Globalization, Gentrification and Migration Impact to New York - Coursework Example

Globalization, gentrification and migration impact to the of New York College: This paper draws main contributions tothe broad literature of the impact of globalization, gentrification and migration in relation to the city of New York. Firstly, the paper gives a case study of the New York City and it also provides the main causes of globalization, gentrification and gentrification in the above mentioned city. This paper demonstrates that globalization and gentrification in the New York City is mainly caused by the relations of financial market dynamics, regulatory structures and global and intra-urban movement of both individuals and capital (Hamnet 1994, p. 411). In addition, the paper demonstrates how globalization, gentrification and migration impose several impacts especially hidden costs on the low income individuals in the city. It is evident that financial market processes, macro-regulatory structures and urban accumulation are the main causes of gentrification, globalization and migration in New York. Gentrification is defined as the production of urban space more progressively for the more affluent consumers. Nevertheless, there has been an argument as to whether the processes of gentrification, globalization and migration lead to involuntary displacement of the low income residents in a city. For instance, in the New York City the low income residents are not likely to move out of a gentrifying suburb than they are to move out of a non-gentrifying suburb. On the other hand, the process of globalization in New York is explained in terms of the strategic sites where various global processes materialized and the various linkages that join them. Among the above mentioned sites are the off-shore banking facilities, export processing areas and the global cities (Hamnet 1994, p.422). According to Sassen, the rapid growth of the global economy in the New York City has led to a modern geography of marginality and centrality. The above mentioned modern form of geography causes inequalities, nevertheless, it leads to the formation of dynamic economic growth, where the city operates from the development of the employment structures to the distribution of telecommunication. New York as global city possesses a lot of economic powers and various financial services, which offer super-profits. The level of transactions in New York specifically through the trade in services, financial markets and investments have rapidly increased, therefore, the orders of magnitude involved has also increased. Sassen links the expansion of the global investments and its impacts to the local communities to the increasing rate of international migration. Sassen emphasizes that poverty, economic stagnation and overpopulation relates to the influx of the foreign direct investment from the multinational firms leads to the disruption of economies in the small holder societies (Sassen 1991, p.168). Moreover, there is a sharpening inequality in New York City in the accumulation of several strategic resources and business activities. Manufacturing sites and port cities have lost trading activities and are in the decline in both the less developed countries and in the advanced countries. The valuation of labour and the overvalorization of professional workers have become irrelevant in the advanced economies. The process of globalization and gentrification has caused the New York City with a smaller percentage of a well-paying industrial jobs and falling income levels as compared to the other cities in the American nation. At the same time, globalization, gentrification and migration have made it possible to manufacture goods and increasingly offer services in the New York City where the costs are very lower. The New York City acts as a true picture of how density and size of population, clusters of industries, technology, immigration and global transportation links create a successful and highly competitive response to globalization, gentrification and migration (Sassen 1191, p.181). The result is that a lot of industries which, are cantered in New York City are able to take the advantage of the global marketplace. Notably, New York City has as result grown in its fields of Finance, legal services, architecture, and fashion, media tourism, science and technology and manufacturing. In addition, the New York City has various economic firms and sectors that are successfully competing in the global marketplace. The above mentioned economic sectors range from architecture to the manufacturing of manhole covers. Gentrification and migration in the New York City is largely related to the housing affordability crisis that emerged in the late 1990. This paper discusses the role of gentrification, globalization and migration in producing global city. The process of gentrification and migration affects mostly the low income residents in the New York City. Between the year 1999 and 2002, the community leaders in the New York City reported a rapid increase of residents moving into the city shelter while others were becoming homeless. Underestimating the process of gentrification and migration in the New York City involved high rates of costs for the theoretical understanding of the displaced and the neighbourhood change (Freeman & Braconi 2004, p. 45). The people who were forced to move out from the gentrifying neighbourhoods were from the rich local social backgrounds and they were moved to more competitive housing markets, which were shaped by increasing challenging trade-offs between overcrowding, affordability and access to various services and jobs. In the 1970s, the channels of jousting supports in New York reduced the impacts of gentrification. Nevertheless, for