Cherry Neighborhood Projects and Gentrification Issues

[Charlotte_native]

It's also very easy for those who benefit from gentrification financially ( realtors, developers) to say how wonderful it is when they don't have to experience the downside that renters and other longterm residents have to face.

Let us not forget that the property owners selling this property were not forced. This is not eminent domain taking place. They chose to sell. Gentrification arguments always leave out the individuals and families that pocket thousands, often tens of thousands, of dollars by selling their property. I've seen a family cry at a closing table when they sold their home in Wilmore and walked away with $120,000 in cash from the sale. They didn't cry because they were sad, but because they never thought in their life they would have that kind of money. Everyone that is involved in the process of gentrification has their own agenda, on all sides, and focusing on one and being mad about it might ignore the other side that was far from being a victim.

[dubone]

By 'unique fabric' are we referring to a segregated neighborhood with higher crime, lower income, and no economic sustainability?

Were the city leaders, the lending industries, and the federal government underwriters racist in the 1960s, causing problems like the wiping out of Brooklyn? Yes. But how that applies to a black developer putting quality middle class infill on land filled with run down single family homes, I'm not sure.

The fact is, nothing stays the same. People die, people get wealthier, people get poorer, money loses value from inflation, materials and structures lose viability through erosion. You can't truly preserve anything. It either grows or shrinks, gains value or loses value. That is the fact of life. If this neighborhood is expecting to stay the same with an unsustainable economic model, then all it will do is die off and be worse off than it if let people with means move in. The result of the well-intentioned policies of 20-30 years ago, which tried to somehow keep the neighborhood the same, instead caused the neighborhood to fall further behind economically. The residents have lost out on the nest egg that comes with investment in a sustainable neighborhood.

The only way to stay above water is to own and invest. This neighborhood has somehow tried to buck that basic fact of life and economics, and failed. Now this is the only way to convert the neighborhood into something sustainable and diverse and yet it has been stalled.

Nothing stays the same. Setting an unsustainable path for an entire neighborhood is not fair, especially to people who don't understand that it is a fallacy and that they will get burned by it.

[stadtguy]

Dubone makes some excellent points. I too agree that no one class or race should have a monopoly on place. Dynamic places require dynamic change. Voyager states:

The longtime residents of Cherry have valid concerns. Why should they have any confidence that they will get a fair shake when Charlotte has such an abysmal history of protecting historic African American neighborhoods such as Brooklyn?

Market forces, not planners, are driving the change. I find the notion of protecting a "historic African American" neighborhood particularly interesting. I realize that urban renewal bulldozed it, but should we be concerned about protecting historic white neighborhoods (keep the new gentry out) or protecting new Hispanic neighborhoods? I'm not sure if protecting neighborhoods on the basis of race is a good idea.

We need better fair share models of housing and social services to more adequately share the burden of poverty throughout the city. Setting aside entire neighborhoods for special interests will not achieve diversity, if that's what we want.

[voyager12]

Like any other issue gentrification is viewed through whichever side you happen to think is right. I guess I am in the minority here but I don't think this development is going to be a boon to everyone in Cherry. There will be displacement of people from their homes simply because they are poor and just have to get out of the way of "progress". I guess I am not a realist but Charlotte is sorely lacking in historic ethnically identifiable neighborhoods. It would be nice for Cherry to be able to preserve some remnants of it when all is said and done in this project. There is some proactive planning to preserve NoDa's artsy vibe and Cherry should get the same consideration for it's proud heritage.

[Charlotte_native]

Like any other issue gentrification is viewed through whichever side you happen to think is right. I guess I am in the minority here but I don't think this development is going to be a boon to everyone in Cherry. There will be displacement of people from their homes simply because they are poor and just have to get out of the way of "progress". I guess I am not a realist but Charlotte is sorely lacking in historic ethnically identifiable neighborhoods. It would be nice for Cherry to be able to preserve some remnants of it when all is said and done in this project. There is some proactive planning to preserve NoDa's artsy vibe and Cherry should get the same consideration for it's proud heritage.

I agree with you completely, but what you want is very difficult for a myriad of reasons and they are not moreso present in Cherry than any other neighborhood that is seeing massive change. The government is actually pretty powerless to "preserve" Cherry as many wish. They could deny the rezoning, but that just stalls the inevitable. If this project didn't go through, the housing stock there would still likely disappear and be replaced with larger single family homes that fit in the zoning already in place. That would still "displace" the poor. In no way have I implied this is "right" or what "should" happen, I just don't like the media bait being taken so readily that the developer is somehow at fault for this. If not him, it would be someone(s) else. This land is located so close to center city that market forces will make change come. As stated before, the lady who is so upset and all over the news about this IS the problem - she moved there last year -- demand brought her there and now she is against it.

