Loading ...I’m frequently seeing the word “gentrification” employed to describe the demographic change taking place in Somerville since the late 1990s. We’re certainly seeing changes, but I question how much of it is gentrification.
When the term came into general use it described a revival of old and run-down neighborhoods by well-to-do newcomers. Back Bay and the South End of Boston underwent tremendous changes of this sort in the 1970s and 1980s. In the heyday of suburbia after World War II, the well-to-do stayed out of many urban neighborhoods, which as a consequence were affordable. But by 1970 there was a revival of appreciation for urban Victorian architecture. Unloved old townhouses were bought by urban homesteaders, who recognized their solidity and beauty and began putting in the money to maintain them well—with predictable implications for low-income tenants.
What we’re seeing in Somerville is different. Unlike the brick townhouses in the South End, which remain graceful even when they’re completely derelict, the wood-frame, two-family houses around here are not architectural treasures. This is not to say that, with some effort, the typical turn-of-the century, development houses in Somerville couldn’t be made attractive. But people who move here aren’t doing so because they’re charmed by the housing stock. They move here because there’s a regional housing shortage, and Somerville remains affordable relative to Cambridge and Boston. Mostly young people—because the apartments are on the small side—they’re not happy about the enormous mortgages they’ve been forced to take on, but they have had little choice.
For the typical two-family house, one obvious way to cover a big mortgage is to raise the rent on the second unit, but, at least in my immediate neighborhood in Ward 5, the rental population was fairly transient, often comprising students and young, working singles with no particular intention to stay put in Somerville. So, contrary to what you might expect, dislocation of long-term renters has not been common here. Changes were no doubt different where the rental population was different.
Instead, what I have seen has been a sort of reverse gentrification as old Somerville families moved out. The generations that had grown up eight-to-a-bathroom were no longer willing to live that way, so they abandoned their homes to the grandparents or rented them out to students. These were almost all owner-occupied houses that had been freed of mortgages for some generations, so initially there was no hurry to sell. But as prices went steadily up, there was nothing to keep the owners from cashing in.
One of our neighbors decided to live full-time at what had been a summer house in Hull. Another, an energetic widow in her eighties who had lived in the same house since her twenties, was strong-armed by her daughters to move to Burlington where they could keep a closer eye on her. She told me, with a hint of mirth in her eyes, “My grandson wants to buy the house, but I don’t think he can afford it!” Her grandson eventually paid rather handsomely for the house, which he fixed up—not so he could move in himself, but to keep it as an investment. He has two rental units, one occupied by students, another by a single, professional, mother.
In other cases Somerville’s desirability to the buyer was coupled with the seller’s dissatisfaction with the city. One long-term resident commented, as she put her house on the market, that she and her daughter had gone to Somerville High, but now her grandson was ready for high school and, “I’m not going to put him through what I went through.” Her family moved to New Hampshire.
And so on. This end of the street has certainly seen an exodus of long-time residents, but I know of no case in which an old Somerville family was forced to move out by rising rents, taxes, or housing prices. One local activist has argued that they were forced to move out because the deals were too good for them to refuse! That interpretation is both forced and untrue. The younger generations of these families had moved out before the prices started going up, and they weren’t planning to come back. The older generations, when they were ready to settle into their final retirement, chose places they thought were more comfortable or more suitable for their needs.
It’s misleading to call this process gentrification when, in fact, those leaving the city were pretty much as well off as those coming in. The main difference between the two groups is the level of debt: those departing had little, those coming in have a great deal. The main beneficiaries in this process have been the expatriates, the developers, and the real estate agencies. The losers, arguably, are newcomers saddled with large mortgages, and renters who end up having to subsidize those mortgages.
Some of the agitation we’re hearing about gentrification is at least partly what might be called bahniephobia. While factory jobs have all but vanished from Somerville, Harvard, M.I.T., and Tufts have been growing impressively, and so has the need for housing by students, faculty, and staff at these universities, with all the attendant town/gown tensions. We’re lucky to have these problems. Think about what it’s like for residents of Detroit, where factory jobs have vanished and there has been nothing to replace them.
