Last month, news filtered out that the hoped for 2nd location of Sunset Beer in Highland Park was not going to be happening. Enough loud people spoke the G (gentrification) word and peppered in some of the old school, it will lead to undesirable people (like me?) to move the needle.
Now I am not a fan of dictators and eminent domain but there are times when I wish I could wave a magic wand to stop when the people of Los Angeles seem hell-bent on just stopping anything and everything.
Now, it is not on the same insane level as recalcitrant cities that just do not want low income housing within their borders and also seem shocked that homeless people camp out within those same borders. But it is part of the same virulent strain of NIMBY’ism that seems to have grown to outbreak proportions when the delay tactic was found to work.
How else to explain that a handful of residents can effectively hold a project hostage until it becomes economically unfeasible? In an area that has a goodly amount of liquor stores in various states of disrepair, how is an upper scale bottle shop and tap room an issue?
I thought this uninformed position of any beer being a draw for unsavory people was from ten years ago but it still pops up now and again. I understand that gentrification is a huge problem in Highland Park (and in other close knit neighborhoods) but it is a problem that is not solved by pushing business away.
I see these actions as an effort to stem the unaffordability of this city. If a desirable business is kept out, then less people will travel on York Boulevard and maybe that will return the area to a cheaper status. But that is a mistake. The residential shortage problem will sort itself out once/if housing stock for various income levels rises.
Let
me explain via a simplistic timeline what I have seen happen in multiple
neighborhoods in Portland and could happen here too:
- Land and rent in a neighborhood falls into an attractive zone and supply is ample enough for both storefronts and residences to attract both entrepreneurs and create a new community.
- The entrenched community reacts to the influx of business either positively or negatively or both.
- The prices rise and that pushes both business and residents (old and new) out of the area.
- The priced out residents move to other parts of the city that are in the price range and the process begins in those areas leading back to # 1.
What
is happening in Los Angeles is that # 2 is happening before # 1 and is firmly
anti-development in many cases and there is generally no # 4 so the cycle is
being pinned down in two spots and not moving.
It is akin to soil not being tilled and new crops not being introduced
which creates just dirt and not soil.
What
is needed is a new Reverse NIMBY model. A
model that pulls in a business that the community wants, pulls in neighbors
that they want and doesn’t just swat away everything. If you want/need a local barber or local
coffee shop, then a reaching out needs to happen. Otherwise someone is going to see an empty
storefront and think it is a good spot for their idea.
Secondly,
new housing needs to be promoted. What
business doesn’t want customers within walking distance. So if say a brewery wants to build in a
neighborhood, have them pump money into a local housing fund to create levels
of housing that correspond to the neighborhood.
Right
now there seems to be just the answer No when we really need, how about this.
