Booked on Planning

The Misunderstood History of Gentrification

• Booked on Planning • Season 3 • Episode 15

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In this episode, author Dennis Gale introduces us to the concept of embryonic gentrification, a nuanced and early version of gentrification as we know it driven by individual homeowners and market forces that existed before the corporate-dominated gentrification of the 1980s. We explore how this earlier form of neighborhood transformation focused on building renovations rather than new constructions, and how it managed to attract new residents while minimizing displacement.

Discover the unexpected allure of historic neighborhoods in cities like DC, New York, and Boston. Dennis sheds light on why these areas, with their rich architectural heritage and nostalgic charm, became prime targets for early gentrifiers. We delve into the rise of the national historic preservation movement and its role in shaping urban landscapes, making them appealing to those seeking shorter commutes and vibrant, diverse living environments. As we transition to the 1980s and beyond, we discuss how advanced gentrification attracted a broader demographic, contributing to the urban revival narrative while raising new challenges.

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Stephanie Rouse:

This episode is brought to you by Confluence. Confluence is a professional consulting firm comprised of landscape architects, urban designers and planners. Their staff of 70 plus includes 39 licensed landscape architects and AICP certified planners. Confluence is comprised of energetic, creative and passionate people who are involved in making our communities better places to live. They assist clients on a wide range of public, educational, institutional and private sector projects. You're listening to the Booked on Planning podcast, a project of the Nebraska chapter of the American Planning Association. In each episode, we dive into how cities function by talking with authors on housing, transportation and everything in between. Join us as we get Booked on Planning. Welcome back, bookworms, to another episode of Booked On Planning. In this episode, we talk with author Dennis Gale on his book the Misunderstood History of Gentrification, people Planning, preservation and Urban Renewal from 1915 to 2020.

Jennifer Hiatt:

A quick note for our listeners. I was actually in the Denver International Airport when we recorded, so you may hear some background noise from time to time, but I promise it isn't really that distracting. I actually started reading this book in an airport, so it felt very apropos to record the episode in one too. It was a great conversation with Dennis about the origins of gentrification and how it started long before you might think.

Stephanie Rouse:

I, along with many of our listeners, I'm sure, probably assume gentrification is a recent phenomenon because no one's ever really talked about early forms before the term was really coined in the 60s. But Dennis documents several scenarios, dating 50 plus years before the term came into existence, of a less destructive version of gentrification called embryonic gentrification.

Jennifer Hiatt:

I appreciated Dennis's take on the difference between natural neighborhood turnover and embryonic gentrification. I think he makes an important point that we don't have a good definition for gentrification and that is why it kind of is hard to have a genuine conversation.

Stephanie Rouse:

As planners, it's challenging to manage our work in such a way to improve conditions for communities we serve while also protecting the residents in gentrifying neighborhoods. Dennis has a lot of interesting ideas on how to capitalize on the private market investments to ensure existing residents aren't pushed out.

Jennifer Hiatt:

Let's get into our conversation with author Dennis Gale on his book the Misunderstood History of Gentrification.

Stephanie Rouse:

Well, dennis, thank you for joining us on Booked on Planning to talk about your book the Misunderstood History of Gentrification, people Planning, preservation and Urban Renewal from 1915 to 2020. Your book introduces the idea of embryonic gentrification and distinguishes it from advanced gentrification, which I believe most of our listeners think of today when they think of gentrification. What's the difference between the two?

