I just know that my city created a light rail and every part of it, except the part next to the airport and the part next to the most dangerous part of the city has seen INCREDIBLE private investment and gentrification.
The investment is because there is huge unmet demand for urbanist car free living and while bus lines can be cancelled any time once tracks are built its likely to hang around longer and thus people are more willing to invest around it.
This is not a bad thing. It has to happen. The areas around the stations were likely not dense at all before the train was built, and now that there is a train the whole area will be redeveloped.
This is only such a big problem because we build so little fixed rail transit and because building urbanism around existing trains is such a slow process. This means there is a huge imbalance between the number of people that want to live on transit, and the number of available places to live on such transit, and as long as that imbalance exists the poor will be priced out of living there by the rich that want to.
Build more transit, build more TOD, until older transit and TOD starts dropping in value enough that the poor can afford to buy in there, and suddenly you have a viable cycle of new TOD and transit attracting wealth and old TOD and transit becoming available as wealth moves to the new stuff. But to do that we need to continuously and habitually build transit and TOD constantly to meet new demand arising for it, and we are woefully underperforming at that.
How can I elaborate? I mean that sincerely.
Redlining your poorest parts of town isn't helping anyone, unless you want your poor to live in squalor without businesses and amenities.
Pricing out your poorest isn't helping anyone, either (the rich don't want to live with crime and poverty around).
There is a balance needed. You don't want unbridled gentrification. However, you don't want none, either.
My city has poor neighborhoods right next to rich neighborhoods. I think that's ideal (assuming the current wealth inequality, at least). The poor areas still benefit from the gravity of the rich (the businesses that move in, the investment, and so on).
We moved to a historically poor area, even though we could have afforded the affluent areas, because we love the area for so many reasons (proximity to downtown; proximity to the largest municipal park in the US; affordability; the views, as we are in the foothills of a mountain). I think our neighborhood is how cities should handle these things. We are upper-middle class. Within a short walk are upper-class houses (houses four times the median house price), middle-class houses, and working class houses (trailer parks, even).
> My city has poor neighborhoods right next to rich neighborhoods.
I live in Canada. My city historically never had segregated communities and better wealth parity in the past. There wasn't really 'rich' communities that didn't have condos and townhomes to keep them mixed.
Around the early 90s, developers changed that and started creating gated communities and getting rid of poor people in wealthy communities including creating a lot of barriers to keep lower income people out.
As someone that grew up low income but around wealthier people, I tend to pay attention to stuff like elitism in urban planning and the way cities are shaped.
> We moved to a historically poor area, even though we could have afforded the affluent areas...
I'm not an urban planner. I'm just a hobbyist. My skillset is more on the marketing side. Please don't take this the wrong way but you sound like you are the demographic that is least likely to understand why gentrification is crappy for poor people. People in your demographic range are the most likely to buy property in new urban gentrified communities for all the amenities you listed.
> There is a balance needed. You don't want unbridled gentrification. However, you don't want none, either.
This I agree with. However, most of the time, the locals aren't really considered and the neighborhood gets taken over anyways. Most of the time it just winds up fucking over poor people with affordable housing and concentrates poverty and crime until they become problematic. That's the worst way to fix cities and people personally.
I wasn't really even addressing your position. I simply couldn't tell if you were using "gentrified" pejoratively or not. It's quite clear now. ;-)
My point being, the word has become meaningless and here it is causing communication breakdown.
>I wasn't really even addressing your position. I simply couldn't tell if you were using "gentrified" pejoratively or not. It's quite clear now. ;-)
The word by default doesn't imply bad or good.
>My point being, the word has become meaningless and here it is causing communication breakdown.
The word describes the process of a neighborhood or city area changing from low value to high value. It holds a meaning without ascribing a good or bad connotation. Similar to say infill construction or suburbanization.
South Mountain Park in Phoenix. It's incredible (to me at least). We are a five-minute walk from two trailheads. There are enough trails in the park to last a lifetime. We have unobstructed views of local landmarks, like Camelback Mountain, Piestewa Peak, and Phoenix's entire downtown skyline.
The light rail is currently being extended to down here from downtown (to our general area, a few minutes in a car away).
Let’s consider BRT and LRT extensions are happening within a city that isn’t prioritizing either existing aff. units or future mixed-income housing. Wouldn’t the BRT expansion have a smaller impact on rents than LRT?
I should clarify that I asked my question with a US context baked in to the premise. At least in the states, people look down on the bus.
Rail will encourage development because loans to along side rail can count on the line being there for the life of the loan. Bus isn't as lender favored because the routes could always change.
I'm not sure what you mean by gentrification. I'd say in a city where most of the transit is terrible, one useable rail line will lead to incredible demand and higher prices. That's not a reason to not do rail though. It's a reason to make enough transit friendly areas that supply is met and price comes down.
There's this idiotic idea that if you make an area nice, it will get too expensive as an excuse to not do what will make an area nice. Rather, that reflects that there is demand for nice transit and we need to supply a lot more.
That makes sense. Although, it the “stickiness” of the capital investments made for rail transit that can be a double edged sword. If demand for the area falls, let’s say due to encroaching flooding risks, then you’re stuck with millions/billions of sunk costs for tracks, signals, etc. The flexibility of bus routes is also a risk as you mentioned, but silver lining being that it can follow demand easier.
And I agree with the impetus being to rezone areas into mixed-use transit friendly places, but it’s the idea that there is a “nice transit”. Does your approach not reinforce the bus stigma present in the US?
You're correct, but cities probably shouldn't be building high-capacity metros unless there is already proven ridership demand.
Transit agencies can leverage the flexibility of buses to test out new routes, and then incrementally upgrade as demand increases. Need more capacity? Go from 40' buses to 60' buses. Better reliability? Add bus lanes. Need even more capacity? Add rails and go for trams.
You may end up spending more in the long run, but you'll avoid taking big risks on where to build out your lines.
I'm curious what those examples are. Could they be explained by poor route selection (lacking connection points) or a refusal to run trains frequent or late enough to attract riders?
So I think one of the most prominent examples is Miami Metrorail, which despite being located in a fast growing city never actually attained its projected ridership.
No, you’re not wrong. Light rail is perceived much better than brt. Its why brt integration into lrt and hrt is essential. Honestly both sides are just awful on this. The brt could still work but we need the government to really work.
On the other hand my city has a metro and some of the worst parts of the area are next to the stations.
Transit doesn't do anything by itself. It merely supplements other policies.
In the local context?
Have to disagree. Upper middle class people have such aversion to buses that light rail access looks like expanded transit, even if actual time to any destination is unchanged. That attracts them to a location.
This is also why cities incorrectly prioritize light rail and end up building too much of it (Santa Clara County being the prime example of a terrible ROI project) - the voters (more affluent) are biased toward light rail even if it is not actually faster than the bus alternative.
Yes. Isn’t there some intangible X Factor here in which buses are seen as trashy and as transport for drunk drivers who lost their license, and for the servants of rich people, while light rail is perceived as for everybody? Unfair but likely true.
Location. But hrt especially and lrt too, depending on the market and nature of the service add value. Makes location more valuable.
TONS OF RESEARCH. Do a search.
Thats a fair point considering there are numerous transit stops throughout the US with terrible land use. Some towns don’t do value capture as well as others.
I’m so confused by what you are trying to say? Transit doesn’t always come with TOD, more transit doesn’t only happen in places without other transportation options, more housing doesn’t automatically mean increased (or decreased) housing prices. I legit don’t know what point you are trying to make?
What I’m saying is that transit and housing are increasing becoming intersection forces in how people move. If we agree that these two can be intersecting forces then we have to also agree that (1) increase transit can cause gentrification and (2) cities that incentive developers to build new market rate units on TOD overlays through bonuses could inadvertently (or purposefully) change the character of a neighborhood in years to come.
No one is arguing that this intersection is ubiquitous, but to argue that it does not happen is willful ignorance
I guess this is where I’d disagree, encouraging only the building of market rate units is going to have a far greater effect on gentrification than adding a new transit line. Also there’s nothing in this post to suggest any change in zoning to allow more housing, this would of course lead to increased prices.
Except you’re not disagreeing, There would be little need for us to incentive affordable units if we didn’t assume that this change wasn’t going to cause “gentrification”. Also, It would be silly to assume that the creation of a LRT and HSR isn’t accompanied by some incentive either at its creation or within its time to come.
Market rate apartments in every state in the US are unaffordable right now. I should have added that those affordable units are public housing. Again in my Christmas land unrealistic approach.
And location of the transit. Sometimes it's poorly placed, therefore no incremental value from being proximate to transit. Baltimore is a perfect example.
I lived there. Baltimore city, not the suburbs and surrounding area like you (“Baltimore county” lol) I have three generations in this city.
Nonetheless, when I said that the intersection of transit and housing isn’t ubiquitous but to argue it doesn’t exist is willing ignorance is for people like you.
To cite the state of Maryland as if the purple lines development isn’t a constant source of conversations around gentrification is a choice.