the low income residents in the New York City who have no or few regulatory mechanisms, the gentrification situation is very insecure and this leads to the dismantling of the housing protections. The main impacts of gentrification, globalization and migration in relation to the City of New York concern the overall benefits and costs. Notably, the process of gentrification in New York City is termed as the only hope for reviving the social and economic decline that still dominates the city. Examples of the benefits of gentrification, globalization and migration in the New York City included the increased rehabilitated housing units, high economic vigour, and higher tax revenues. The above mentioned benefits of gentrification are known to exceed the costs of displacement (Florida 2002, p.180). The working-class and poor residents were displaced from the gentrifying areas as the supporters of the process of gentrification maintained that the level of displacement and its impact to the global city was relatively unimportant. In New York City, the processes of abandonment and gentrification are occurring simultaneously. Gentrification increases the quality of housing facilities and this in turn contributes to the nation’s tax base and revitalizes the significant areas of the city to the private initiative. Nevertheless, the displacement causes by gentrification is very trivial. Therefore, the city of New York should encourage the process of gentrification through zone changes and tax benefits. This is because gentrification is the only possible relieve fro abandonment during the times of fiscal stress. It is argued that the process of gentrification causes the lower-income households in New York City to move to the adjacent places, where the fiscal pressures on rents and households are high. In addition, gentrification draws increased income households from other places in the New York City thus reducing demand in other places and increasing the chances of abandonment (Florida 2002, p.185). It is evident that gentrification displaces the lower income residents thus increasing pressures on the rents and housing. Both the processes of gentrification and abandonment are directly related to the changes in the New York City’s economy and this has led to rapid increase in the city’s population and popularization. The poor residents in the city are always under pressure of displacement while on the other hand the wealthy residents seek to protect themselves with gentrified neighbourhoods. Far from the reduction of displacement, the process of globalization, gentrification and migration worsened the economic situation in the New York City. Gentrification and abandonment in the above mentioned city have caused high levels of displacement. The rising rate of polarization of the economy in the New York City is demonstrated in the increasing rate of polarizations of the neighbourhoods as a result of both abandonment and gentrification. Notably, the residential restructuring of economic patterns in the New York City was reinforced by the restructuring of the business divisions. The growth of the commercial downtowns and businesses needs changes in its immediate surroundings and in its land use. In addition, the residential areas must create a room for the businesses and in the places where they are built the higher income households are wanted but the low income households are not wanted (Hackworth 2002, p.820). Therefore, the city of New York must safeguard the property values downtowns from the discordant elements of the entire population. As a result of the above mentioned developments, the poor in the city are displaced since the entire business wants to move in as the land has become too valuable to accommodate them further. The poor residents are displaced when the gentrification and migration takes place since the neighbourhoods and the buildings constructed on the land are too expensive for them and they are unsuitable to offer good housing for them. For cities like the New York City, the important external factors that have shaped both the extent and the nature of the rising demand for housing are comprised of the shift of the economic activities from the manufacturing of services and from the high wage places to the low wage geographic places. In addition, the economic activities in the New York City are becoming more concentrated with the rapid growing pressure from competition in the global economic market. The above mentioned factors have led to increasing rate of unemployment and population loss. These have resulted to decline in the effective and efficient demand for housing among the low income residents in the city. In addition, the above mentioned factors have resulted to increased demand for office rooms and decreased demand fro production rooms in the central city of New York City. All the factors combined together causes rapid movement of the households thus resulting to gentrification and abandonment (Hackworth 2002, p.838). Given the economic pattern mentioned above, there is a predictable corresponding shift in the accumulation of commercial and residential housing units in New York City. For instance, a central business unit can be situated at the centre of the city with a rapid increase demand in manufacturing and office space. Therefore, the formation of a global economy in New York City contributed to the creation of potential emigrants and linkages between the developing nations and industrialized nations that were used as bridges. The development of the service sector and the decline of the manufacturing sectors increased the rate of low wage jobs in New York City. Notably, the concept of mobility of labour and capital developed the global cities. The demand for immigrant labour in the New York