Dennis Gale:

From about a century ago. Back in the teens through the 1950s, what later became known as gentrification was overwhelmingly driven by market forces and actions by individual homebuyers. Governments, banks, corporate real estate developers and so forth had relatively little involvement in inner-city investment and so forth had relatively little involvement in inner city investment. Overwhelmingly, embryonic gentrification involved the renovation and restoration of existing buildings rather than new construction. That's an important distinction which we'll talk about a little bit more in a minute. But renovation of existing buildings rather than new construction on vacant land rather than new construction on vacant land. Much renovation was DIY, do-it-yourself, done by the gentry newcomers themselves, by small home improvement businesses. Embryonic gentrification was a very fragmented, uncoordinated process. That's very important. That goes on for quite a few years and then somewhere, let's say around the 1980s, we began to see a shift in attitudes about gentrification. Investors and developers were gaining confidence in the nation's urban centers. Federal, state and local governments were more receptive to investing capital in older neighborhoods. Embryonic gentrification was in part responsible for this. It provided a model or paradigm that raised hopes for reversing neighborhood deterioration. So corporate entities, real estate investment trusts and the like began investing in neighborhoods showing signs of embryonic gentrification. They reasoned that if there were lots of younger households willing to live in older buildings, then there were others that would buy or rent in new buildings in those neighborhoods. So advanced gentrification also attracted professional real estate people, and these large-scale investors and the new actors were now willing to take the greater risk of building new housing and other structures in formerly declining neighborhoods. They did not limit themselves simply to rehabbing existing architecture. That's, I think, an important distinction.

Dennis Gale:

And if you look at the record, the federal government enacted a series of new urban programs, mainly in the 70s and 80s. They did away with urban renewal, replaced it with community development block grants, which gave much more flexibility in terms of how federal money could be invested. And the Urban Development Action Grant Program, or UDAG as it was called, was another one that generated millions and millions of dollars. But these programs literally allowed renovation or new construction. They were much more flexible than the old Urban Renewal Program.

Dennis Gale:

So you begin to see things like festival marketplaces, downtown shopping malls, sports facilities, museums, galleries, aquariums, railroad station reuse, et cetera, et cetera. These other projects, these other types of projects ushered in a period that I call advanced gentrification. In other words, it was a much more expansive, much more corporatized and somewhat more coordinated set of activities to revitalize old inner city areas than embryonic gentrification. Think of embryonic gentrification as sort of the tutor, the teacher, you know, to the bigwigs and the power, money and so forth, and think of advanced gentrification as OK, we're going to join your club and become part of it. So I think that's the important thing to keep in mind.

Jennifer Hiatt:

First I have to apologize. I'm actually sitting in the Denver International Airport, so if my audio is a little bad, listeners everybody. I'm sorry, but neighborhoods tend to have a natural cycle of aging and revitalization and I'm seeing in my neighborhood now as an older neighbors move away and younger families are moving in and renovating portions of those homes to suit their needs. So how would you distinguish embryonic gentrification from that natural turnover?

Dennis Gale:

Okay, good question. Gentrification tends to progress more rapidly once it appears in a given neighborhood than does conventional housing turnover. That's the first thing to keep in mind. You know, you'll see indications of that if you walk around a neighborhood. Just drive around a neighborhood, you can see this. This more rapid pace of residential mobility can exceed the slower rate of natural turnover. In other words, gentrification is a kind of a speeding it up and acceleration of residential mobility turnover that's the critical thing, sort of, instead of a steady stasis where newcomers replace longer-term residents at a rate that benefits both groups, as is the case usually in natural turnover. With gentrification newcomers move in in large numbers in relatively small periods of time, so natural turnover rates are threatened, resulting in a greater likelihood of housing displacement. Also, embryonic gentrification involves much more what would we say, homeowner renovation activity than natural turnover.

Stephanie Rouse:

And you've already kind of made the case that gentrification is not a recent phenomenon, despite the media's reporting on it lately, that it's something that's just come about in the 70s and 80s. Why is it important to understand the longer history of gentrification?

Dennis Gale:

ago in public gatherings. Here's a key fact that too many people today are unaware of. Over the early and mid-20th century there was a prevailing attitude among economists, investors, real estate actors and many planners and architects about older urban neighborhoods. They believe that older neighborhoods quote-unquote naturally deteriorate physically as they age. As that happens, they thought, property loses economic value. It becomes a bad on it.