I wonder how many that lament the potential demise of Cherry have actually ever driven through the neighborhood. And not just a quick spin down Torrence Street to cut from Kings to 3rd, but the back streets. The area is in horrible condition and if something doesn't happen soon no one will have to bring in a bulldozer to tear the homes down, they will do just fine in the wind. That doesn't mean I don't think they should be saved, I am a preservationalist to the core, but the history of Cherry doesn't represent the reality of Cherry in 2007.

Edited February 20, 2007 by Charlotte_native

[davidals]

Were the city leaders, the lending industries, the federal government underwriters racist in the 1960s, causing problems like wiping out Brooklyn? Yes. But how that applies to a black developer putting quality middle class infill on land filled with run down single family homes, I'm not sure.

I find the notion of protecting a "historic African American" neighborhood particularly interesting. I realize that urban renewal bulldozed it, but should we be concerned about protecting historic white neighborhoods (keep the new gentry out) or protecting new Hispanic neighborhoods? I'm not sure if protecting neighborhoods on the basis of race is a good idea.

We need better fair share models of housing and social services to more adequately share the burden of poverty throughout the city. Setting aside entire neighborhoods for special interests will not achieve diversity, if that's what we want.

I agree with both of you - two excellent points.

But I think we've also bumped up against a larger issue - people, in general, have long, very long memories, especially when families may have firsthand experience of "the federal government underwriters racist in the 1960s, causing problems like wiping out Brooklyn" - which is the kind of experience that creates resentments that last for generations. I was an infant when Brooklyn was getting bulldozed flat, but I was hearing about it well into adulthood, and ditto for the building of various freeways through W Charlotte - I do remember riding through the razed Greenville when I was young (a maze of alleyways) with my dad, (who also forever referred to Marshall Park as "a damn concrete park"), and he knew and I did (later) that there were problems in that community, but I think it struck him and others as a case of fixing one tragic situation with another. I have plenty of family members who could make good money from land in a few places in W Charlotte who view any suggestion of "redevelopment" as some sort of conspiracy to shaft them, which is a view not born out of logical assessment of the market and market forces, but of an examination of history.

Edited February 21, 2007 by davidals

[BobbyRobert]

This is one of the most thoughtful discussions of gentrification I have ever read (and I have seen a lot). Thank you!

I would like to point out that we need to be careful about what we choose to preserve. Why do we want to maintain Cherry in its current state? Given the amount of wasted space in the neighborhood (best exemplified by its dozens of boarded up houses) something must change, thoughtful development is (IMO) the neighborhoods only hope of survival.

The NoDa example is an informative one, its artsy vibe was manufactured by displacing some of the mill workers who were the first inhabitants of the neighborhood. The selective preservation of the past in NoDa's case allows all of Charlotte to grow beyond the neighborhoods poverty, segregation and paternalism and introduce outsiders to some of the neighborhood's proud heritage. The culture of old North Charlotte would have likely dissapeared entirely if we had left the neighborhood to disintegrate.

There is some proactive planning to preserve NoDa's artsy vibe and Cherry should get the same consideration for it's proud heritage.

Despite my opinion that neighborhood change (aka gentrification) is inevitable (and mostly positive) in a growing urban environment I would much prefer to sit on a bar stool in Pat's Time for One More than listen to another hippie drum circle.

[MZT]

Well now we can see that Cherry residents do have something in common with Dilworth... "no change anywhere for any reason"

I could at least grasp the principle, behind being upset about luxury townhomes. But affordable senior housing? Come on.

[monsoon]

Let's keep in mind how Cherry and Brooklyn formed.

Prior to about 1965 racial discrimination was the norm for Charlotte and it was simply impossible for Blacks to live almost anywhere in Charlotte except for certain designated neighborhoods. For example just behind Cherry is Myers Park and many of the homes there have deed restrictions in them that flatly say the property can't ever be sold to Negros. (of course that was invalidated by the federal govermnent) However the city did need Blacks for the types of jobs they held in those days and Cherry and Brooklyn are where they were directed. However when the White governed city felt it needed some property, most notable Brooklyn, they simply condemned the land and paid the Black owners little for the property. The same thing happened in what is today's Huntersville where land was taken away from a bunch of Black folk so they could flood the area for the Lake. They were given a scrap of land as compensation which today is right in the center of the heavy Exit 25 development. There is the same pressure for them to move out of this traditional Black neighborhood and turn it into development.

