by James A. Bacon
It’s hard to keep up with the twists and turns of what progressives deem to be racist these days.
Once upon a time, gentrification was considered racist because the phenomenon of White people moving into a neighborhood increased local property values, which increased taxes on long-time African-American residents and pressured them to move out.
But that’s old think. Now the problem isn’t that property values in gentrifying neighborhoods are too high. In the City of Richmond, property values in majority Black neighborhoods are too low!
“An under-valued home limits the owner’s ability to access credit through home equity and limits potential profits when the owner decides to sell,” concludes a new report, “Policy Approaches to Racial Disparities in Neighborhood Home Values and Related Risks of Displacement,” published by a nonprofit group, Housing Opportunities Made Equal of Virginia.
“The disparities are the result of a long history of racial discrimination that has adversely affected neighborhoods of color in Richmond,” the report says.
Got that? If appraised property values are too high, higher property taxes drive out Black residents. That’s racism in action. If property appraisals are too low, Black residents are deprived of credit, and they get less for their houses than they would have otherwise. That’s racist, too. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. Everything’s racist, folks. Everything!
This is the kind of thinking you get when you focus single-mindedly on the downside of every fact pattern through the lens of race.
If I wanted to be Pollyannish about the condition of Black people in American today, I could do just the opposite.
Gentrification is wonderful! It elevates property values. Higher appraised property values mean long-time Black residents gain more access to credit. They can sell their houses for higher prices than they would have gotten otherwise!
I could do that but I won’t. That’s because I recognize that most economic phenomena have upsides and downsides. Whether gentrification is a good thing or bad thing depends on an individual’s unique circumstances. Viewing everything through a racial lens is not terribly helpful — unless the goal is to create a sense of grievance and justify paying handsome salaries to college-educated social justice warriors.
The flaws in the study run even deeper, though, than just the damned-if-you-do-damned-if-you-don’t framing of the issue. The study contends that houses in predominantly Black neighborhoods are under-valued compared to houses in White neighborhoods even when adjusted for square footage, condition, and amenities. Pure bunkum. I’ll address the tendentious methodology in another post.