Dennis Gale:

In fact, the multi-billion dollar federal urban redevelopment program came into being in 1949 as a way to try to overcome this presumption about the limits of investing in older urban neighborhoods. But Congress was under a lot of pressure when they passed the program in 1949. And Congress members believed that rehabilitating property was doomed to failure. So they said we will mandate that federal funds be used only for the demolition and clearance of what were termed quote unquote slums and the construction of new public infrastructure. So if cities wanted new housing, for example, they had to be financed with non-federal dollars. The federal government wouldn't pay for new construction. Developers had to do that. So that was a critical thing in terms of that program and its first couple of years, the urban redevelopment program.

Dennis Gale:

What happened after that in the 1950s was that many city halls started protesting and saying hey, washington. You know this is too limited. It's too expensive to tear down and rebuild. We have to add new infrastructure when we do that, you know new sewers and so forth and so on. So it became a very hot topic and what happened was that Congress amended the program to permit small amounts of building rehabilitation, especially for those deemed of historic value. Rehabilitation, especially for those deemed of historic value. Coincidentally, by the 1960s and 1970s, the post-war baby boom population bulge reach the household formation stage. Thousands of young adults turned their backs on suburban living. Instead they sought city homes convenient to work, entertainment and cultural diversity. Embryonic gentrification thus was a stimulus to changes in national policy regarding the rebuilding of cities. As public and private confidence in older neighborhoods grew, embryonic gentrification spurred the rise of advanced gentrification.

Jennifer Hiatt:

You focus on three case studies Georgetown, greenwich Village and Beacon Hill as prime examples of embryonic gentrification. Why were these three neighborhoods so prone to this type of gentrification?

Dennis Gale:

Well, first, embryonic gentrification was most likely to occur in some of America's oldest cities, cities such as DC, new York and Boston, east Coast cities. For the most part, it was most likely to occur in the oldest cities. These places, after all, were where most of the oldest building stocks were located, some dating back to the 18th century. Cities in the Midwest and far west, though, for example, had much younger building stocks, and so the kind of level of deterioration was not as great. The older a structure becomes, the more likely it is to physically deteriorate. Also, its mechanical and electrical systems become outdated.

Dennis Gale:

Another factor accounting for gentrification's emergence in these oldest cities had to do with the rise of modernist architecture proliferating in the 1930s, the 1940s, 1950s Think of the kinds of the Chrysler Building, for example, and the buildings that became very popular. From the 30s on, lots of Americans became nostalgic for the older styles of architecture federal, georgian, italianate, greek, revival and the Victorian modes and many such structures existed in places like Georgetown, greenwich Village and Beacon Hill, in each case the oldest and most historic section of their cities and many of these could be purchased relatively inexpensively. The same was true of Charleston, south Carolina and New Orleans, where gentrification also appeared about a century ago. So I think that's the answer to your question. This was the logical place, these oldest cities for that kind of building attraction if you will, public attraction.

Jennifer Hiatt:

Yeah, sometimes, being from the Midwest, I forget that their housing stock is early as, like the 1600s, it's not out in Nebraska.

Stephanie Rouse:

You know one thing I was just thinking of as you were explaining that so would you say, a distinction between embryonic gentrification and advanced gentrification would be historic structures, Because you can have advanced gentrification in areas that aren't, you know, 100, 200 year old building stock.

Dennis Gale:

In other words, the main distinction is historic structures. Is that what you're suggesting? Yeah, yeah, I think that is an element I really do. The idea that advanced gentrification has a broader sort of economic framework than embryonic gentrification, including new construction, is definitely the case. But the historic you know, the historic architecture in and of itself is a powerful kind of attraction.