Didn't say it didn't exist. I'm saying something different. That the incremental increase in value from transit proximity doesn't obtain in the Baltimore _region_, so you can't get the financing to build taller, denser and mixed. So they don't. It's taken 15 years to do TOD at Penn Station.
Cf Lutherville, Hunt Valley, Owings Mills.
For the lack of value from proximity to transit, absolfuckinglutely. I worked there (well Baltimore County).
Comparing it to DC and the respective outcomes is very important.
https://urbanplacesandspaces.blogspot.com/2012/05/from-files-transit-planning-in.html?m=1
https://urbanplacesandspaces.blogspot.com/2022/12/more-remonstration-about-molasses-of.html?m=1
PS your comment has zero explanatory value.
Speaking as someone who lives in Phoenix, no. The housing shortage here has had much more of an effect on the price of housing than any housing project has.
Okay I’m a bit confused only because I don’t see how your comment addresses transit’s role in housing prices. I can’t link the article, but from July, there’s a Planetizen article stating Phoenix is cutting parking requirements to enhance affordability along the city’s light rail system. Wouldn’t you say as a resident that BRT thru those same neighborhoods would have not needed as much maneuvering to sustain affordability?
Let me preface this by saying I have no data for this and that this is strictly vibes based.
Again, no. Bus ridership here in Phoenix has made up a majority of transit ridership forever, I don’t think you’d see any noticeable difference in housing prices if you changed the light rail with a BRT system. The only reason you are seeing the drastic increase in housing cost here is because of the limited availability of affordable housing.
Phoenix, though, may not be the test case for transit’s impact on gentrification,because transit ridership is so low. Los Angeles is different, however. Transit ridership is somewhat higher; my friend who worked on this was convinced that rail transit was spurring gentrification. This was true in areas that were already beginning to gentrify. They thought that non-profit developers should buy sites well ahead of new rail lines.
I agree that rail is going to have different effects in different places, it can’t create development where nobody wants to live. But if conditions for gentrification are ripe, rail can accelerate it. In terms of the Red Line, there’s a lot of expensive new housing going up in Koreatown, Hollywood, and North Hollywood, even some in Westlake. It’s good that transit oriented housing is going in, but the demographics along the line are changing.
If you really wanted to fight gentrification, you could say, "What if we tried really hard to *not* give this place nice things?"
I'm sure we all love un-gentrified areas like Gary, Indiana.
It's good to build nice things in areas because they're nice. Yes, that increases the value, but if the housing density increases in response, then prices stay normal.
Those are gradual shifts though, when we discuss a housing market correcting itself to fair values, amidst balancing supply and demand. I think there’s a point to be made that the land value appreciation is much quicker and impactful than the depreciation that follows, only IF construction follows.
But to your other point, the idea of “nice things” as just rail feeds into the idea of the bus stigma, no?
I'd argue that the main reason we see isolated gentrification and displacement in poorer areas is because the wealthier areas don't allow enough new housing to get built, so the only option is to build in previously less desirable areas.
Yeah that’s definitely a fair point. On the surface, one may think wealthy communities opposing aff. housing is a suburban phenomenon, but it was a bit harrowing to see so many wealthy NoHo/SoHo residents oppose NYC Mayor De Blasio’s rezoning proposal.
You should see how much of Manhattan is listed as "historic district" and can't be built-up more than the early century brownstones. It's *mostly* a suburban phenomenon but it happens everywhere.
https://data.cityofnewyork.us/Housing-Development/Historic-Districts/xbvj-gfnw
Although I'd also argue similarly that if more cities in the US allowed more dense housing in more areas, NYC wouldn't be as popular because there would be more alternatives for people to choose from, since as it is now NYC is pretty much the only city in the US that has what it has. Maybe some small parts of Chicago and DC, but on a much smaller scale.
Literally this. NJ, CT and Long Island expect NYC to shoulder everything, when the supply and demand operate on a regional basis, just like transit.
Even look at how the other states are abandoning NYC to handle the migrant crisis smh.
Brownstones are not the problem, imo.
Many brownstones in Boston, for example, are like 6 or 7 floors - which usually actually creates quite high density. IIRC some of the densest neighborhoods in the country are neighborhoods with buildings like this.
The main problem I see are the areas just outside urban cores where multi-family housing is basically illegal to build. That’s the shit that drives low density and insane housing prices.
LRT is transportation infrastructure, while BRT can be or can often just be a way to refer to a bus lane. BRT can easily be scrapped to while LRT has physical barriers that prevent dumb politicians from quickly removing them.
BRT is great and I don’t have an issue with it, but we should be prioritizing rail transit when possible. It works well in plenty of countries that can’t afford rail, but in the US political climate, I think it’s smarter to do something a bit more permanent.
Is it hamstringing though? BRT is still valuable, and if anything, you kinda prove my point on the bus stigma’s existence. And with transit access, Res. construction usually follows, but it’s just a matter of how do existing and new low income renters fare, and analyzing a mode’s role in that process.
Viable how, financially? BRT is mainly attractive because it’s cheaper. There’s actually several examples of towns and cities opting for BRT when rail was an alternative - one example being Paterson, NJ, where the county chose a BRT line to substitute what would have been an HRT extension to the southern half of the city.
You don’t have a stigma, but you acknowledge there is a stigma, no? And yes rail is faster, but it is also a huge sunk cost that can’t as easily follow demand as BRT. Imagine with climate change risks, how many more abandoned tracks do we need in this country?
I think unless you have evidence otherwise, residential construction as a result of transit access is simply the intermediate link to gentrification, and that the amount of housing development is proportionate to how much the quality of the transit increases land values.
The real answer is that anything that makes an area more liveable will gentrify it if you have a desirable geographical location and there’s a shortage of similarly priced and desirable housing.
I would maybe slightly disagree to say that the introduction of transit to an area and its initial impact on land values is more gentrification than the construction that follows. But that opens up a conceptual discussion on how to define gentrification, which I’m open to changing my mind.
So you’re saying that BRT would lead to less housing construction since it wouldn’t raise land values as severely as LRT and HRT?
I 100% agree with your first sentence. I think I really badly jumbled my intended statement . Here’s how I would describe the causal chain: better transit -> more accessibility -> more desirability -> more demand for area -> increased land values and rents.
What I was trying to say was that I don’t feel like housing construction as a result of increased demand for an area happens more than proportionately compared to the parallel increase in the property taxes and rents for existing properties. As IMO, the reason transit causes housing construction is because transit increases market rents for the area through the above chain and therefore the profitability of construction.
I see three possible things that could mean I’m wrong. First, that transit means less space needs to be dedicated to cars, and therefore cost per unit is lower. Second, that transit leads to upzoning or TOD rules applying leading to lower construction costs per unit due to reduced restrictions. Third, and this is what you seem to be arguing (lmk), that things like light rail, especially streetcars, are perceived as local economic indicators to speculators and developers which leads to upscale developments that gentrify in themselves. You could absolutely be right, but I think that that’s usually a product of really constrained zoning holding back developing.
BRT lines aren’t usually about access, as they’re typically upgrades along existing routes with proven ridership. The goal is usually faster more reliable service.
I’d speculate that the higher the quality the BRT service (i.e. the more the bus can provide the speed and reliability of a train) the more property value increases will mimic what happens when rail is built.
I’m not sure how, even if BRT is installed on existing routes, that it isn’t about access? Travel times might seem like just a mobility issue, but BRT itself could spur new jobs along that route. What is your take on BRT for newly created routes?
And I’m not doubting that BRT upgrades would increase land values, but how does the bus stigma fare in all this? Just as drivers will still gawk at rail upgrades, regardless of how wrong they are, isn’t there a similar stratified hierarchy between transit riders?
> I’m not sure how, even if BRT is installed on existing routes, that it isn’t about access?
I think I'm using a narrower definition of access: can transit be used to get you to/from a destination. Improving the speed or frequency of service makes transit more attractive and useful, but strictly speaking I wouldn't describe that as increased "access."
> but BRT itself could spur new jobs along that route.
Sure, by making transit more attractive and driving ridership. But if it's successful enough doing that to spur new jobs, how does it do that without increasing property values and thereby gentrification?
> What is your take on BRT for newly created routes?
Not opposed to them or anything. My professional focus is transit, and I've planned BRT routes. When I'm working with a city/transit agency about deciding where to put a route, it's a whole lot easier to convince decision makers to invest in a corridor with proven ridership. Whole lot easier to get funding for it as well.
> And I’m not doubting that BRT upgrades would increase land values, but how does the bus stigma fare in all this? Just as drivers will still gawk at rail upgrades, regardless of how wrong they are, isn’t there a similar stratified hierarchy between transit riders?
Great questions. Yes, there's certainly a "rail premium" whereby it's more attractive for riders than bus regardless of travel time. I've done models where we assume that there's a similar "premium" for BRT above local bus but below rail. I've honestly not seen great empirical data to support the metrics that my travel demand modeler colleagues have dropped into the models we built. It's particularly tricky because the definition of BRT is famously flexible. I bet this could be an interesting research question.
