Shackled to the Market

There Goes the Neighborhood

WNYC Studios and KCRW

History, City, Nyc, The, Nation, Documentary, News, Brooklyn, Gentrification, York, Boroughs, Real, Race, New, Estate, Society & Culture, Business News, Wnyc

4.8 • 543 Ratings

🗓️ 7 November 2017

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

There are lots of ideas out there to address L.A.’s housing crisis. But many proposed solutions bring their own problems. This week we explore some of the most popular ones. One big idea: build. Build on small lots, build next to train stations, build skyscrapers and build townhouses. Mayor Eric Garcetti wants to see 100,000 new homes built in Los Angeles over eight years. Brent Gaisford, director of the advocacy group Abundant Housing, says if we build twice that amount we would still just be “treading water.” He adds, “I would love to see us build 30,000 units a year.” That’s not so easy. Neighborhood opposition has stopped many housing projects already. One big reason: new housing may help the supply and demand imbalance in the long term, but in the short term it often raises prices. Political consultant and Crenshaw-area neighborhood activist Damien Goodmon says, “Even though many of these projects don't require any type of tear down, just the imposition of them, given their scale and the fact it will be priced out well outside the level affordable to local residents, unleashes a wave of gentrification.”

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is Beverly Hills now, okay?
0:05.0	As far as it, I mean, just to cost of living here, it's ridiculous.
0:12.0	It used to be nothing but a swamp when we were kids, not look at it now, God.
0:16.0	This is not just a crisis of affordable and accessible housing.
0:20.0	This is also a crisis of displacement and eviction.
0:23.6	So this is a couple of businessmen, brothers, that are also like known vulture landlords in this neighborhood.
0:35.6	So we wanted to bring attention to that as well.
0:38.3	If you think you might be a gentrifier, don't move into a neighborhood and then complain
0:41.3	about the way that it is, you know, and shop at the local grocery store and don't get upset
0:45.3	because you can't buy this kind of coffee or, you know, can't visit an art gallery.
0:50.3	You know, Los Angeles is a city that is kind of rooted in history and rooted in its communities.
0:58.0	And if you uproot those communities and you uproop those people, you're tearing out the heart of Los Angeles.
1:08.7	There goes the neighborhood.
1:10.4	There goes the neighborhood. There goes the neighborhood. There goes the neighborhood.
1:12.6	There goes the neighborhood.
1:15.6	Tenants, now, uniting on the ground.
1:19.6	Fight gentrification. Keep your family in your house.
1:23.6	Anna, where are we?
1:24.6	We are in the Venice Beach neighborhood on a Saturday morning.
1:28.7	The voices you hear belong to about two dozen people dressed in matching red t-shirts.
1:33.2	My name is Betty Madine, and we are marching with the L.A. Tenants Union, and we're marching against landlord harassment.
1:41.8	This is Days of Rage, a series of demonstrations by the LA Tenants Union.
	...

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