Dennis Gale:

One of the things I realized in writing the book was that we cannot forget. When we think about gentrification, we cannot think about the big backstory in America, which was not just urban renewal and federal policies but the growth of a national historic preservation movement. Ironically, the National Trust for Historic Preservation in Washington was founded in the same year as the Urban Redevelopment Program was enacted by Congress, 1949. And the National Trust for Historic Preservation was chartered by Congress. But it's a private, nonprofit membership organization and it grew very, very rapidly over the latter half of the 20th century. Literally thousands of people became involved. National conferences, publications, workshops on renovating older buildings and restoring them and so forth. Historic district designations, landmark designations they did all of these things and I think that movement had a powerful effect on making people more sensitive and aware of the attractions of older buildings Instead of a thumbs down on living in an older building. You know a building that's older than you are. You know it was thumbs up that there are countervailing attractions and appeals. So I think that historic preservation movement had a lot to do with this idea that we could look upon gentrification not just in terms of historic buildings but in terms of new construction. Architects were struggling to come up with new designs that were compatible with the historic architecture. I remember in Philadelphia's Society Hill there were some wonderful examples of red brick buildings that were very modernist in a sense but were very, very sensitive to the scale of the historic architecture on Society Hill. So there was quite a lot going on there at the time. But I think that had a lot to do with stimulating the development and, of course, media attention then grew out of that.

Dennis Gale:

Media attention then grew out of that the more investment activity that occurred in a neighborhood like Society Hill or others. These, by the way, are slightly later examples of gentrification than the three case studies that I mentioned, starting in the 60s for the most part. But the media seized on this. It was kind of like, wow, that's a new story. People are putting money where there used to be disinvestment. They're starting to see reinvestment. Young people are moving in. Public confidence is growing. There's a vibe there. Stores, shops, clubs, restaurants, bars, activities all of these things began to appear so gradually. What was happening was the word was out. America's cities are not doomed to decline. They can be saved. They can be turned around, just as they have been in European cities for centuries. It can happen in America too. So I think that's the story.

Stephanie Rouse:

Yeah, and building on that. So not just media attention. But there are these old home tours and articles and books being written on these early gentrifying neighborhoods to help draw new investments. How do you see the impact of this media attention different between embryonic and advanced gentrification?

Dennis Gale:

I think the main thing is that advanced gentrification is able to appeal to a broader market of homebuyers and renters because it reaches a demographic subgroup that, as I said before, might be reluctant to buy an old house and renovate it and go through all the agony and the suffering and so forth let's face it, issues of crime that make some people wary of inner city life. There are attractions and people realize that if you're working in the downtown, you live in an older urban neighborhood, you have a much shorter commute than people out in the suburbs. That was very powerful. If you like nightlife and cultural activity, if you like diversity in your population, you have all of those things in inner city living, but you just don't want a red-venant old house. So particularly older families, including empty nesters, began to become customers in this advanced gentrification stage and I think that had a lot to do with it.

Dennis Gale:

So the media was able to pick up on all of those activities, as you say the house tours, the walking tours, historic preservation, conferences and workshops, celebrations, tours and so forth. All of these things, I think, help generate activity. In my early research on the Georgetown neighborhood I found almost nothing in the newspaper stories about promotional activities, almost nothing. The media sort of treated it as kind of like hmm, there's something very strange going on here. We don't know quite what to make it. They didn't even know what to call it. They were calling it things like home improvement movement and you know, and things like that, but there was no lexicon that everyone subscribed to. So I think that the media had a tremendous role in kind of educating the public about this whole movement that was taking place.

Jennifer Hiatt:

And sort of speaking of you say in the book, what once was labeled urban development has transmogrified to become gentrification. And what would you say is the difference between general urban development and gentrification, be it either embryonic gentrification or advanced gentrification? I work in urban development, like the urban development department, so I often feel like I have this balance between the work I do and making sure that that work doesn't gentrify a neighborhood. So I was just curious what you think the difference is between that general urban development and gentrification.