City was part of the restructuring of the labour and production process (Lees 2003, p.2420). The significance and the vast growth of finance industry in the New York City under the globalization, gentrification and migration required a huge infrastructure of specialized services in the global city. A new finance system was developed in order to control the vast global economy. New York City as a global city provides specialized services for the production of financial instruments and transnational finance. The high-income gentrification pushes prices to the upper strata of purchasing power in the global cities such as in New York City. According to Sassen, most of the high-income employees are in the major cities and this has caused commercial and residential gentrification. Sassen brings together the concept of global capital and transnational migration, which she terms as globalization of labour. She emphasizes that the low-income households and low-wage workers are largely caused by the transnational migrants. In addition, Sassen demonstrates that the immigrant labour is based on in-formalized work relation in the global city. In the New York City, there is concentration of modern racialized and gendered transnational labour. The above mentioned global city illustrates a modern territorial complex, which is comprised of downtown urban renewal, state-directed redevelopment, commercial culture, conspicuous consumption and complex of luxury housing and offices (Scott 2000, p.256). However, in New York City, there is increase of poverty, social decay and homelessness as a result of gentrification and migration. A lot of poor people in the New York City are staying in the gentrifying neighbourhoods and they appreciate the changes that are taking place in those neighbourhoods. Examples of the above mentioned changes happening in the New York City include improved governmental responsiveness, safety, less drug dealing and better transportation. The individuals who do not move to the urban places obtain either private or public assistance. An example of a support they obtain is rent regulation and other programs, which include housing vouchers, public housing and an exemption from rent increments. It is evident that most of the rental programs in the New York City are either controlled or rent regulation and a small percentage is unregulated. In addition, other tenants enjoy the informal housing market where the landlords charge fewer amounts of rent rates as compared with the market rates. Poor individuals benefit from the neighbourhood advancements; nevertheless, some of the poor people view gentrification and migration as a compassionate market force that offers them a purpose to stay (Scott 200, p.260). As it has been the case with a majority of the cities of the United States, New York used to have countless factories and endless pools of employees working in different industries. As time progressed, the principal manufacturing did shift to the Global South so as to cut down on the production costs and this led to a change in shape as well as a shift of roles among the cities. With some of the America cities having been subjected to a period of struggle for survival in the present neoliberal globalization era, New York city has emerged out as a new city; the Global City. In other definitions, New York City is actually being referred to as a command post in control of the economy of the entire world, especially in the fields of production and finance. As a result the city has turned out to be a home to transnational corporations banks as well as media outlets that are under the management of a precise class of principally white, run-of-the-mill professionals who are in need of access to a world-class (Global) City lifestyle. Their demands are quite demanding, including top-end restaurants, luxury housing, top-end cultural centres, boutiques, domestic workers obliged with taking care of both their children and homes among other workers to service their range of needs in totality (Ehrenreich & Hochschild 2003, p.330). In addition, New York City has of late become a destination for vast numbers of migrants who have actually been forced to migrate to the United States in search for employment opportunities as a result of the neoliberal policies of the U.S. so put in place in the home countries from which these migrants are coming from. Along with the people of colour, these migrants are the ones making the working class and they do execute their mandates or offer their services to the elite class as well as the professional. Despite working for the longest hours among the other workers, these migrants and their counterparts of colour receive the lowest wages. Besides, these workers are in need of housing and transport that is considerably adequate. Nevertheless, with the reported attacks on public- and rent-regulated housing in a move to create room for luxury development, a great percentage of the workers have been kicked further out of the central city and instead have found themselves landing in the outer regions (Zukin 1993, p.326). As thus, these workers have been forced to endure lengthy commutes while breaking up the social fabric of the greatest percentage of the longstanding communities. As is the case with the other cities across the United States of America, the process of gentrification in New York City has over the time been somehow sophisticated. This has as a result subjected the working class tenants to landlord harassment and subsequent displacement; with considerably small businesses skyrocketing to becoming enormous rent commercial. This move has made it quite difficult for the tenants to sustain theirs stores. In addition, the young people of colour have equally been subjected to increase