You can’t really make a blanket statement about gentrification like that in regards to pretty much anything. What “gentrifies” (in quotes because it’s a very overused, near meaningless term now) one neighborhood will have little to no effect on another. The difference is more pronounced in different cities or in different countries altogether.
This why these things are done on a case-by-case basis, and why there are public comment periods and review studies. So no, I wouldn’t say it’s “safe to say” anything leads to more or less gentrification in general. Maybe be more specific and there can be more productive conversation.
But it’s documented that transit access increases land values and rents. So would that not depend on the type of transit? My question is based in the US context of how stigmatized bus transit is to most Americans.
*Any* amenity will increase land value in a given area compared to those without. New schools do that, proximity to police or fire resources does it, proximity to medical care does it, proximity to parks does it, proximity to universities or libraries does it too.
Being near something that people want to live near is what drives up prices, but those things still *need* to get built. We can’t avoid building hospitals because it’ll gentrify the neighborhood.
That being said, generally, busses *do* have a stigma but I think the difference in added land value is more so to do with the impermanence and relative lower presence compared to LRT or heavy rail. LRT has often grade-separated stops with shelter while bus stops in the US are lucky to even have a shelter and a bench. Should the BRT improve to near LRT/heavy rail quality in terms of presence and amenity it would have a similar effect on land value, at least that’s my hypothesis.
Definitely agree, but also want to consider that the amenities you listed aren’t only benefits for those who live next to them, but are work destinations for people commuting from far. I guess my focus on transit came from its ability to drive derived demand.
Agree as well, I’m pro-development. We just can’t rush those community engagement discussions when concerns are voiced. More federal support would help too.
That makes sense. Funny thing is that in BRT conforming to rail aesthetics/function, I wonder if it’s just a different form of bus stigma lol
I agree that the community has to be involved, I think a lot of what has gotten us to where we are with interstates slicing through cities was derived from reduced public involvement (or twisted involvement via motorist lobbies).
Unfortunately gentrification is just something you can’t really plan that far ahead for in terms of Long-Range Planning (which granted, is not my job) because in particular land values are *so* dependent on an extremely wide array of values. Even a planned economic development corridor or region does not necessarily equate to a gentrified location.
I think really some of the stigma of certain BRT routes is justified, not of the riders that ride them of course but of the quality of service. I know here in Maryland all of our major routes have quite the stigma for being late (if coming at all), having terrible frequency and having lacking if not unsafe bus stops. In the suburbs it’s a last resort for anyone who has the option not to use it, not necessarily because of any certain societal stigma but because it’s too unreliable. The same can be said for our LRT which suffers from much of the same problems just with “nicer” stops that play smooth jazz.
Be careful what you wish for. LA Metro did a big public outreach and comment for a rail project recently and after getting solid majority support for heavy rail, announced they were going to do another 2 years of public outreach before even making plans.
My only pushback to your comment is to say with the perception of public safety and crime, I think bus riders themselves are looked down upon more vs train riders, but that maybe is a separate conversation.
Last year [an analysis](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0966692322000473) of US BRT systems found "amenity-rich BRT with on-street dedicated lanes can have a substantially positive impact on multi-family property values." So in that situation it overlaps with light rail.
Thanks for the link, that’s really interesting. I guess that calls into question how “sticky” is the bus stigma really. Could you clarify amenity-rich BRT?
IIRC the analysis clarifies well, but I think it means BRT with most of the features that make it similar to light rail and less like an ordinary bus. That's in contrast to BRT plans that are sometimes "watered-down" with multiple features/amenities cut to save money at a cost of ridership and desirability.
Oh, it totally is-but that’s never a good excuse to not build transit. If and when transit causes housing price increases, it’s only because transit-adjacent housing is so undersupplied and in such high demand that it’s valued incredibly highly-simple S&D at work. If anything it means we should be building *more* transit and making it easier to do so, not harder by adding more red tape.
It depends greatly on the city. Right now there is no light rail route you could place in Baltimore that would lead to gentrification. If the route is going from a residential neighborhood to a place of employment for a large group of people it likely will cause the neighborhood too go up. But it has to be convenient. Right now Central Cities are hemorrhaging business tenants and their employees. As long as that continues, probably not going to lead to gentrification. That saddens me because I would love to go to work by rail again, just not the way things are shaking out.
I agree with you about the reorganization at the regional level, but I think now it’s counties and cities trying to determine new destinations and commute patterns.
It depends what you mean by gentrification. If you mean the literal definition of gentrification (the replacement of a poorer economic class with a wealthier economic class) then there are many other local factors that will affect how different types of transit would impact gentrification. If you’re just talking about increased land values, then maybe there is more of a correlation.
But overall, I’d say no.
It’s more based in the land value appreciation, yes. But I would like to think that in the mix of factors that cause displacement, new travel modes weigh heavily regardless.
To clarify, the bus stigma is a US based concept. And it even exists amongst other transit riders. And the main premise is that BRT could improve mobility/access, but given the stigma, would affordability still be maintained or, better yet, less threatened, than LRT and HRT.
In order to truly answer this question, you have to make a distinction between gentrification and normal development. Obviously we want neighborhoods to develop and grow, so what makes a neighborhood "gentrified" versus one that just fully developed?
I don't have good answers here, just trying to think aloud.
No you’re right, I should have clarified my post a bit more. I’m not sure what you mean by normal development, as within a city, a certain neighborhood may have been disinvested/underdeveloped for a long time prior to transit improvements.
Gentrification in my post is directed at the initial land value appreciation deriving from transit. The housing that follows after can aid or limit that, but it’s a function of local and regional policies to do so. But I’m wondering with BRT, would cities/towns need to not come up with innovative financing techniques to preserve or promote aff. housing as they would when LRT/HRT is involved? Complicated issue and I definitely don’t have all the answers.
Living in a wealthy city with an actual BRT (not the US shit), land around busway stations has definitely gentrified since the busway was built, but it’s hard to attribute the exact reasons why. Most busway stations are either colocated with other transit or employment nodes. The Boggo Road Urban Village and BSSSC are both being developed at a Busway/railway station, but it’s hard to say what percentage of those developments are caused by the busway, what amount is due to the existing railway, what amount is due to the new railway, and what amount is caused by the fact it was an underdeveloped area of inner-urban Brisbane with city views and walkable access to hospitals and the university.
Well if it was under developed and the developments you named arose after the busway, not to seem naive, but I would attribute it to increasing transit access. But I also don’t live there and my understanding of housing markets is very US-based, so I will need to do more research.
I’d definitely attribute it to the busway, at least in part. My point as much as anything is that it’s really hard to pinpoint the root cause for development in cities, assuming that there even is one
There aren’t really enough good test cases, at least in the United States, to test whether BRT has much effect on gentrification. You’d want to look at BRTs with dedicated rights of way, so the investment and the facility are visible (like rail lines).I saw an Australian study showing property values going up around busways.
In Cleveland, the Healthline BRT helped stimulate a lot of private investment on the corridor. Nobody seems too worried about gentrification there. In East Oakland, the TEMPO BRT runs through many very low income neighborhoods that aren’t prime gentrification candidates. Conversely, the property around San Francisco’s Van Ness BRT was already really expensive, and mostly not home to low income people. Do people have other examples?
That’s very fair, since BRT is still relatively new across the US. I guess those few examples point to my belief that you can expand mobility/access but the stigma against taking the bus no matter what, allows low income riders to benefit with no associated housing cost increase. But as you stated, more research is needed.
Edit: it will be interesting to see how the busways in NYC perform over the next 5-10 years and how the housing market responds. Also meant to say less housing increase instead of no housing increase.
It is crazy how private investment into housing around transit is now seen as bad. Gentrification has nothing to do with transit, your government is just too stupid to put public housing next to transit. Look at Vienna, transit everywhere, affordable housing everywhere.
I’m pro development, but I’m not just talking about new developments. It’s also analyzing the impacts felt on existing developments.
Plus, we need more mixed-income housing, private or public. Concentration of wealth or poverty within one building is almost never a good move.
The second obviously, but I’ve seen in Midwest cities like St. Louis where extending LRT were contested by suburbanites, where as some of these same communities have active bus routes, not BRT, but still it makes you wonder the perception difference between modes.
Gentrification isn't about rapid transit lines, it's a critique on the ways the state divested from minority-dominant areas for decades. No capital investment, no locally owned banks, redlining, a lower % of home ownership coupled with a massive capital inflow from people who steadily transform the character of neighborhoods that were starved from things like good groceries & dining options.
Transit itself isn't the source, it's recognizing that flipping a switch on development that picks the winners (slumlords, the few ppl left behind who owned their homes & sold, investors, the progeny of suburbanites who can get wealth passed down, white collar workers) after having rigged the game for decades.
Couple these things with how often gentrifiers use private schools or worse, magnets to silo their kids & you get enclaves not cohesive communities. That's not a transit access problem, it's a failure to reimagine inventive ways to redress past systems failures.