There are many many people alive today that remember those days so this is why there is so much controversy.

[Justadude]

It's also worth keeping in mind that Cherry is one of the only "black" neighborhoods in town that would be considered even remotely desirable for upscale development. One of the first things that happens to a black neighborhood when developers start scouting it, is that it turns into a white neighborhood. We've already seen this in NoDa, Fourth Ward and First Ward (to a lesser extent), and will soon see it in Wesley Heights, Wilmore, and so forth. The track record would seem to suggest that the current residents of Cherry will eventually end up in another "segregated" neighborhood on the east or west side of town, where they will no longer have the benefit of skyrocketing property values. This puts the HA in a highly unusual, and very fragile situation.

So I don't blame longtime Cherry residents for feeling like a gambler who doesn't want to play his wild card. It doesn't mean it's the "right" choice from a financial point of view, but the free market isn't the only factor in these decisions. The "fortress mentality" in Cherry is not all that irrational if you consider the prior experiences of the people who live in those houses.

[Charlotte_native]

It's also worth keeping in mind that Cherry is one of the only "black" neighborhoods in town that would be considered even remotely desirable for upscale development. One of the first things that happens to a black neighborhood when developers start scouting it, is that it turns into a white neighborhood. We've already seen this in NoDa, Fourth Ward and First Ward (to a lesser extent), and will soon see it in Wesley Heights, Wilmore, and so forth.

I can introduce you to quite a few middle class black residents in all of these neighborhoods. These comments perpetuate the thought that gentrification = white people. It doesn't. Ask Bobby Drakeford, a black developer, whether all of this clients are white. There are three or four black investors "turning" houses in Wilmore and Wesley Heights -- there are only another 5 or 6 that are white doing the same in the same areas. Two of the largest rental property owners in Wesley Heights live in the neighborhood and are black. Plenty of the new homeowners in all of these neighborhoods are races other than white.

Again, I am not saying any of this is good for Cherry, but don't like seeing this be made a racial issue when really it is an income level issue.

Edited February 22, 2007 by Charlotte_native

[krazeeboi]

I can introduce you to quite a few middle class black residents in all of these neighborhoods. These comments perpetuate the thought that gentrification = white people. It doesn't. Ask Bobby Drakeford, a black developer, whether all of this clients are white. There are three or four black investors "turning" houses in Wilmore and Wesley Heights -- there are only another 5 or 6 that are white doing the same in the same areas. Two of the largest rental property owners in Wesley Heights live in the neighborhood and are black. Plenty of the new homeowners in all of these neighborhoods are races other than white.

Again, I am not saying any of this is good for Cherry, but don't like seeing this be made a racial issue when really it is an income level issue.

All of this may be true now, but historically it hasn't, and we don't live detached from history. In that light, I can understand why there are racial overtones here.

[stadtguy]

This is indeed a great thread. I'm enjoying the comments. I certainly understand the racial overtones, and I understand the pernicious long term effects of the Home Owners Loan Corporation (1934; redlining) and the Housing Act of 1949 (public housing). Part of the problem associated with our unfortunate history stems from the attitudes of "this is our neighborhood" so lets keep others out. Such attitudes explain the growing tension between white rural residents and growing Hispanic residents. The whites want to keep them out because the community belongs to long-term whites.

In Cherry, some of the long term owners who sell will make a nice profit that can be used to fund retirement or buy a newer house in the burbs. The renters will have fewer opportunites, unfortunately. The city could freeze tax assessments on long-term residents who could be displaced by rising property values. Contingencies for affordable rental set asides could be enforced.

I'm not a long term resident of Charlotte, but many suburban locales (like Prosperity Church/Mallard Creek) are becoming havens for middle and upper-income African Americans. Granted, not all will be able to take advantage of these neighborhoods, but homes can be found in the $150-175 range in these neighborhoods that lack the urban chic coolness of Cherry but have modern amenities that many would find appealing.

[Charlotte_native]

This is indeed a great thread. I'm enjoying the comments. I certainly understand the racial overtones, and I understand the pernicious long term effects of the Home Owners Loan Corporation (1934; redlining) and the Housing Act of 1949 (public housing). Part of the problem associated with our unfortunate history stems from the attitudes of "this is our neighborhood" so lets keep others out. Such attitudes explain the growing tension between white rural residents and growing Hispanic residents. The whites want to keep them out because the community belongs to long-term whites.