policing in their community as well as other public spaces. At the same time, the City has belligerently campaigned for wide-scale development plans, which will see the availing of the best possible opportunity for large commercial and frill residential development, while at the same time failing to avail protection to the working class communities from being subsequently evacuated from their neighbourhoods (Brenner 1998, p.34). As a result, the process of gentrification is a very imperative component for both the development and livelihood of the Global City, New York. Following the above-mentioned, numerous New York City-based community groups organised among low-income and working class communities of colour together with their partner groups have come to the realisation that there is a necessity for them to engage not only the local, but also the city-wide development processes so as to ensure that they have an audible voice in their future. Likewise, this realisation has seen them see to it that they are not- at their least- developed out of the communities and neighbourhoods they are members of among other spaces. So as to build proposals, knowledge and ultimate sufficient power for purposes of influencing development, these organisations did identify the necessity of coming up together among the diverse communities and groups so as to establish an analysis of the principal causes and effects of gentrification and resultantly distribute both experiences and perspectives across these groups and communities (Brenner 1998, p.37). Moreover, this collaboration focused on the identification of collective needs and likelihoods as well as the development of strategies and frameworks for purposes of stimulating even-handed and sustainable local and regional development. As a result, a working group of representatives from various organizations did initiate a series of local meetings among membership-based organisations unequivocally executing mandates in efforts to address gentrification in their communities and countable resources and other ally individuals and/or organizations. The stimulus of creativity that offered a space for deliberations and the likely for collective action came into being from the discussion among local organisations as each and every one of them went through and made an effort to address the impacts of gentrification in their specific communities. A great percentage of these organisations had entered into partnerships with the Community Development Project of the Urban Justice Centre (UJC) for not only research, but also for policy and legal assistance in support of their local efforts. For that reason, both shared experiences and needs happened to be apparent and the deliberation of the manner in which the UJC and other local resource individuals and ally organizations could have been the most supportive and strategic was seemingly pertinent (Hackworth & Smith 2001, p.469). Over and above this, both the necessity and the idea for this space was as well recognised and called for as part and parcel of numerous forums so convened by the New York City Research and Organising Initiative (NYCROI). The NYCROI is a city-wide initiated which is UJC-coordinated and is up and about looking forward to support the strategic use of research in social justice organising and advocacy. Consequently, the Urban Justice Centre did set up an initial gathering in mid-2006 of the community partners with which they were working on aspects handling the issue of gentrification. It is from this initial meeting that it was resolved that the larger portion of the collaboration of organisations dealing with the process of gentrification be organised. Moreover, there were a number of shared themes that were highlighted in the above mentioned initial meeting. These themes were focused on connecting the experiences of the stakeholders in different parts of the city. Some of the principal themes included efforts to preserve public housing as well as availing pocket-friendly housing, nurturing a snowballing trend towards the coming up with public-private corporations that make an attempt of redefining and controlling the utilisation of public space and identifying the avenues through which gentrification maligns both the cultural and the social fabric as well as the identity of the communities and the necessity to preserve the communities’ cultural heritages and community-identified historic places (Hackworth & Smith 2001, p.472). Rising against all these is the backdrop of those communities going through the pressures of gentrification and the difficulty of community organisations working hand in hand with and within these communities especially is meandering through the maze of policies, public review processes and other decision-making bodies that facilitate neighbourhood change. Those communities to whom this form of development and public policies are those stimulating gentrification are in the main low-income immigrants and people colour communities. The born organisations have ensured that attacks are not just precise to residential communities belonging to these populaces, but also to social and cultural spaces as well as commercial ones with which they identify (Buttler 1997, p.210). A majority of the residential communities being displaced have a considerably large population of females as the heads of their households, with the greater percentage of the same having has pre-existing high rates of unemployment. Although more often than not we presume that there is a clear comprehension of the role played by race, gender, class, sexuality and gender identity when it comes to the promotion and fostering of political, economic and social marginalisation resulting from gentrification, it is of a great importance to