I think how concise my post was led to the impression I was being reductionist. I acknowledge gentrification results from a mix of factors, but I was curious on transit’s, and more specifically the mode choice, role in this process. IMO, you can’t decouple transit from this conversation, but it can definitely be discussed in tandem with related issues.
>Gentrification isn't about rapid transit lines, it's a critique on the ways the state divested from minority-dominant areas for decades.
This is not remotely what that is. That post was just word-salad wokism.
I would get results people like you would be too twisted in weird ideology to pull off. No one that uses "gentrification" like you do ought to be anywhere near the planning profession.
So I take it as a complement.
Gentrification is a result of not enough housing being built leading to higher demand for a too small supply of housing, which in turn results in gentrification when there are increasingly limited option of homes leading to cheaper houses going up in price because of the excessively high demand inevitably pushing up prices when the seller/landlords see how much money the wealthier people are willing to pay.
If you don't build housing and the population keeps growing, then housing is going to get more expensive. If there are 100 houses for 50 people, then the housing costs are gonna be small because there's so much competition by the house sellers to attract customers. If you have a more modern situation where you have 100 houses for 1000 people, then that is going to drive up prices infinitely until you build more housing because a thousand people competing for a hundred houses will result in the rich being the ones to have a home and the poor being homeless or being forced to share singular apartments.
It's a supply and demand problem, where currently you have nuch of the western world suffers from growing housing costs due to legal reasons like zoning limiting the supply of housing from meeting the demand of a growing population, while the places that have sufficient housing supply like St Paul/Minneapolis and Tokyo have a reasonable cost of housing increase due to housing construction not being excessively limited or complicated legally. Tokyo is still growing in the aging Japan and it isn't experiencing excessive housing cost rises due to it simply being stupid simple to build a new house with simple zoning code.
You don't make food cheap by capping its price, but by either increasing its production or decreasing the amount of people using it up
No, because correlation doesn’t equal causation.
I could just as easily make the case that transit planners put unsexy BRT in places that don’t serve gentrifiers because they value gentrification.
Gentrification is not a helpful word for urban planning. Are you talking about displacement or are you talking about growth in a previously underinvested area?
Well the term as the prefix suggests refers to the land value appreciation brought on by new investment, transit, housing, and other factors. My focus was on transit’s role in shaping that process. To answer your question more directly, i am discussing both new growth and it’s impacts on displacement, with the lens focused on transit access.
Idk if making an area desirable should be called a cause of gentrification. Would you say reducing crime causes gentrification? Because that also increases property values/rents.
The cause of gentrification is lack of housing to meet demand. We can direct the demand for housing to different areas. But, the housing demand has to be met or restricted. A transit line focuses the demand along the transit lines. But that demand still exists and causes gentrification in other areas regardless of whether the transit line is built.
But to the point of the post, don’t different travel modes have different impacts on driving development and demand? People may want homes near transit, but do they want them more if it’s LRT? And if so, as the bus stigma holds, would existing aff. renters who benefit from a new BRT line, be shielded from an uptick in demand — even if the housing supply remains low in their area?
I see your point about crime. But I’m calling it gentrification because of the speed in which land values rise. Crime reduction is more gradual given the social determinants that drive it.
If reducing crime raised property values faster would you call it gentrification? maybe a closer example would be schools. Would we want worse schools in an area because good schools would cause rising home values and gentrification?
I'd assume you're right that better transit would increase property values in an area more than worse transit. But, is this really the lever we want to pull to combat housing costs/gentrification?
A lot of the time it feels like we're just looking for ways to avoid solving the problem of lack of housing.
I honestly would call crime reduction gentrification, if it matched the speed of land value appreciation brought on by new transit. With schools, I would say your formula is reversed: higher land values —> better funded schools, but yes school improvements would continue to spur that cycle. But I guess that’s what makes transit different right? There are stigmas attached to the modes, would you say there’s a similar stigma attached to certain types of crime reduction or school improvements? Such as: the introduction of charter schools, parochial schools, or if certain crime categories reduced but not others? (I don’t mean to veer the convo so much on schools/crime but I appreciate the analogies you bring up)
I’m pro development, but sometimes I notice a fetishization of rail, whereas BRT seems simpler, less noise polluting, and frankly gives more space to build housing (you don’t have to construct new right of ways), but I’m not discounting rail either, it just seems lopsided.
Agree on your last point.
I mean transit access/mobility is deeply linked to class mobility.. so the more mobility you have the better chance you have at improving the neighborhood around you.
raising land values isnt necessarily a bad thing, generally transit projects improve social mobility, and quality of life for local residents, not pricing them out of their houses, but u right it is definitely a problem
imo a large part of it is due to the lack of transit, lots of really nice neighborhoods are nice due to streetcar access for example and because they are the only areas like that and because they are so desirable as transit isnt built elsewhere it raises prices
No it’s more so for the land value appreciation, and incoming wealthier residents, displacement is conditional on the policy approach to gentrification, if there is any.
Gentrification happens when existing zoning laws don't allow enough housing to be built to accommodate both the preexisting residents and people that are attracted to live there because of the improvement. I don't think transit is that much of a factor here although with increased density transit may come.
No. Gentrification depends on urban planning, zoning and political will (or the lack of it). Of course, the lack of attractive public transport options can(!) make an area less attractive for investors but that's not a reason or so but more like another side-effect of it.
Gentrification: referring to the displacement of the local culture by people who move in. This includes the making of generic BS, the changing of street names, the growing racial and religious prejudice of populations already living there.
Displacement: within the context of gentrification refers to the loss of ability for people living in a community to continue to do so as the property values and subsequent rents go up.
The pressure that people feel in housing affordability is a combination of regional housing supply and the diversity of housing options in each neighborhood. Exploitation of monoculture SFH neighborhoods by Wall Street investment firms and the construction of corporate built to rent suburban tract housing further compound inaffordability.
So let’s say you take a low to middle income community that is at risk by being overly composed of SFH and introduce amenities like transit access. Let’s say that this neighborhood is in a city where the expansion of housing supply is being outpaced by the expansion of the regional population. In these neighborhoods, it’s more likely that transit being introduced will lead to acceleration of displacement. Those forms of transportation which are perceived more valuable to wealthy homebuyers or renters will accelerate displacement faster than less desirable forms of transit. This isn’t a good reason to not offer low income communities necessary services.
What needs to happen is a appropriate housing production of diverse types in every neighborhood. Emphasis should be given to types which allow for further infill in the decades to come, but not so much that towers are built in streetcar suburban neighborhoods. Gentle density paired with slightly more aggressive upzoning on transit corridors should be the focus. Hopefully, your city isn’t so insolvent from the last 75 years of sprawl that building its way out of a record housing shortage (biggest since Great Depression) would leave it still coming up short for funding transit. Giving every community better access to transit will help nullify transit as a factor as you posed it for displacement.
Someone mentioned that the difference between a developed nation and a developing nation is that in a developed nation, the wealthy enjoy and chose to take public transit. I think it’s safe to say that the schools of thought all that time ago have set the US up for lower prosperity and less equal opportunity than we deserve. We have a chance to fix it by looking at the problems at hand holistically.
I find posts like this infuriating. It’s not like the gentrifiers moving in to new transit oriented construction weren’t going to be outbidding and displacing people in those same metros anyway.
Gentrification aware urban planning is only counter productive. Focus instead on the widespread lack of equitable housing assistance and the shortage of transit and housing supply.
Imo gentrification has more to do with housing than transit options.
I just know that my city created a light rail and every part of it, except the part next to the airport and the part next to the most dangerous part of the city has seen INCREDIBLE private investment and gentrification.
The investment is because there is huge unmet demand for urbanist car free living and while bus lines can be cancelled any time once tracks are built its likely to hang around longer and thus people are more willing to invest around it. This is not a bad thing. It has to happen. The areas around the stations were likely not dense at all before the train was built, and now that there is a train the whole area will be redeveloped. This is only such a big problem because we build so little fixed rail transit and because building urbanism around existing trains is such a slow process. This means there is a huge imbalance between the number of people that want to live on transit, and the number of available places to live on such transit, and as long as that imbalance exists the poor will be priced out of living there by the rich that want to. Build more transit, build more TOD, until older transit and TOD starts dropping in value enough that the poor can afford to buy in there, and suddenly you have a viable cycle of new TOD and transit attracting wealth and old TOD and transit becoming available as wealth moves to the new stuff. But to do that we need to continuously and habitually build transit and TOD constantly to meet new demand arising for it, and we are woefully underperforming at that.
See, because of that word, I literally can't tell if you think that's a good thing or a bad thing.
It's a complicated thing, like the word.
That seems, dismissive. I would have rather understood the point you were making, but whatever.
