As Gentrification Creeps Up North, What Does It Mean for Minorities?

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Early in 2019, the housing market in most of Texas, including North Dallas, had cooled off with housing rates increasing by only five percent. In Plano and North Dallas, the housing market actually decreased by -6 and 5% growth, respectively.

The housing market has slowly bounced back over the year as mortgage rates dropped. You see real estate developments and rapid urbanization everywhere you look in Allen, Carrollton, Frisco, Garland, Irving, McKinney, Plano, and Richardson.

You can now find neighborhoods that used to be a melting pot of cultures, reduced to a single shade. Much has been said about gentrification and how it is leaving many middle-class neighborhoods without the vibrancy of many cultures. Gentrification is highlighting the stark difference between the haves and the have-nots. When wealthy people arrive, minorities are being pushed out.

At its best, gentrification has helped refurbished old buildings and breathe new life into stagnant neighborhoods. However, low-income families, particularly minorities, are being pushed out by higher housing and rental rates–a main characteristic of gentrified areas.

While you see the visible signs of rapid urbanization and gentrification, a crucial part of the invisible progress is in the drainage system. Without proper planning, water will clog, and flood water will rise, especially in densely packed cities. Inflatable pipe plugs have multiple applications from pipe freezing, drainage construction, weld purging, leak testing, as well as repair and maintenance.

The high-density polyethylene (HDPE) market is expected to hit $20.3 billion by 2025 due to the increasing demand from the oil and gas industry. However, renewable energy, agriculture, and water irrigation, as well as the infrastructure development of cities, continues to fuel the sector.

Fair Housing

As if the odds are not already stacked against them, minorities have been dealing for a long time with racist legislation–the Community Reinvestment Act, which imposes a cap on mortgage lending to minority communities to prevent redlining.

According to the Census Bureau, 50% of the population in Dallas is white, while 25% is black. The rest is divided among the different minorities. However, when you account for the homelessness rate, seven in ten of those who have no homes are black.

North Dallas is still hounded by discrimination when it comes to equal access to opportunity. The fact is that some banks still have policies that make it hard for black families to secure a housing mortgage. According to the earlier report, there were 28,843 complaints about housing discrimination in 2017 alone. The fact is that the goal of fair housing remains a pipe dream.

Now, minority neighborhoods in North Dallas continue to be under attack by another threat–gentrification. While it revitalizes neighborhoods with new buildings standing side-by-side with old residential houses, eventually, those families will sell their homes. Gentrification pushes up real estate prices, and the temptation to take advantage of the high market appreciation is too strong. Even middle-income families are under pressure. While you see the extreme disparity in wealth between the poor and the rich, any city’s development gets anchored on middle-income families–they are the crucial cog because it’s the most challenging to create.

On the other hand, property appreciation does create wealth for low-income families who own homes. As land valuation increases, the value of their housing equity rises. That is assuming they own their houses, however. In many cases, renting minorities get pushed out of beautiful neighborhoods into low-rental tenements in the inner cities.