This is a really good point and something I've always had a hard time with regarding the negative tones of the word gentrification. The implications of it are exactly as you stated, that land or neighborhoods, WHEREVER, belong the current occupants and them alone for eternity. Why is it more fair to say one neighborhood belongs to one race over another. In reality you can only say that one direction -- if you say it for a neighborhood that is changing from mostly white to mostly black, and that African-Americans coming is bad, that is outright racism and redlining, but to hold a black neighborhood out as being "for blacks" it is just fine. We tend to overlook the FACT that everything goes in cycles.

Wilmore is a great example. Built turn of the century for whites. Changed to mostly black in the 60's and 70's, moving back towards mixed with a heavier population of whites. Exactly "who's" neighborhood is this? There is no easy answer. I could name neighborhoods all over Charlotte and we could see the racial and demographics that have swerved all over the place throughout the years...that is just how things are.

When I grew up along Central it was mixed white and black, then we moved near Eastland near mostly white people. Central is now very hispanic and asian, Eastland hispanic. Should I be upset about "white displacement"? I'm not. I hope whoever lives where I used to likes it as much as I did.

Comparing this to Brooklyn and 2nd Ward is completely unfair. That WAS government in action and was intended to move poor blacks out of an area EN MASSE as part of a program and was decades ago. It is horrible that this happened and I doubt our local government would do such a thing again, but it is really not similar to a developer BUYING open market properties to redevelop them.

The real issue is Cherry, once again, is poverty and wasted government money that led it to the state it is in now..

Edited February 22, 2007 by Charlotte_native

[krazeeboi]

Again, you can't view this ahistorically. Due to redlining and racially restrictive covenants and all of that (which, in the grand scheme of things, wasn't all that long ago), Blacks were limited as to where we could live whereas Whites as a group were not; as a result, we have a much more intense attachment to our neighborhoods. Also read what monsoon said about what occurred in Huntersville. That occurred in places all over the nation. So it's natural that residents of these gentrifying neighborhoods, many who actually remember these types of events that occurred, are wary. I don't think concerns over "white displacement" are warranted, as Whites are the dominant group, politically and economically, and have never been disenfranchised as a group.

[BobbyRobert]

I can't speak to NoDa specifically but North Carolina's mill villages (and NoDa was one) were almost entirely white, so I would be surprised if there was a racial component to gentrification in North Davidson. Folks with more knowledge of Charlotte history feel free to correct me.

EDIT: This note refered to a post that has been removed

Edited February 23, 2007 by BobbyRobert

[Charlotte_native]

I can't speak to NoDa specifically but North Carolina's mill villages (and NoDa was one) were almost entirely white, so I would be surprised if there was a racial component to gentrification in North Davidson. Folks with more knowledge of Charlotte history feel free to correct me.

NoDa stayed primarily white through the years, but Belmont (the neighborhood) is a great example of a neighborhood that is primarily black now that was a mill town that was almost all white at one point. Another is the Hoskins / Thomasboro area.

The neighborhoods in Charlotte that were started and remained mostly black through the years until today are Biddleville, Smallwood, the areas around JC Smith, and Cherry. Well, and the now gone Brooklyn and 2nd Ward.

Charlotte was actually pretty integrated in history UNTIL the turn of the century and the introdcution of the auto. Most places were -- you had to live near work. Great book, "Sorting out the New South City: Race, Class and Urban Development in Charlotte 1875 to 1975". It gives a fantastic breakdown of how we lived through the years and how much of our development patterns occured.

[Justadude]

I can't speak to NoDa specifically but North Carolina's mill villages (and NoDa was one) were almost entirely white, so I would be surprised if there was a racial component to gentrification in North Davidson. Folks with more knowledge of Charlotte history feel free to correct me.

Race has probably been less of an issue in NoDa since it began as a white area originally, but it is still definitely noticeable that the neighborhood's "revitalized" areas appear to have a completely different skin tone than the areas which are still basically Tha Hood. All you have to do is go from 36th to 26th, and the difference is pretty obvious. I can't imagine that this kind of disparity goes unnoticed in developing areas like Cherry, where there has long been a strong ethnic identity associated with the neighborhood.

Anyway, the overarching point here is that these residents are going to end up trading their homes in Cherry -- an area that developers are positively drooling over -- for homes in utterly undesirable and unsafe neighborhoods on the east and west sides... or maybe out of town. The earlier post about Wilmore homes being sold for $120,000 (which is enough to buy a low-range house on Eastway, or about half of what that same Wilmore home could sell for in 5 years) is a perfect illustration of how families in developing neighborhoods end up in a lose-lose situation. The residents of Cherry are doing basically the only thing they can do: digging in and slowing down the process of getting screwed over. Of course they are going to end up losing out in the end, because they have no "winning" option. They can either stay in their ghettoized neighborhood, which has been ignored for decades as it decayed from within, or pack up and head to another ghettoized neighborhood while developers make Cherry "The Next Big Thing" in moneymaking. I don't blame them at all for sticking as many monkeywrenches in the process as possible.