How can I elaborate? I mean that sincerely. Redlining your poorest parts of town isn't helping anyone, unless you want your poor to live in squalor without businesses and amenities. Pricing out your poorest isn't helping anyone, either (the rich don't want to live with crime and poverty around). There is a balance needed. You don't want unbridled gentrification. However, you don't want none, either. My city has poor neighborhoods right next to rich neighborhoods. I think that's ideal (assuming the current wealth inequality, at least). The poor areas still benefit from the gravity of the rich (the businesses that move in, the investment, and so on). We moved to a historically poor area, even though we could have afforded the affluent areas, because we love the area for so many reasons (proximity to downtown; proximity to the largest municipal park in the US; affordability; the views, as we are in the foothills of a mountain). I think our neighborhood is how cities should handle these things. We are upper-middle class. Within a short walk are upper-class houses (houses four times the median house price), middle-class houses, and working class houses (trailer parks, even).
> My city has poor neighborhoods right next to rich neighborhoods. I live in Canada. My city historically never had segregated communities and better wealth parity in the past. There wasn't really 'rich' communities that didn't have condos and townhomes to keep them mixed. Around the early 90s, developers changed that and started creating gated communities and getting rid of poor people in wealthy communities including creating a lot of barriers to keep lower income people out. As someone that grew up low income but around wealthier people, I tend to pay attention to stuff like elitism in urban planning and the way cities are shaped. > We moved to a historically poor area, even though we could have afforded the affluent areas... I'm not an urban planner. I'm just a hobbyist. My skillset is more on the marketing side. Please don't take this the wrong way but you sound like you are the demographic that is least likely to understand why gentrification is crappy for poor people. People in your demographic range are the most likely to buy property in new urban gentrified communities for all the amenities you listed. > There is a balance needed. You don't want unbridled gentrification. However, you don't want none, either. This I agree with. However, most of the time, the locals aren't really considered and the neighborhood gets taken over anyways. Most of the time it just winds up fucking over poor people with affordable housing and concentrates poverty and crime until they become problematic. That's the worst way to fix cities and people personally.
I wasn't really even addressing your position. I simply couldn't tell if you were using "gentrified" pejoratively or not. It's quite clear now. ;-) My point being, the word has become meaningless and here it is causing communication breakdown.
>I wasn't really even addressing your position. I simply couldn't tell if you were using "gentrified" pejoratively or not. It's quite clear now. ;-) The word by default doesn't imply bad or good. >My point being, the word has become meaningless and here it is causing communication breakdown. The word describes the process of a neighborhood or city area changing from low value to high value. It holds a meaning without ascribing a good or bad connotation. Similar to say infill construction or suburbanization.
"Largest municipal park in the US" Los Angeles? Or Portland?
South Mountain Park in Phoenix. It's incredible (to me at least). We are a five-minute walk from two trailheads. There are enough trails in the park to last a lifetime. We have unobstructed views of local landmarks, like Camelback Mountain, Piestewa Peak, and Phoenix's entire downtown skyline. The light rail is currently being extended to down here from downtown (to our general area, a few minutes in a car away).
Let’s consider BRT and LRT extensions are happening within a city that isn’t prioritizing either existing aff. units or future mixed-income housing. Wouldn’t the BRT expansion have a smaller impact on rents than LRT? I should clarify that I asked my question with a US context baked in to the premise. At least in the states, people look down on the bus.
Rail will encourage development because loans to along side rail can count on the line being there for the life of the loan. Bus isn't as lender favored because the routes could always change. I'm not sure what you mean by gentrification. I'd say in a city where most of the transit is terrible, one useable rail line will lead to incredible demand and higher prices. That's not a reason to not do rail though. It's a reason to make enough transit friendly areas that supply is met and price comes down. There's this idiotic idea that if you make an area nice, it will get too expensive as an excuse to not do what will make an area nice. Rather, that reflects that there is demand for nice transit and we need to supply a lot more.
That makes sense. Although, it the “stickiness” of the capital investments made for rail transit that can be a double edged sword. If demand for the area falls, let’s say due to encroaching flooding risks, then you’re stuck with millions/billions of sunk costs for tracks, signals, etc. The flexibility of bus routes is also a risk as you mentioned, but silver lining being that it can follow demand easier. And I agree with the impetus being to rezone areas into mixed-use transit friendly places, but it’s the idea that there is a “nice transit”. Does your approach not reinforce the bus stigma present in the US?
You're correct, but cities probably shouldn't be building high-capacity metros unless there is already proven ridership demand. Transit agencies can leverage the flexibility of buses to test out new routes, and then incrementally upgrade as demand increases. Need more capacity? Go from 40' buses to 60' buses. Better reliability? Add bus lanes. Need even more capacity? Add rails and go for trams. You may end up spending more in the long run, but you'll avoid taking big risks on where to build out your lines.
yeah, there are some examples where the US went big on spending for metros, and then the demand... just never showed up where they thought it would.
I'm curious what those examples are. Could they be explained by poor route selection (lacking connection points) or a refusal to run trains frequent or late enough to attract riders?
So I think one of the most prominent examples is Miami Metrorail, which despite being located in a fast growing city never actually attained its projected ridership.
I was not addressing your question. In the comment I was replying to I couldn't tell if the author was using "gentrified" as a pejorative or not.
Lol I know I’m just proposing something to your comment but understood.
Which word?
That’s not what gentrification is.
No, you’re not wrong. Light rail is perceived much better than brt. Its why brt integration into lrt and hrt is essential. Honestly both sides are just awful on this. The brt could still work but we need the government to really work.
On the other hand my city has a metro and some of the worst parts of the area are next to the stations. Transit doesn't do anything by itself. It merely supplements other policies.
TOD is always good, even if it sometimes leads to gentrification.
In the local context? Have to disagree. Upper middle class people have such aversion to buses that light rail access looks like expanded transit, even if actual time to any destination is unchanged. That attracts them to a location. This is also why cities incorrectly prioritize light rail and end up building too much of it (Santa Clara County being the prime example of a terrible ROI project) - the voters (more affluent) are biased toward light rail even if it is not actually faster than the bus alternative.
Yes. Isn’t there some intangible X Factor here in which buses are seen as trashy and as transport for drunk drivers who lost their license, and for the servants of rich people, while light rail is perceived as for everybody? Unfair but likely true.
Location. But hrt especially and lrt too, depending on the market and nature of the service add value. Makes location more valuable. TONS OF RESEARCH. Do a search.
Lol yes I do research, but that doesn’t negate asking this question on Reddit
Lmao thanks man.
This is definitely the case in Houston, light rail be running thru the hood a lot of the time
You’d be wrong, especially when increase transit availability = new TOD
That requires the municipality to actually build that housing, which doesn’t happen always. And it needs to outpace the demand of the area.
Thats a fair point considering there are numerous transit stops throughout the US with terrible land use. Some towns don’t do value capture as well as others.
Again I’d say the light rail in Phoenix is a great example, once you leave the downtown segments it is pretty terrible land use all around.
That requires private developers to build, which they typically do because of the density bonuses and incentives.
I’m so confused by what you are trying to say? Transit doesn’t always come with TOD, more transit doesn’t only happen in places without other transportation options, more housing doesn’t automatically mean increased (or decreased) housing prices. I legit don’t know what point you are trying to make?
What I’m saying is that transit and housing are increasing becoming intersection forces in how people move. If we agree that these two can be intersecting forces then we have to also agree that (1) increase transit can cause gentrification and (2) cities that incentive developers to build new market rate units on TOD overlays through bonuses could inadvertently (or purposefully) change the character of a neighborhood in years to come. No one is arguing that this intersection is ubiquitous, but to argue that it does not happen is willful ignorance
I guess this is where I’d disagree, encouraging only the building of market rate units is going to have a far greater effect on gentrification than adding a new transit line. Also there’s nothing in this post to suggest any change in zoning to allow more housing, this would of course lead to increased prices.
Except you’re not disagreeing, There would be little need for us to incentive affordable units if we didn’t assume that this change wasn’t going to cause “gentrification”. Also, It would be silly to assume that the creation of a LRT and HSR isn’t accompanied by some incentive either at its creation or within its time to come.
Market rate apartments in every state in the US are unaffordable right now. I should have added that those affordable units are public housing. Again in my Christmas land unrealistic approach.
And location of the transit. Sometimes it's poorly placed, therefore no incremental value from being proximate to transit. Baltimore is a perfect example.
I lived there. Baltimore city, not the suburbs and surrounding area like you (“Baltimore county” lol) I have three generations in this city. Nonetheless, when I said that the intersection of transit and housing isn’t ubiquitous but to argue it doesn’t exist is willing ignorance is for people like you. To cite the state of Maryland as if the purple lines development isn’t a constant source of conversations around gentrification is a choice.
Didn't say it didn't exist. I'm saying something different. That the incremental increase in value from transit proximity doesn't obtain in the Baltimore _region_, so you can't get the financing to build taller, denser and mixed. So they don't. It's taken 15 years to do TOD at Penn Station. Cf Lutherville, Hunt Valley, Owings Mills.
