Transcription
Gentrificación, a very fashionable word that does not stop generating confusion and prejudice. But, what is gentrification? Gentrification is simply the expulsion of people, practices, and knowledge from a specific territory through the reinvestment of public and private capital and the incorporation of a population with greater economic capital. Gentrification does not occur in any area randomly, but rather in popular urban areas, whose renovation is intimately linked to real estate speculation and the displacement of the most humble population. It's that simple. We are talking about a phenomenon that is neither new nor exclusive to Mexico. Ironically, it dates back to the Anglo-Saxon world of the 70s and 80s and is linked to other concepts such as globalization, interculturality, and neoliberalism. And it is often confused with migration, tourism, getification, or cunningly disguised as ambiguous and attractive concepts like urban remodeling or revitalization. That is why it is not uncommon to find people on social media defending this phenomenon or saying that the Mexicas gentrified the Valley of Mexico or that Haitians are gentrifying areas like Iztapalapa. The first thing to understand about gentrification is that it occurs in urban areas affected by previous disinvestment in social and urban infrastructures, leaving such neighborhoods lucratively attractive for this renovation process. That is why gentrification is spoken of in Oaxaca, Coyoacán, and even in formerly unthinkable places like Sochimilco or Tepito, and not in areas like Polanco or Lomas de Chapultepec, as these are neighborhoods that from their conception were intended for the Mexican upper classes. The same happens with suburbs and other residential areas that, in addition to being designated for certain population segments from their design, generally lack a certain attractiveness that we will mention later. We understand then that gentrification affects strategic areas, areas in decline and suffering disinvestment, both public and private, which causes real estate prices to fall. The added value drops so much that it reaches a point where the reinvestment project becomes profitable. In short, it is basically the same old speculative idea: buy low and sell high. It must be understood then that this does not happen randomly, but under the premeditated interference of governments, real estate developers, and financial entities. From a Marxist perspective, the academic specialized in gentrification, Neil Smith, proposed in 1987 that housing, property rights, land, and the improvements built on it become luxury goods and move further away from what should be a basic right. According to Smith himself, for this to be possible, the initial disinvestment is intentional, all so that the conditions are subsequently created to reinvest and hoard by buying cheap. I repeat, technically it is how the stock market, the real estate market, and the capitalist logic in general have always worked. Therefore, and consequently, the market is interpreted as the central solution to urban problems instead of its main problem. But the fact that gentrification brings with it a recolonization by higher-income people, while those who are unable to pay the new fees are dispossessed of their homes, is ignored and even validated. But what would motivate people with superior economic resources to inhabit restructured areas? Aren't they supposed to come from better neighborhoods or countries since they already have superior economic resources? Yes. Because while many digital nomads from developed countries are a key part of gentrification in the global South and are often motivated to migrate precisely because of gentrification in their respective countries, the reality is that the motivations are more complex. Today, many of the so-called gentrifiers escape the routine life of the suburbs in search of new experiences in urban centers. These new settlers see urban life as a symbol of distinction compared to provincial or suburban life. We are talking about a type of consumption with an emphasis on the aesthetic as symbolic status and a means of self-expression. A phenomenon that, by usually being located in urban centers, often coincides with tourist activities, complementing each other and promoting the commodification of local culture, touristifying it and feeding the gentrifier cycle. As an example, it is worth remembering how at the beginning of the 2010s and before the massive arrival of foreigners to neighborhoods like La Condesa, El Valle, and La Roma, Mexico City was invaded by hipsters. At that time, gentrification was not spoken of so much, but it was already a prelude to what was coming. The idea is not to blame the new people who arrive and are called gentrifiers, but to analyze the conditions that lead to an area being gentrified. The criticisms towards gentrification in Mexico are valid not only from a Marxist and economic point of view, but also from a social one, because gentrification in Mexico, especially in Oaxaca, San Miguel de Allende, the Riviera Maya, and increasingly more areas of Mexico City, is characterized by strong cultural clashes and alienation in estrangement. This was already observed by researchers Block and Van Ache when observing in gentrification processes the distant gazes of the new settlers, an approach to the exotic and the folkloric, where the presence of popular classes, local workers, or economic immigrants is extended as an opportunity to learn from other cultures. However, at the same time that they boast of being able to live this reality, they are separated from it, they do not wish to integrate, and they reproduce social divisions from the purest elitism. These foreigners are again motivated more by the acquisition of status and high sociocultural capital than by economic reasons. Along these lines, much is attempted to justify American digital nomads, who decide to abandon cities like Los Angeles or New York to settle in Mexico City, Oaxaca, or Medellín. Assuming that given the high prices in their cities, they are forced to take advantage of the opportunity to move to more economical cities in the global South. However, nothing could be further from the truth. If the economic aspect were their main justification, they would leave for Southern California, they could easily settle in a quiet town in Alabama, North Dakota, or