Has urban gentrification peaked?
After years of rising appeal, tough times are back for American cities, Boston included.
From crime to schools, the bloom is off the rose when it comes to city living, or at least the pioneering brand that involves buying a diamond in the rough on the edge of some poor but up and coming neighborhood. The folks living in the Mandarin Oriental or the Clarendon don't count - that's just living in a luxury bubble with an urban backdrop for some glamor, not real city living.
Still,my hunch is this is not a permanent shift, but economy related, but more on that later.
Here are two starkly different views of where gentrification is headed in the Boston area, culled from the comments section.
Is this the year urban gentrification peaks and starts to ebb? That's what "artiefufkin" noted in this provocative comment from my post last week on predictions for 2012.
I think this may be the year when "de-gentrification" starts to take hold in some areas. I've been hearing accounts of urbanites with young children who are beginning to be spooked by recent waves of home break-ins and killings that have been occurring on the hairy edges of J.P. As the gap between rich and poor continues to widen, I see little reason to believe that these trends will reverse.
But "bynxers" takes a starkly different view. When it comes to gentrification in Boston, we are just getting rolling, he argues.
Boston neighborhoods like JP and South Boston complete their full scale gentrifications as others such as Roslindale, Allston, and parts of East Boston begin their ascent. Boston is literally a decade or two away from nearly being 100% gentrified, as per the plans of the mayoral administration, in the next bubble or upturn- Boston, San Fran and NYC all vie for title of America's most expensive city. As wages do not grow to meet this cost of living increase, the city literally suffers from donut symptoms and only houses the wealthy and those under public subsidy.
OK, here's my take. When the job market rebounds and home and condo values start rising again in Boston's neighborhoods, we will see another surge in gentrification. It just may take a few years.
And, if anything, we will see a similar trend continue in the suburbs, with high home and land prices pushing would-be Wellesley, Hingham and even Medfield buyers into the next towns down the price rung, and so on. With only McMansions getting built, buyers will continue to snap up and remake aging older homes, remaking what had been blue collar towns into white collar enclaves.