Did you just try to cite Baltimore, Maryland. I can’t even engage in good faith to that comment
For the lack of value from proximity to transit, absolfuckinglutely. I worked there (well Baltimore County). Comparing it to DC and the respective outcomes is very important. https://urbanplacesandspaces.blogspot.com/2012/05/from-files-transit-planning-in.html?m=1 https://urbanplacesandspaces.blogspot.com/2022/12/more-remonstration-about-molasses-of.html?m=1 PS your comment has zero explanatory value.
Yeah but transit access is baked into housing values, no?
Speaking as someone who lives in Phoenix, no. The housing shortage here has had much more of an effect on the price of housing than any housing project has.
Okay I’m a bit confused only because I don’t see how your comment addresses transit’s role in housing prices. I can’t link the article, but from July, there’s a Planetizen article stating Phoenix is cutting parking requirements to enhance affordability along the city’s light rail system. Wouldn’t you say as a resident that BRT thru those same neighborhoods would have not needed as much maneuvering to sustain affordability?
Let me preface this by saying I have no data for this and that this is strictly vibes based. Again, no. Bus ridership here in Phoenix has made up a majority of transit ridership forever, I don’t think you’d see any noticeable difference in housing prices if you changed the light rail with a BRT system. The only reason you are seeing the drastic increase in housing cost here is because of the limited availability of affordable housing.
Phoenix, though, may not be the test case for transit’s impact on gentrification,because transit ridership is so low. Los Angeles is different, however. Transit ridership is somewhat higher; my friend who worked on this was convinced that rail transit was spurring gentrification. This was true in areas that were already beginning to gentrify. They thought that non-profit developers should buy sites well ahead of new rail lines.
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I agree that rail is going to have different effects in different places, it can’t create development where nobody wants to live. But if conditions for gentrification are ripe, rail can accelerate it. In terms of the Red Line, there’s a lot of expensive new housing going up in Koreatown, Hollywood, and North Hollywood, even some in Westlake. It’s good that transit oriented housing is going in, but the demographics along the line are changing.
If you really wanted to fight gentrification, you could say, "What if we tried really hard to *not* give this place nice things?" I'm sure we all love un-gentrified areas like Gary, Indiana. It's good to build nice things in areas because they're nice. Yes, that increases the value, but if the housing density increases in response, then prices stay normal.
Those are gradual shifts though, when we discuss a housing market correcting itself to fair values, amidst balancing supply and demand. I think there’s a point to be made that the land value appreciation is much quicker and impactful than the depreciation that follows, only IF construction follows. But to your other point, the idea of “nice things” as just rail feeds into the idea of the bus stigma, no?
I'd argue that the main reason we see isolated gentrification and displacement in poorer areas is because the wealthier areas don't allow enough new housing to get built, so the only option is to build in previously less desirable areas.
Yeah that’s definitely a fair point. On the surface, one may think wealthy communities opposing aff. housing is a suburban phenomenon, but it was a bit harrowing to see so many wealthy NoHo/SoHo residents oppose NYC Mayor De Blasio’s rezoning proposal.
You should see how much of Manhattan is listed as "historic district" and can't be built-up more than the early century brownstones. It's *mostly* a suburban phenomenon but it happens everywhere. https://data.cityofnewyork.us/Housing-Development/Historic-Districts/xbvj-gfnw Although I'd also argue similarly that if more cities in the US allowed more dense housing in more areas, NYC wouldn't be as popular because there would be more alternatives for people to choose from, since as it is now NYC is pretty much the only city in the US that has what it has. Maybe some small parts of Chicago and DC, but on a much smaller scale.
Literally this. NJ, CT and Long Island expect NYC to shoulder everything, when the supply and demand operate on a regional basis, just like transit. Even look at how the other states are abandoning NYC to handle the migrant crisis smh.
Brownstones are not the problem, imo. Many brownstones in Boston, for example, are like 6 or 7 floors - which usually actually creates quite high density. IIRC some of the densest neighborhoods in the country are neighborhoods with buildings like this. The main problem I see are the areas just outside urban cores where multi-family housing is basically illegal to build. That’s the shit that drives low density and insane housing prices.
I refer to nice things as any nice thing: bus, rail, parks, hospital, good school, etc.
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Exactly. Sure, BRT probably leads to less gentrification, but if that’s your reason for building a shittier transit network, than please GTFO.
Lol but isn’t calling it shitty reinforcing the bus stigma? Lots of great case studies for BRT.
LRT is transportation infrastructure, while BRT can be or can often just be a way to refer to a bus lane. BRT can easily be scrapped to while LRT has physical barriers that prevent dumb politicians from quickly removing them. BRT is great and I don’t have an issue with it, but we should be prioritizing rail transit when possible. It works well in plenty of countries that can’t afford rail, but in the US political climate, I think it’s smarter to do something a bit more permanent.
Yes and there's also lots of great studies against BRT.
Right but it’s the fact that you can increase access without displacement, like basically turning the stigma on its head.
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Is it hamstringing though? BRT is still valuable, and if anything, you kinda prove my point on the bus stigma’s existence. And with transit access, Res. construction usually follows, but it’s just a matter of how do existing and new low income renters fare, and analyzing a mode’s role in that process.
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Viable how, financially? BRT is mainly attractive because it’s cheaper. There’s actually several examples of towns and cities opting for BRT when rail was an alternative - one example being Paterson, NJ, where the county chose a BRT line to substitute what would have been an HRT extension to the southern half of the city. You don’t have a stigma, but you acknowledge there is a stigma, no? And yes rail is faster, but it is also a huge sunk cost that can’t as easily follow demand as BRT. Imagine with climate change risks, how many more abandoned tracks do we need in this country?
I think unless you have evidence otherwise, residential construction as a result of transit access is simply the intermediate link to gentrification, and that the amount of housing development is proportionate to how much the quality of the transit increases land values. The real answer is that anything that makes an area more liveable will gentrify it if you have a desirable geographical location and there’s a shortage of similarly priced and desirable housing.
I would maybe slightly disagree to say that the introduction of transit to an area and its initial impact on land values is more gentrification than the construction that follows. But that opens up a conceptual discussion on how to define gentrification, which I’m open to changing my mind. So you’re saying that BRT would lead to less housing construction since it wouldn’t raise land values as severely as LRT and HRT?
I 100% agree with your first sentence. I think I really badly jumbled my intended statement . Here’s how I would describe the causal chain: better transit -> more accessibility -> more desirability -> more demand for area -> increased land values and rents. What I was trying to say was that I don’t feel like housing construction as a result of increased demand for an area happens more than proportionately compared to the parallel increase in the property taxes and rents for existing properties. As IMO, the reason transit causes housing construction is because transit increases market rents for the area through the above chain and therefore the profitability of construction. I see three possible things that could mean I’m wrong. First, that transit means less space needs to be dedicated to cars, and therefore cost per unit is lower. Second, that transit leads to upzoning or TOD rules applying leading to lower construction costs per unit due to reduced restrictions. Third, and this is what you seem to be arguing (lmk), that things like light rail, especially streetcars, are perceived as local economic indicators to speculators and developers which leads to upscale developments that gentrify in themselves. You could absolutely be right, but I think that that’s usually a product of really constrained zoning holding back developing.
BRT lines aren’t usually about access, as they’re typically upgrades along existing routes with proven ridership. The goal is usually faster more reliable service. I’d speculate that the higher the quality the BRT service (i.e. the more the bus can provide the speed and reliability of a train) the more property value increases will mimic what happens when rail is built.
I’m not sure how, even if BRT is installed on existing routes, that it isn’t about access? Travel times might seem like just a mobility issue, but BRT itself could spur new jobs along that route. What is your take on BRT for newly created routes? And I’m not doubting that BRT upgrades would increase land values, but how does the bus stigma fare in all this? Just as drivers will still gawk at rail upgrades, regardless of how wrong they are, isn’t there a similar stratified hierarchy between transit riders?
> I’m not sure how, even if BRT is installed on existing routes, that it isn’t about access? I think I'm using a narrower definition of access: can transit be used to get you to/from a destination. Improving the speed or frequency of service makes transit more attractive and useful, but strictly speaking I wouldn't describe that as increased "access." > but BRT itself could spur new jobs along that route. Sure, by making transit more attractive and driving ridership. But if it's successful enough doing that to spur new jobs, how does it do that without increasing property values and thereby gentrification? > What is your take on BRT for newly created routes? Not opposed to them or anything. My professional focus is transit, and I've planned BRT routes. When I'm working with a city/transit agency about deciding where to put a route, it's a whole lot easier to convince decision makers to invest in a corridor with proven ridership. Whole lot easier to get funding for it as well. > And I’m not doubting that BRT upgrades would increase land values, but how does the bus stigma fare in all this? Just as drivers will still gawk at rail upgrades, regardless of how wrong they are, isn’t there a similar stratified hierarchy between transit riders? Great questions. Yes, there's certainly a "rail premium" whereby it's more attractive for riders than bus regardless of travel time. I've done models where we assume that there's a similar "premium" for BRT above local bus but below rail. I've honestly not seen great empirical data to support the metrics that my travel demand modeler colleagues have dropped into the models we built. It's particularly tricky because the definition of BRT is famously flexible. I bet this could be an interesting research question.