Dennis Gale:

Well, my background is in city planning and urban studies, and so I approach it from what I've learned in those realms. But in the book I make this point, urban development has long been a catch-all term for virtually any kind of new construction or renovation. It's an umbrella term. It's not just housing or retail or office or industry, but it can include things like public transit, park development, trails, dog parks, art and music venues, museums, galleries, aquariums, sports facilities, parking facilities on and on.

Dennis Gale:

Urban development embraces almost every kind of land development or construction that you can imagine, including renovation of existing buildings, so it's a catch-all terms. As public concerns, though, have risen about the negative effects of embryonic or advanced gentrification, there are critics who applied the gentrification or the G word, as I call it, to virtually any form of urban development, and that's where things began to go downhill in terms of our understanding. The politics and the economics of different kinds of urban development can be quite divergent from those arising out of neighborhood gentrification. So my point is that mixing up these two terms, gentrification and urban development, does nothing to advance public discourse or public understanding.

Stephanie Rouse:

As you point out, gentrification today doesn't really have a good definition. One thing that most people agree on is that it does involve displacing residents, and something that we need to solve, whereas embryonic gentrification didn't significantly displace residents, but brought in new residents and created these mixed neighborhoods as they renovated their own houses. Would you say that embryonic gentrification is a net positive for a neighborhood or does it have the negative stigma that gentrification as we know it today does?

Dennis Gale:

I'll stick my neck out and say, on balance, that I would say yes. I would say yes. It is usually a net positive for a neighborhood and for the community as well, the larger community. There are people who would disagree, of course, but the simple truth is that in most cities there simply isn't enough available capital to maintain and upgrade all the structures and infrastructure necessary to support human life. Without the reinvestment dollars arising from gentrification, it just simply isn't the money, and decent, safe and sanitary housing, as the government used that term back in the 60s, decent, safe and sanitary housing for all folks, not just middle-class ones, requires lots of capital to achieve this. Importantly though, this is my important sort of yes, but city administrations have obligation, I believe, to ease the effects put out many, many years ago, and it was met with a resounding silence.

Jennifer Hiatt:

In our urban development department we build a lot of housing using tax increment financing and other incentive-based and we have been grappling mightily with the question of you know we have affordable housing requirements, but affordable to who and how do we enforce that? It can be really complicated. Even though you know that there's a moral obligation to move in that direction, it can be really hard to figure out how to do that.

Dennis Gale:

I can imagine, I can well imagine. You have my sympathy, believe me. Thank you, you have my sympathy, believe me.

Jennifer Hiatt:

Thank you. One of the aspects that differentiates advanced gentrification from embryonic gentrification are the actions taken by local governments, especially the role of the public-private partnership, as we were sort of discussing. How can local governments wield their incentive-based programs that have formed around these partnerships, such as tax financing, development impact, impact fees, land swaps to try and combat the harsh impacts of advanced gentrification? Do you have any ideas on how to help us?

Dennis Gale:

I'm glad you raised that and this I'll refer to what I mentioned a minute ago. Over 40 years ago, I wrote an op-ed piece in the American Planning Association's magazine Planning, and in it I argued that cities should harness gentrification's benefits to lessen its negative impacts on low, moderate-income households. I proposed then that cities experiencing gentrification create a Municipal Displacement Impact Fund, or DIF as I called it, and the idea was that, as revenues from rising property tax increases come along from gentrification, the city would earmark those net new revenues and put them into the Displacement Impact Fund. Now, these funds could then be combined with other sources to subsidize rents, for example among poor residents, or the money could be used for low-interest loans that allow families to correct building code violations low-income poor families building code violations in their home.

Dennis Gale:

For your listeners who are familiar with tax increment financing, my DIF proposal is a direct descendant of tax increment financing. Dif would generate capital to help foster public-private partnerships in any number of ways. Public-private partnerships, I think, are doable and are a wonderful idea, but capital is always the bottom line in these things. Where does the money come from? So the idea behind a DIF is that the city would actually earmark the economic benefits that come from gentrification, to help alleviate the impacts of gentrification on existing residents, particularly low and moderate income residents.

