Gentrification as an expression of urban extractivism
Gentrification as an expression of urban extractivism
The gentrification process constitutes a clear expression of urban extractivism. This phenomenon occurs when a neighborhood with attractive qualities -as its historical location or architecture -still has a relatively low value. This disconnection between the potential value and the current value occurs due to the lack of investment by the public and private sector. When the area becomes desirable for older income or private investors, there are changes in the housing market. Obviously it is not any areas, but that of sectors of the city that due to its location or by the characteristics of its immobiliar park are attractive to real estate developments. These processes promote the displacement of the low -income sectors and their replacement by others of higher income, with the capacity to deal with the increases in the prices of the properties and the rents that the same process triggers, generating a change in the demographic characteristics of the neighborhood.
Gentrification and displacement have changed the character of urban neighborhoods in cities worldwide. The average or intermediate cities in Mexico, which have been characterized since the 1990s because they are the new urban centers with the highest demographic growth (Aguilar, 2009), have not escaped the challenges that this growth and changes produce. One of the most challenging themes has been the issue of the gentrification of neighborhoods located in central areas. In the last two decades, these neighborhoods have seen important public and private investments, increases in housing prices and changes in the demographic and economic profile of residents, changes that have resulted in displacement (voluntary and involuntary) of the residents of low income and small service businesses. Investing in the improvement of a neighborhood can have advantages, such as the improvement of the quality of life of current residents; However, this can also make the neighborhood more attractive and create an increase in income and property values.
This return by the highest income groups is mediated by the real estate promoter. While in its early stages, gentrification usually consists of small specific groups of medium and high strata families linked to the artistic field or cultural production that they have decided individually to move to a devalued area, very soon the trend is collected by the real estate developer. This executes higher -scale projects in the sector taking advantage of the “rental gap”, or difference between what the land income and what could potentially rent if it would be released from its current use (Smith, 1996).
Gentrification has, then, a “class” dimension, consisting that an area is invaded by “better payers” of the soil, and another relative to displacement, consisting of the fact that such invasion installs in the area a structural force of displacement of the “ Worst payers ”, including original residents and people of similar income who would like to move there. The displacement of this demographic sector is undoubtedly a negative effect from the point of view of integration and social cohesion. The rise in the value of the properties can make it impossible for the new popular extraction homes that are formed in the place to find housing there. Precisely, the capitalization of the “rental gap” and the consequent rise in the prices of the properties constitute the economic support of the gentrification and, therefore, they are consubstantial, although their effects are not immediate.
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