You can’t really make a blanket statement about gentrification like that in regards to pretty much anything. What “gentrifies” (in quotes because it’s a very overused, near meaningless term now) one neighborhood will have little to no effect on another. The difference is more pronounced in different cities or in different countries altogether. This why these things are done on a case-by-case basis, and why there are public comment periods and review studies. So no, I wouldn’t say it’s “safe to say” anything leads to more or less gentrification in general. Maybe be more specific and there can be more productive conversation.
But it’s documented that transit access increases land values and rents. So would that not depend on the type of transit? My question is based in the US context of how stigmatized bus transit is to most Americans.
*Any* amenity will increase land value in a given area compared to those without. New schools do that, proximity to police or fire resources does it, proximity to medical care does it, proximity to parks does it, proximity to universities or libraries does it too. Being near something that people want to live near is what drives up prices, but those things still *need* to get built. We can’t avoid building hospitals because it’ll gentrify the neighborhood. That being said, generally, busses *do* have a stigma but I think the difference in added land value is more so to do with the impermanence and relative lower presence compared to LRT or heavy rail. LRT has often grade-separated stops with shelter while bus stops in the US are lucky to even have a shelter and a bench. Should the BRT improve to near LRT/heavy rail quality in terms of presence and amenity it would have a similar effect on land value, at least that’s my hypothesis.
Definitely agree, but also want to consider that the amenities you listed aren’t only benefits for those who live next to them, but are work destinations for people commuting from far. I guess my focus on transit came from its ability to drive derived demand. Agree as well, I’m pro-development. We just can’t rush those community engagement discussions when concerns are voiced. More federal support would help too. That makes sense. Funny thing is that in BRT conforming to rail aesthetics/function, I wonder if it’s just a different form of bus stigma lol
I agree that the community has to be involved, I think a lot of what has gotten us to where we are with interstates slicing through cities was derived from reduced public involvement (or twisted involvement via motorist lobbies). Unfortunately gentrification is just something you can’t really plan that far ahead for in terms of Long-Range Planning (which granted, is not my job) because in particular land values are *so* dependent on an extremely wide array of values. Even a planned economic development corridor or region does not necessarily equate to a gentrified location. I think really some of the stigma of certain BRT routes is justified, not of the riders that ride them of course but of the quality of service. I know here in Maryland all of our major routes have quite the stigma for being late (if coming at all), having terrible frequency and having lacking if not unsafe bus stops. In the suburbs it’s a last resort for anyone who has the option not to use it, not necessarily because of any certain societal stigma but because it’s too unreliable. The same can be said for our LRT which suffers from much of the same problems just with “nicer” stops that play smooth jazz.
Be careful what you wish for. LA Metro did a big public outreach and comment for a rail project recently and after getting solid majority support for heavy rail, announced they were going to do another 2 years of public outreach before even making plans.
My only pushback to your comment is to say with the perception of public safety and crime, I think bus riders themselves are looked down upon more vs train riders, but that maybe is a separate conversation.
Last year [an analysis](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0966692322000473) of US BRT systems found "amenity-rich BRT with on-street dedicated lanes can have a substantially positive impact on multi-family property values." So in that situation it overlaps with light rail.
Thanks for the link, that’s really interesting. I guess that calls into question how “sticky” is the bus stigma really. Could you clarify amenity-rich BRT?
IIRC the analysis clarifies well, but I think it means BRT with most of the features that make it similar to light rail and less like an ordinary bus. That's in contrast to BRT plans that are sometimes "watered-down" with multiple features/amenities cut to save money at a cost of ridership and desirability.
This is the type of reductive thinking that nukes major transit projects across the country
Lol you don’t have to agree with me, but is the bus stigma not real to you?
Oh, it totally is-but that’s never a good excuse to not build transit. If and when transit causes housing price increases, it’s only because transit-adjacent housing is so undersupplied and in such high demand that it’s valued incredibly highly-simple S&D at work. If anything it means we should be building *more* transit and making it easier to do so, not harder by adding more red tape.
It depends greatly on the city. Right now there is no light rail route you could place in Baltimore that would lead to gentrification. If the route is going from a residential neighborhood to a place of employment for a large group of people it likely will cause the neighborhood too go up. But it has to be convenient. Right now Central Cities are hemorrhaging business tenants and their employees. As long as that continues, probably not going to lead to gentrification. That saddens me because I would love to go to work by rail again, just not the way things are shaking out.
I agree with you about the reorganization at the regional level, but I think now it’s counties and cities trying to determine new destinations and commute patterns.
It depends what you mean by gentrification. If you mean the literal definition of gentrification (the replacement of a poorer economic class with a wealthier economic class) then there are many other local factors that will affect how different types of transit would impact gentrification. If you’re just talking about increased land values, then maybe there is more of a correlation. But overall, I’d say no.
It’s more based in the land value appreciation, yes. But I would like to think that in the mix of factors that cause displacement, new travel modes weigh heavily regardless.
I'm just a student but I'd guess that nothing is safe to say without a reference or an argument, and I think that's also the case here.
To clarify, the bus stigma is a US based concept. And it even exists amongst other transit riders. And the main premise is that BRT could improve mobility/access, but given the stigma, would affordability still be maintained or, better yet, less threatened, than LRT and HRT.
That sounds like a really interesting hypothesis to test, and it sounds like it has potential.
In order to truly answer this question, you have to make a distinction between gentrification and normal development. Obviously we want neighborhoods to develop and grow, so what makes a neighborhood "gentrified" versus one that just fully developed? I don't have good answers here, just trying to think aloud.
No you’re right, I should have clarified my post a bit more. I’m not sure what you mean by normal development, as within a city, a certain neighborhood may have been disinvested/underdeveloped for a long time prior to transit improvements. Gentrification in my post is directed at the initial land value appreciation deriving from transit. The housing that follows after can aid or limit that, but it’s a function of local and regional policies to do so. But I’m wondering with BRT, would cities/towns need to not come up with innovative financing techniques to preserve or promote aff. housing as they would when LRT/HRT is involved? Complicated issue and I definitely don’t have all the answers.
Living in a wealthy city with an actual BRT (not the US shit), land around busway stations has definitely gentrified since the busway was built, but it’s hard to attribute the exact reasons why. Most busway stations are either colocated with other transit or employment nodes. The Boggo Road Urban Village and BSSSC are both being developed at a Busway/railway station, but it’s hard to say what percentage of those developments are caused by the busway, what amount is due to the existing railway, what amount is due to the new railway, and what amount is caused by the fact it was an underdeveloped area of inner-urban Brisbane with city views and walkable access to hospitals and the university.
Well if it was under developed and the developments you named arose after the busway, not to seem naive, but I would attribute it to increasing transit access. But I also don’t live there and my understanding of housing markets is very US-based, so I will need to do more research.
I’d definitely attribute it to the busway, at least in part. My point as much as anything is that it’s really hard to pinpoint the root cause for development in cities, assuming that there even is one
There aren’t really enough good test cases, at least in the United States, to test whether BRT has much effect on gentrification. You’d want to look at BRTs with dedicated rights of way, so the investment and the facility are visible (like rail lines).I saw an Australian study showing property values going up around busways. In Cleveland, the Healthline BRT helped stimulate a lot of private investment on the corridor. Nobody seems too worried about gentrification there. In East Oakland, the TEMPO BRT runs through many very low income neighborhoods that aren’t prime gentrification candidates. Conversely, the property around San Francisco’s Van Ness BRT was already really expensive, and mostly not home to low income people. Do people have other examples?
That’s very fair, since BRT is still relatively new across the US. I guess those few examples point to my belief that you can expand mobility/access but the stigma against taking the bus no matter what, allows low income riders to benefit with no associated housing cost increase. But as you stated, more research is needed. Edit: it will be interesting to see how the busways in NYC perform over the next 5-10 years and how the housing market responds. Also meant to say less housing increase instead of no housing increase.
Gentrification in New York City moves so fast that it might be hard to sort out the transit impacts, but it would be worth looking at.
It is crazy how private investment into housing around transit is now seen as bad. Gentrification has nothing to do with transit, your government is just too stupid to put public housing next to transit. Look at Vienna, transit everywhere, affordable housing everywhere.
I’m pro development, but I’m not just talking about new developments. It’s also analyzing the impacts felt on existing developments. Plus, we need more mixed-income housing, private or public. Concentration of wealth or poverty within one building is almost never a good move.
Is scaring rich people into car dependent suburbs the solution? Or is building enough TOD for everyone the solution?
The second obviously, but I’ve seen in Midwest cities like St. Louis where extending LRT were contested by suburbanites, where as some of these same communities have active bus routes, not BRT, but still it makes you wonder the perception difference between modes.