Stephanie Rouse:

So we've talked a little bit about embryonic gentrification being a slower process. It was done by owners buying and fixing up property. When the government stepped in with urban renewal it was complete eradication of buildings and the fabric of neighborhoods and social structures, until they finally pivoted with urban redevelopment in the 70s and 80s. Why do you think they went with a more destructive path to try and help neighborhoods rather than take the embryonic approach that had shown success in these early neighborhoods?

Dennis Gale:

There was a lot of resistance and you know it's funny, I've actually looked at the House and Senate committee reports from those years, the late 40s and early 50s. The banks, the investment companies. What they were seeing is millions and millions of people leaving the cities, moving to the suburbs, millions and millions of people leaving the cities moving to the suburbs, the cities attracting more and more low and moderate income folks and minorities. Let's be candid. There was a racial element, to be sure, and all of this and a socioeconomic element. But they saw this picture and they were frightened out of their minds that cities and all the investment, that banks and corporations and so forth let's not forget corporate employers in the cities as well insurance companies, office buildings and so forth. They were terrified that the cities were going to hell on a handbasket, to put it very bluntly.

Dennis Gale:

So the idea was that if the government could come along and create a program remember that they were influenced by the New Deal in the 1930s when the government stepped in and helped save the country from the Depression. So the sort of idea was well, we need something similar to that in the 50s and beyond, and urban redevelopment kind of took shape as much from the minds of private real estate people, realtors and other groups, the American Realtors Association or National Realtors Association, excuse me the federal agencies and so forth. It was kind of a collective kind of thing that came to a compromise. And the compromise said okay, if we're going to spend taxpayers' dollars by the hundreds of millions into old urban neighborhoods which, by the way, were Democratic strongholds and Republicans certainly had that in mind when they cast their vote if we're going to do that, then we've got to put a real limitation on how that can be used, how those monies can be used. So that's why the idea of limiting federal monies, why that became limited to demolition and new construction. So that was it. The money could be used to buy older buildings slums, as they call them tear them down completely, erase the neighborhood from site, relocate the residents and then let developers come in and build on the vacant land. And so the idea was that the new construction would be largely, if not entirely, private money.

Dennis Gale:

And that was the you might say, the tonic that the various interests had to have in order to get Congress to pass the law as it came out, and as I mentioned to you too, certainly by five years later, 1954, when urban redevelopment was replaced by urban renewal, government was aware that there were a lot of problems with that original formula and people were complaining. Mayors were complaining. Lot of problems with that original formula and people were complaining. Mayors were complaining, others were complaining.

Dennis Gale:

You know, hey, tearing down buildings and rebuilding is much more expensive than we thought. It costs a lot more money. This program is going to move at a snail's pace if we don't come up with a better formula. So the idea was okay, we'll allow you to do a moderate amount of rehabilitation along with new construction and rebuilding, to see how it goes, and that's it. And if you look at, if you track the congressional record through the 50s and on into the 60s, you can see a steady state of amendments to the federal urban renewal law that basically liberalized and have allowed more kinds of spending and more ways to bring about urban revitalization.

Jennifer Hiatt:

Even though I work in development every day. Every time I see the cost of a project, it blows my mind. It's like oh, here's $57 million for an apartment complex over here, $100 million for a mixed use. So I think people just don't realize how expensive it is to build.

Dennis Gale:

So true, so very very true.

Jennifer Hiatt:

There are so many hidden costs. How can the planning profession help to narrow the current understanding of gentrification in order to create sound theories and advance appropriate and effective policies moving forward?

