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Gentrification In The City

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Currently, policymakers are mostly concerned with the economic impacts a policy will have. While economic factors are important when evaluating and analyzing policies, there needs to be more of an emphasis on the social impacts policies have, especially when it comes to community development policies. Although it is not the only issue with currently popular community development policies, gentrification is one of the most problematic and enlightening conflicts of our time. The core issue with gentrification is it does not benefit the people who are most marginalized in the city. One can argue it improves neighborhoods by bringing business development, improving housing, and increasing median incomes, but these benefits do nothing to help the …show more content…

Young (1990) emphasizes how corporations have considerable control over the city government currently, but the government should make it a goal and priority to listen to the voices of residents, too. This ties into prioritizing social impact, in addition to economic impact. Although partnering with corporations can economically benefit the city, it also comes at a social cost that oftentimes mostly impacts the most marginalized. Aronstein (1969) developed “a ladder of citizen participation,” which emphasizes the need for citizen power in citizen participation, and not just tokenization. Under tokenization, citizens may participate, but “they lack the power to insure that their views will be heeded by the powerful.” Instead, citizens should have actual power in policy decision-making. These levels of citizen power include partnerships, which “enables them to negotiate and engage in trade-offs with traditional power holders,” as well as delegated power and citizen control, which allow “have-not citizens [to] obtain the majority of decision-making seats, or full managerial power.” Full citizen control may be too radical and is most likely not necessary, but allowing citizens have more power than they do currently by working in partnership with them is a reasonable goal for the city government to aim for. This will …show more content…

The government cannot keep ignoring the disproportionately negative impact on marginalized groups and disadvantaged neighborhoods that the current strategy has had. Policies should aim to benefit the most disadvantaged, which will require the government to implement equity over equality. Policies will need to acknowledge differences between different groups and people. In addition, community development policies should increase citizen participation, which will make the city more a collective right for everyone, instead of just for the powerful and wealthy. These goals will help steer the community development strategy away from issues such as gentrification that ignore the needs of the marginalized, and will instead focus specifically on helping those who need help the most. This does not mean policymakers need to disregard economic impact entirely in policy analysis, but they should also recognize social impact and focus on the economic impact for the most disadvantaged communities in the

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