make it plain within this context and make good use of the data available in the illustration of the impacts of gentrification. In almost all of the communities across New York City- where gentrification and its impacts is- presence of pseudo public democratic processes of planning either so coordinated by the City or a private entity has been reported. These processes, together with their resultant plans, on the contrary, have not availed any realistic leadership or power on the issue of making decisions impacting the lives of the stakeholders whose incomes are relatively low as well as others who since inception have been marginalised and unsurprisingly hardly make reflections of the needs, interests and perspectives of both individuals and groups (Bourne 1994, p.150). On the other hand, they effectively offer service in a manner that will further see the marginalisation of the aforementioned stakeholders, and thus once more placing them in a position that is considerably reactive; forcing them to enter in a battle so as to simply reclaim that which they can for their communities. New York City has however proved to be particular in the sense that a far-reaching political infrastructure of community planning boards aimed at overseeing the various development projects has to be consulted. These boards are city agencies made of members put in office by elected officials and in most cases hardly represent the diversity of the larger community district. Moreover, since these boards are mere agencies, they have over and again been underfunded when it comes to effective outreach in those traditionally marginalised communities. Alternatively, they may be required to come up with their own district community development plans within their mandate (Phillips 2004, p.24). The most notable thing is that all the groups actively involved in the deliberations obliged with organisation in residential communities did lay emphasis on the pressures that the communities in which they belong to are experiencing as pertains to the already in existence affordable housing and the coming up with new fashioned, loft conversions and unaffordable developments. Notably, gentrification and migration in New York City have been closely associated with the reflections on a sole long-term process that has been born of the changing economy of this U.S. central city. As a matter of fact there has been a shift from the manufacturing sector to the service sector and its escorting reduction in the absolute demand for labour. This has specifically impacted the unskilled workforce and as a result, large portions of the workforce have been rendered redundant, though there have been reductions in the lower-income rent-paying ability of the populace (Smith 2002, p. 430). On the other hand though, both increasing professionalization and concentration of management and technical function did craft additional high-income demand for housing. Notably therefore, processes of the above nature can be said to have had spatial repercussions; of measurably lower demand for blue-collar personnel and likely blue-collar worker outcomes either in or near the downtown regions; while professional as well as technical employees became increasingly in demand within the same regions. The housing conditions adjacent to the central business districts (CBDs) do reflect changes of this nature. It therefore can be argued out that the pull exerted on one group on one hand (via the alteration of the CBD square’s economy) happen to be a push against another group on the other end. For the proponents of gentrification, all the traffic is busy towards downtown; while on the side of the poor, all roads are leading to abandonment (migration). Nonetheless, prior the formulation of judicious policy, there is a need to gain had a crystal clear picture of the likely direction of the events to come in the Global City (Smith 2002, p.430). Presently, all of the factors- in their entirety- involved in the restructuring of New York City are still in progress: the shift from a manufacturing economy to a service one, the daily-borne international business connections, the proportionately increasing need for professional, managerial and technical staff and the rapidly decreasing need of unskilled manufacturing personnel; the ever accumulating economic polarisation of the populace; the stretched out business needs for downtown commercial as well as office space and the predisposition of the government and the real estate industry to make worse the outcomes of the above mentioned processes (globalisation, migration and gentrification) at the residential and neighbourhood levels. If at all the above enlisted factors are to give birth to both gentrification and migration, it is therefore inevitable to be expectant of a change in direction. There may be a need to include new construction zones in New York City, including such zones as Staten Island and Parts of Queens. The Global City may be necessitated to give go ahead to development on vacant land when not a single threat of displacement is involved. Moreover, NYC ought to allow pursuant development to the extent of inclusionary housing devices in their totality (Sykora 2005, p.101). The proper combination of city-wide and neighbourhood decision-making is therefore central in the event that this approach is to be successful. Of great importance, the very initial decisions have to be made at the neighbourhood level; with only active participation of the residents of the community so as to ensure that the community’s future will be in line with their desires. It is this fine-tuned planning that is imperative for purposes of defining these zones within the provisions of the neighbourhood level. 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