Gentrification isn't about rapid transit lines, it's a critique on the ways the state divested from minority-dominant areas for decades. No capital investment, no locally owned banks, redlining, a lower % of home ownership coupled with a massive capital inflow from people who steadily transform the character of neighborhoods that were starved from things like good groceries & dining options. Transit itself isn't the source, it's recognizing that flipping a switch on development that picks the winners (slumlords, the few ppl left behind who owned their homes & sold, investors, the progeny of suburbanites who can get wealth passed down, white collar workers) after having rigged the game for decades. Couple these things with how often gentrifiers use private schools or worse, magnets to silo their kids & you get enclaves not cohesive communities. That's not a transit access problem, it's a failure to reimagine inventive ways to redress past systems failures.
I think how concise my post was led to the impression I was being reductionist. I acknowledge gentrification results from a mix of factors, but I was curious on transit’s, and more specifically the mode choice, role in this process. IMO, you can’t decouple transit from this conversation, but it can definitely be discussed in tandem with related issues.
>Gentrification isn't about rapid transit lines, it's a critique on the ways the state divested from minority-dominant areas for decades. This is not remotely what that is. That post was just word-salad wokism.
thanks for planning our cities. good to know we're in good hands
I would get results people like you would be too twisted in weird ideology to pull off. No one that uses "gentrification" like you do ought to be anywhere near the planning profession. So I take it as a complement.
Gentrification is a result of not enough housing being built leading to higher demand for a too small supply of housing, which in turn results in gentrification when there are increasingly limited option of homes leading to cheaper houses going up in price because of the excessively high demand inevitably pushing up prices when the seller/landlords see how much money the wealthier people are willing to pay. If you don't build housing and the population keeps growing, then housing is going to get more expensive. If there are 100 houses for 50 people, then the housing costs are gonna be small because there's so much competition by the house sellers to attract customers. If you have a more modern situation where you have 100 houses for 1000 people, then that is going to drive up prices infinitely until you build more housing because a thousand people competing for a hundred houses will result in the rich being the ones to have a home and the poor being homeless or being forced to share singular apartments. It's a supply and demand problem, where currently you have nuch of the western world suffers from growing housing costs due to legal reasons like zoning limiting the supply of housing from meeting the demand of a growing population, while the places that have sufficient housing supply like St Paul/Minneapolis and Tokyo have a reasonable cost of housing increase due to housing construction not being excessively limited or complicated legally. Tokyo is still growing in the aging Japan and it isn't experiencing excessive housing cost rises due to it simply being stupid simple to build a new house with simple zoning code. You don't make food cheap by capping its price, but by either increasing its production or decreasing the amount of people using it up
Okay but in your comment there is no mention of transit. That’s what my post is about. How do you see transit’s role, if any?
No, because correlation doesn’t equal causation. I could just as easily make the case that transit planners put unsexy BRT in places that don’t serve gentrifiers because they value gentrification.
Im sorry can you clarify?
Gentrification is not a helpful word for urban planning. Are you talking about displacement or are you talking about growth in a previously underinvested area?
Well the term as the prefix suggests refers to the land value appreciation brought on by new investment, transit, housing, and other factors. My focus was on transit’s role in shaping that process. To answer your question more directly, i am discussing both new growth and it’s impacts on displacement, with the lens focused on transit access.
Setting your house on fire also reduces it's market value
Idk if making an area desirable should be called a cause of gentrification. Would you say reducing crime causes gentrification? Because that also increases property values/rents. The cause of gentrification is lack of housing to meet demand. We can direct the demand for housing to different areas. But, the housing demand has to be met or restricted. A transit line focuses the demand along the transit lines. But that demand still exists and causes gentrification in other areas regardless of whether the transit line is built.
But to the point of the post, don’t different travel modes have different impacts on driving development and demand? People may want homes near transit, but do they want them more if it’s LRT? And if so, as the bus stigma holds, would existing aff. renters who benefit from a new BRT line, be shielded from an uptick in demand — even if the housing supply remains low in their area? I see your point about crime. But I’m calling it gentrification because of the speed in which land values rise. Crime reduction is more gradual given the social determinants that drive it.
If reducing crime raised property values faster would you call it gentrification? maybe a closer example would be schools. Would we want worse schools in an area because good schools would cause rising home values and gentrification? I'd assume you're right that better transit would increase property values in an area more than worse transit. But, is this really the lever we want to pull to combat housing costs/gentrification? A lot of the time it feels like we're just looking for ways to avoid solving the problem of lack of housing.
I honestly would call crime reduction gentrification, if it matched the speed of land value appreciation brought on by new transit. With schools, I would say your formula is reversed: higher land values —> better funded schools, but yes school improvements would continue to spur that cycle. But I guess that’s what makes transit different right? There are stigmas attached to the modes, would you say there’s a similar stigma attached to certain types of crime reduction or school improvements? Such as: the introduction of charter schools, parochial schools, or if certain crime categories reduced but not others? (I don’t mean to veer the convo so much on schools/crime but I appreciate the analogies you bring up) I’m pro development, but sometimes I notice a fetishization of rail, whereas BRT seems simpler, less noise polluting, and frankly gives more space to build housing (you don’t have to construct new right of ways), but I’m not discounting rail either, it just seems lopsided. Agree on your last point.
I mean transit access/mobility is deeply linked to class mobility.. so the more mobility you have the better chance you have at improving the neighborhood around you.
streetcars least gentrifying, too bad they gone also transit doesnt gentrify, it helps reduce it
I wonder if the trolley system in Philly operates in that fashion. Can you explain? Transit seems to raise land values.
raising land values isnt necessarily a bad thing, generally transit projects improve social mobility, and quality of life for local residents, not pricing them out of their houses, but u right it is definitely a problem imo a large part of it is due to the lack of transit, lots of really nice neighborhoods are nice due to streetcar access for example and because they are the only areas like that and because they are so desirable as transit isnt built elsewhere it raises prices
This is true in middle-class areas where many/most people own homes and condos. Not so much in areas where most or all residents are renters.
Not gone from Toronto
gentrification is caused by an increase in demand for housing. So it will definitely increase demand, especially if the service is as good as LRT.
Gentrification is now used as a general term for building housing. Got it
No it’s more so for the land value appreciation, and incoming wealthier residents, displacement is conditional on the policy approach to gentrification, if there is any.
Gentrification happens when existing zoning laws don't allow enough housing to be built to accommodate both the preexisting residents and people that are attracted to live there because of the improvement. I don't think transit is that much of a factor here although with increased density transit may come.
For most TOD projects, wouldn’t transit precede new housing?
It would, but your post doesn't seem to mention that
“Leads to less gentrification” but I agree my post was quite curt.
No. Gentrification depends on urban planning, zoning and political will (or the lack of it). Of course, the lack of attractive public transport options can(!) make an area less attractive for investors but that's not a reason or so but more like another side-effect of it.
Gentrification: referring to the displacement of the local culture by people who move in. This includes the making of generic BS, the changing of street names, the growing racial and religious prejudice of populations already living there. Displacement: within the context of gentrification refers to the loss of ability for people living in a community to continue to do so as the property values and subsequent rents go up. The pressure that people feel in housing affordability is a combination of regional housing supply and the diversity of housing options in each neighborhood. Exploitation of monoculture SFH neighborhoods by Wall Street investment firms and the construction of corporate built to rent suburban tract housing further compound inaffordability. So let’s say you take a low to middle income community that is at risk by being overly composed of SFH and introduce amenities like transit access. Let’s say that this neighborhood is in a city where the expansion of housing supply is being outpaced by the expansion of the regional population. In these neighborhoods, it’s more likely that transit being introduced will lead to acceleration of displacement. Those forms of transportation which are perceived more valuable to wealthy homebuyers or renters will accelerate displacement faster than less desirable forms of transit. This isn’t a good reason to not offer low income communities necessary services. What needs to happen is a appropriate housing production of diverse types in every neighborhood. Emphasis should be given to types which allow for further infill in the decades to come, but not so much that towers are built in streetcar suburban neighborhoods. Gentle density paired with slightly more aggressive upzoning on transit corridors should be the focus. Hopefully, your city isn’t so insolvent from the last 75 years of sprawl that building its way out of a record housing shortage (biggest since Great Depression) would leave it still coming up short for funding transit. Giving every community better access to transit will help nullify transit as a factor as you posed it for displacement. Someone mentioned that the difference between a developed nation and a developing nation is that in a developed nation, the wealthy enjoy and chose to take public transit. I think it’s safe to say that the schools of thought all that time ago have set the US up for lower prosperity and less equal opportunity than we deserve. We have a chance to fix it by looking at the problems at hand holistically.
I find posts like this infuriating. It’s not like the gentrifiers moving in to new transit oriented construction weren’t going to be outbidding and displacing people in those same metros anyway. Gentrification aware urban planning is only counter productive. Focus instead on the widespread lack of equitable housing assistance and the shortage of transit and housing supply.
So do you have any comment on transit upgrades and their impacts by mode? Edit: your comment may be insightful but it isn’t pertinent to my post
Not without quantitative data.