be their last day open.”

This restaurant was one of the staples of the community and it is now gone, under construction to be replaced by something else. When I saw that this restaurant was being closed down, I thought about my route to UW, as I drove through Rainier, and I realized that the whole strip leading from my high school all the way to the International District is full of construction sites and there is no more life. The whole strip is dark because most of the businesses have been demolished or set on fire, and all that inhabits the street are unfinished construction sites.

Soufend Dissipation Photo Series

Below I will compile the series of images that I had captured for this project, but first I will talk about what I did and why I chose this location. I walked around the neighborhood where I grew up in South Seattle and took photos of places that depict how desolate and polluted the area is. I focused on shooting landscape photos of the area, apartment complexes next to houses, never ending construction, litter, and closed businesses. I wanted to take these photos in order to garner more attention and show that our immediate environment is being affected right now. This is happening in our city, and hopefully others will see the dissolution of a neighborhood that was once full of life.

Through my images, I am hoping to instill a sense of urgency. This is happening right now, in our city. Gentrification and the Climate Crisis go hand in hand, but no one thinks about the years of construction and pollutants being released into the air during this process. They only think about the final product, how the desolate looking area after the buildings have been demolished will look after construction is finished.

Resources

• About Vanishing Seattle. Vanishing Seattle. (2016). https://www.vanishingseattle.org/about
• Demos, T. J., Emily Eliza Scott, and Rose Simpson. “‘With Applied Creativity, We Can Heal.’” The Routledge Companion to Contemporary Art, Visual Culture, and Climate Change, 2021, 311–21.
• Demsas, Jerusalem. “In Defense of the ‘Gentrification Building.’” Vox, 10 Sept. 2021, www.vox.com/22650806/gentrification-affordable-housing-low-income-housing.
• Jessica Mulvogue “ART OF THE INTERREGNUM IN CANADA’S CHEMICAL VALLEY” in Demos et al. Routledge Companion to Contemporary Art, Visual Culture, and Climate Change
• Low‐carbon gentrification: When climate change encounters residential ... (n.d.). https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1468-2427.12634
• Redlining in Seattle. (n.d.). https://www.historylink.org/file/21296
• Rifkin, Jeremy. The age of resilience: Reimagining existence on a Rewilding Earth. Swift Press, 2023.
• Rifkin, J. (2015). The Zero marginal cost society: The internet of things, the Collaborative Commons, and the eclipse of Capitalism. Palgrave Macmillan.
• Saldanha, A. (2023, June 22). You’re not imagining it - costs in Seattle rose faster than San Francisco. The Seattle Times. https://www.seattletimes.com/business/youre-not-imagining-it-life-in-seattle-costs-the-same-as-san-francisco/
• “The Scales of Gentrification.” American Planning Association, www.planning.org/planning/2018/dec/scalesofgentrification/. Accessed 7 Dec. 2023.