These days, the term gentrifier is like a dirty word.
Mention that you are a gentrifier, and many may think of a yuppie type person that drinks Frappacino’s, has tons of money, belittles “locals,” and infiltrates communities.
He says higher income minorities, like African-Americans, can also be gentrifiers, but often escape the label.
“Race is more visible than class in the United States,” Freeman says. “It’s starker to see whites moving into a black neighborhood than to see a middle class black person moving into a poorer black neighborhood.”
Thomas Lee, 28, fits the stereotypical image of a “gentrifier.” He is a white guy that moved into the primarily black Shaw neighborhood of Washington, D.C., from the suburbs of Virginia, because of the lower cost of living. He has a higher income than many of his neighbors, has a tech gig, and rides a bike to work.
“The biggest misconception is just that I’m an aloof jerk,” says Lee. “I think it’s understandable that people might feel angry at me. I know what I represent to the older residents and understand if they don’t like seeing me in their grocery store.”
Freeman says that older community residents may have mixed feelings about gentrifiers. He says they often think that the newer stores and housing that sometimes accompanies gentrification — coffee shops, yoga studios and luxury condos — built with the lifestyle of the gentrifiers in mind without regard to their needs and income.
“Some people feel like they are being pushed out and there is a feeling that their home is being invaded,” he says. “I think there is a great deal of resentment around that.”
Lee says that the resentment is just a part of the growing pains that will ultimately contribute to better communities.
“I just do not really accept that there’s something wrong with being a part of gentrification,” he says. “I’m emblematic of this process that parts of the city are going through. That is not to say there are not aspects of it that affect people negatively. It is important to recognize that and help the folks affected, but the end result will be to make the city more livable for everyone.”
When neighborhood bus drivers and store clerks remind Lee that he is a gentrifier, he tries to put the harassment in perspective.
“It’s one thing to have a clerk be embarrassingly deferential to you because your skin is white, and completely different to have that clerk treat you like you're a thief because your skin is black,” Lee says. “It sucks either way, but it would be incredibly idiotic of me to put them on the same continuum.”
In his research, Freeman found that some residents of gentrified areas are more receptive of gentrifers — an experience that Lee has found true. He says that while the gentrifier label sometimes causes people to yell at him “just for being a relatively young white dude,” most people are able to look beyond that.
“On the rare occasions when someone aggressively confronts me, they’re surprised that I'll talk to them, and when I do, they get much friendlier,” Lee says. “Everyone’s scared of starting the conversation across that divide, and relieved when they do so and it actually works.”