Dennis Gale:

Well, I think the gentrification term, like so many other terms in the American lexicon think diversity, inclusion and equity, for instance. Think anti-Semitism, think of terms that are bouncing around right now in the public finance, how they're being challenged, misstated and overstated. And we Americans are great at torturing words, we're wonderful at it, and I think that's part of the issue. But I think planners need to approach gentrification as a process that can benefit all residents where it occurs, not just some of them. Numerous studies have shown that existing residents, as well as newcomers, welcome declining crime rates, new public parks and schools and stores that provide goods and services that they need.

Dennis Gale:

More people need to, I think, grasp these desirable outcomes, but they need assurances as well that they can continue to afford to remain in their neighborhood, if humanly possible. So this requires measures in parallel with private market gentrification reinvestment, for example, funds for building affordable housing and subsidizing rents. Other measures, such as rent regulation and eviction only for just cause regulations, may also be desirable. We have to think much more broadly than we have in the past. It's not just a question of how can we get owner X to fix the front porch and restore the Victorian elegance of that old 19th century house it's you know what are the larger impacts here and how can people be made aware of the longer term benefits of reinvestment in urban neighborhoods? I think planners are better equipped than any other profession to do that.

Stephanie Rouse:

And as this is Booked on Planning, we always wrap up our last question with what books would you recommend that our readers check out, aside from my book?

Dennis Gale:

Exactly, yes, Forgive my ego, but I have to. No, that's true, actually, you know it's interesting. I'm reviewing a book right now for the Journal of Urban Affairs. It was written by Sarah Martucci, who is at John Jay College, and the book is entitled there Was Nothing there.

Dennis Gale:

It's kind of a clever title, the idea being that so many of the urban neighborhoods in central cities like New York where she was living and researching it seemed to be just empty wastelands to many people before they were quote-unquote rediscovered. What Sarah does is to create a study of Brooklyn's Williamsburg gentrification neighborhood and she examines three subgroups of residents longtime working class residents, the bohemian gentrifies that came later and the condo investors who came last. She looks at those three subgroups in terms of what she calls their attachment values, what it was that attracted them to the neighborhood and keeps them in the neighborhood. She is a participant observer. She actually lives in the neighborhood as well as studies it and interviews people and so forth, and I thought that she really bored down deeply on, from my perspective, what advanced gentrification is all about. It's more about that, I think, than embryonic gentrification, but she does a nice job on that.

Dennis Gale:

Another book that I've reviewed for the Journal of Urban Affairs is a book entitled Before Gentrification and it was written by Tanya Maria Galash-Boza of UC Merced in California. It's a far leftist study of rapidly gentrifying Washington DC and it probes the lives of many Black residents whose communities underwent change over the last 40 years, mainly due to revitalization and reinvestment, but to some extent other activities too, and she describes the impacts of reinvestment but to some extent other activities too, and she describes the impacts of reinvestment, the impacts of population shifts, the anti-drug wars and the rapid incarceration that took place, and as well as city hall policies in Washington during that time. I found that the book offers numerous interviews and case studies, which are really valuable. As to the author's firsthand observations, growing out of Central DC, she really gets her hands. In other words, both of these books get their hands on the pulse of the people affected by gentrification, and I found that to be very valuable.

Stephanie Rouse:

They sound like great reads after our listeners check out your book as kind of deeper dives into the topic. Well, dennis, thank you so much for joining us to talk about your book the Misunderstood History of Gentrification, people Planning, preservation and Urban Renewal from 1915 to 2020.

Dennis Gale:

Great, that's great. Thank you too, Stephanie and Jennifer.

Jennifer Hiatt:

We hope you enjoyed this conversation with author Dennis Gale on his book the Misunderstood History of Gentrification. You can get your own copy through the publisher at Temple University Press or click on the link in the show notes to take you directly to our affiliate page. Remember to subscribe to the show wherever you listen to podcasts and please rate, review and share the show. Thank you for listening and we'll talk to you next time on Booked. On Planning you.

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Jennifer Hiatt

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Stephanie Rouse, AICP

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