Posted in Housing
April 5th, 2008 at 12:22 pm
I am just not sure that what Jonathan observed in Ward 5 was true all over the city. I would be interested if anyone could give any data on long-term renters leaving Somerville. I think there might be more than he suggests.
Also, I’m not sure that “those leaving the city were pretty much as well off as those coming in.” Perhaps in sheer net worth. The sellers tended to be cash-poor and house-rich, I think, and the buyers the other way around. So, the net effect was to bring in people who would spend more not only on housing but on restaurants and cafes and acupuncture and massage. This is what Somerville calls “gentrification.” You might quibble with the term, but it’s an actual fault line that divides the community.
Given all that, I think Jonathan is right that old-timers who stayed have a beef with old-timers who sold out, at least as much as with newcomers. By definition, though, if you sold and moved to Billerica, you’re not around to yell at any more. People express their frustration where and when they can.
April 27th, 2008 at 8:49 am
In 1950 or so, Somerville was 120,000 people, many of whom worked with their hands in the Ford plant and the factories of East and North Cambridge, and, until they were torn up or paved over, got to work on trolleys. Somerville is now 77,478 (with a median house value of $453,200 in 2005, up from $214,100 only five years earlier). Another alternative term for gentrification is speculation.
In the last six years the Somerville schools have lost 20% of their enrollment, yet there has not been a serious decline in staffing. And, although the poverty rate in the city is 17%, it’s 64.9% in the public schools.
Gentrification is not merely “us” vs. “them,” its a change in both categories. The city is now at approximate parity between new rich, new immigrant, and old Somerville (at various ages each). About half the newcomers are very poor with lots of kids, and the other half relatively rich with few or no kids.
And it is not merely a matter of markets. It’s a matter of profit taking at the expense of social stability. Some of that is very, very positive, since, when the city was a true backwater, it was astoundingly corrupt, with very little turnover in politics and lots and lots of profit taking from the few newcomers who dared challenge the balance.
Yet it has already crossed many bounds where the balance might be retained. The sharp and recent decline in the school populations is NOT because of charter or private schools, which are stable and small or, in parochial school circles, evaporating quite quickly. The decline reflects empty-nesters and older residents, a specific influx of non-parenting families (straight and gay, incidentally), and the slow but constant growth of a rental market exploiting student density and tolerance of more and more of that density.
And while it might be nice to contrast Somerville to Detroit, it is very, very unfortunate to compare this city to Cambridge, where that balance of Yuppies has sacrificed diversity to an altar of Newton chumminess.
April 27th, 2008 at 10:47 am
Joeb - well said, but how do you translate it into terms that “inevitable market pressure” fans will understand? How can you explain that social stability is desirable no matter how well-off you are? What direct benefits accrue to the fortunate in a diverse socioeconomic mix? What’s an example of a place overpopulated and then abandoned by successful folks, and on the grounds of what consequences?
April 27th, 2008 at 2:48 pm
It hasn’t been my observation that those who have moved out of my neighborhood were cash poor. To the contrary, if there was a trend it was financially successful people from old Somerville families moving to wealthier communities, including Burlington, Lexington, and Andover. (Interestingly, I don’t know of anyone moving to Cambridge!) And I hope no one believes that the rise in the value of housing in Somerville means that those who now own here are richer. Their mortgage holders are richer, to be sure. The rich don’t typically move to Somerville.
I also hope that no one really thinks that recent middle-class (as opposed to immigrant) arrivals somehow fail to value social stability. Values have nothing to do with it. Jobs have everything to do with it. Municipal (as opposed to state) funding of school systems probably also has a lot to do with it, if we’re going to talk about the loss of socioeconomic diversity.
If we need a scapegoat in this situation (and it’s the sometimes mean-spirited attempt to scapegoat newcomers that I’m trying to address), it should probably be the Federal government. After often disastrous attempts to create affordable housing by subsidizing private developers, the U.S. at this point has pretty much abandoned the attempt to create affordable housing. I hope we are at ebb tide in that regard.
In our present situation only speculation (and please, I am not a “fan” of market forces) is going to stoke a supply of housing that might eventually lead to a relaxation in housing costs. Yep, it’s ugly. But it’s not particularly the fault of yuppies, except when they vote for Republican administrations.