Note that there was NO dialogue about trying to help this neighborhood until a developer stood to make a $68 million profit off of buying it out from under its residents.

[BobbyRobert]

Note that there was NO dialogue about trying to help this neighborhood until a developer stood to make a $68 million profit off of buying it out from under its residents.

I am not sure that is fair. Long before UrbanPlanet existed the city and earlier incarnations of Bank of America financed the Cherry neighborhood association to allow it to purchase properties and rent them at subsidized rates. The sale of some of these properties is what we are currently debating. While I suspect that we would all agree this effort failed to maintain the neighborhood in livable condition the association certainly was able to preserve the neighborhood for an additional decade or so. I guess the question we are struggling with is how much effort should we expend to preserve the culture of a neighborhood.

[Justadude]

I guess the question we are struggling with is how much effort should we expend to preserve the culture of a neighborhood.

Point taken about BoA (Nationsbank)'s efforts to keep Cherry alive, even though the presence of a public housing block in the middle of the neighborhood probably doomed their efforts from the get-go.

My post was more in response to accusations of selfishness and corruption among Cherry residents. It seems loony to me that these people are being reamed on account of their reluctance to be steamrolled by development interests.

[Charlotte_native]

My post was more in response to accusations of selfishness and corruption among Cherry residents. It seems loony to me that these people are being reamed on account of their reluctance to be steamrolled by development interests.

I hope none of my posts alluded to this because they shouldn't have. There was definitely corruption the the non-profit that was supposed to take care of the neighborhood homes -- that has been well discussed publically for years. The actual residents have nothing to do with this other than the one or two that ran that association into the ground and somehow mismanaged all the money. The residents are just caught up in all of this.

The only resident I feel is somewhat out of line is the vocal white lady who moved there, she said it herself, last year from University and now b*tches about gentrification. She did what she is trying to stop -- moved in as an outsider due to demand but now wants everyone else to stop.

(by the way, I have no interest in Cherry other than watching all this unfold -- not involved there, don't know anyone that is -- i personally wish it would be saved but realistically can't see how that will happen -- it is so far gone)

Edited February 26, 2007 by Charlotte_native

[Charlotte_native]

The earlier post about Wilmore homes being sold for $120,000 (which is enough to buy a low-range house on Eastway, or about half of what that same Wilmore home could sell for in 5 years) is a perfect illustration of how families in developing neighborhoods end up in a lose-lose situation.

That makes the assumption that they took ALL $120,000 and spent it on one home for cash off Eastway. I have no idea what they did with it, it belonged to them and that was their choice to make, but lets go through a couple scenarios that I believe make this far from a lose/lose.

1) they do use it all to buy a home for cash. They didn't HAVE to go to a ghetto as one could assume or an area that isn't desirable. You can buy a brand now home or townhome all over the city for that. You can buy in many of the neighborhoods around Carolina Place Mall, in University, all over the place off Sardis Road and Sardis Road North, it would take all morning to list the neighborhoods that are far from crime ridden and are within 5 - 7 miles of downtown and have $120,000 homes. (now if they do choose off Eastway, that area so close in just might appreciate due to proximity and they can do this all over again in a few years, take tax-free money from primary residence sale....)

2) they are semi-smart and don't use all the cash to buy their new home and finance it. Even with 20% down a $200,000 home only requires $40,000 down. That leaves a lot of money left over to put even more down to lower payments, buydown an interest rate, set aside for payments, or buy a less expensive home and have more and more left over.

The point I was making about *some*, not all residents leaving these areas is they are receiving what we all hear about -- real estate and most especially your home, can be the single best wealth provider for working folks. If they waste their money and don't use it wisely, that is thier option, but it could be used to get out of the cycle of poverty as well.

Edited February 26, 2007 by Charlotte_native

[cyrusuncc]

Any new news on this project? Does anyone know the estimated time frame for construction?

[dubone]

It was dramatically decreased in scope before rezoning. It is now pretty much just and old folks home. Pretty much not gentrification.

I'm pretty disappointed, because I never saw this as gentrification, but rather economic diversification of the neighborhood. But whatever. I guess for a few more decades, this can be a forgotten spot in the economic boom of the rest of the city, thanks to backward politics (ie. let's help the poor people in the neighborhood by keeping them in a poor neighborhood).

[cyrusuncc]

That sucks! I had high hopes for the neighborhood... i've seen some redevelopment of some houses, but nothing on a large scale...