Iowa. Keep this well in mind and to avoid confusion and discrimination, what distinguishes gentrification from migration out of necessity is the social and economic elitism of the new residents, the ethnic and social fragmentation that is fostered with respect to locals, and the displacement resulting from housing price pressure that makes rent and service payments impossible. Immigrants from the global South, in general, do not come to reside in the most cosmopolitan neighborhoods, nor do they seek to raise their cultural capital through artistic, bohemian, and elitist consumption dynamics, nor do they raise rental costs precisely because they cannot afford them. Quite the opposite, migrants from the global South tend to arrive in areas on the periphery, where they are typically associated more with the lower-middle class and higher rates of crime and marginalization, and therefore with more accessible housing costs. It should be emphasized that gentrifying policies filter and block not only the previous populations who can no longer afford to reside there, but also the new populations who wish to live there. Those who decide to settle in gentrified neighborhoods must meet certain conditions, such as possessing cultural capital that allows them to appropriate the available goods and regulated public behavior, behavior in accordance with the cultural demands of the new residents, who, incidentally, often cancel or commodify previous cultural manifestations. Thus, neighborhoods transform into notable, select, and exclusive communities, where in addition to cultural and economic capital, social capital will be necessary, excluding those who do not present all the desired qualities. These dynamics have specifically led to acts of alarming discrimination, racism, and classism in places like Mexico. In this sense, gentrification acquires a worrying meaning by not only dispossessing residents of their land but also by mistreating and exploiting them. In summary, gentrification is not a colonialist symptom, but its most recent manifestation. Gentrification is, broadly speaking, a consensual colonization between the new settlers, the government, and capital. A consensual repopulation model similar to that of the Anglo-Saxons in Texas by Santana or that of Zionism in Palestine by the United States and England, or that of Albanians in Kosovo by NATO. We all know how these cases ended. Gentrification is largely a matter of white supremacy, a little-recognized political theory, but one that articulates and structures American policy. Even the origins of property rights within the United States have their roots in racial domination, in the particular case of the United States, but in general of European colonialism, whiteness as a social construct marks power and domination, while blackness and otherness represent powerlessness, slavery, and dispossession. Whiteness in various spaces unfolds as identity, status, and property, sometimes singularly, sometimes in tandem. Whiteness is valued, and the possession of property is an expression of whiteness. Therefore, the possession of property merges with white personality under racial capitalism. Whiteness functions for racial exclusion and the advancement of capital. Basically, this is how racial capitalism works, which should not in any way sustain racist discourses, but rather serves to better understand our current context. The enemy is not the new gentrifying resident, but the conditions that generate and motivate these neocolonial phenomena, that is, the real estate speculators and the governments that, I emphasize, in complicity foster gentrification and the displacement of their previous populations. In this regard, it should be pointed out that in Mexico, migrants from Haiti, Cuba, Venezuela, Colombia, Latin America in general, but also from Africa and even from certain countries in Asia and Europe, are not usually gentrifiers, but rather immigrants, regardless of their skin color. That uncontrolled immigration also generates problems, of course, but that is not gentrification; they are other phenomena with other names, other causes, and other consequences. Things must be called by their names. But all this, do personalities like Chingoamiga favor gentrification? Probably yes, but only if she promoted Mexico in Korea as a destination to benefit from its low costs in accessing sociocultural capital and housing, and at the same time portrayed Mexicans and their culture as just another curiosity of the local landscape. Otherwise, no. Truly, personalities like Chingoamiga would not favor gentrification. But what about Ojito Comunica? Is he a gentrifier? Well, we would have to see, because as with Chingo Amiga, Luisito is not the central culprit of the gentrification problem, although he can be considered part of the ecosystem that feeds it. This is by giving tourist visibility to certain areas and participating in businesses in gentrified neighborhoods like Roma and Condesa. But more than that, the real culprits are the governments and real estate companies that play and speculate with housing by complicity playing with disinvestment, reinvestment, and promotion of the same public spaces. All of this justifies the excesses of the past anti-gentrification march. The answer is no. Just as it does not justify hate speech or attacks on businesses. Most likely, behind a march that began with good intentions, there was intervention by shock groups mobilized behind the scenes by political actors. Social resistance to gentrification should in any case be redirected to demanding continuous, dignified, and homogeneous investment from the state in public spaces and housing, to organizing as civil society to implement actions to rescue abandoned areas, to unmask real estate speculation mafias and tricks, or to the rehabilitation of urban spaces for the working class. Or perhaps as in Berlin and other European cities, where rent and housing cost increases have been limited. Without a doubt, the solution is neither easy nor quick and would bring with it a series of changes, demands, and deep analyses, but above all, class consciousness, because those who defend gentrification because it makes the streets more beautiful and safer have not understood that, in the first place, the streets should never have been ugly or unsafe. But well, now tell me what you think of all this. What would you propose to reduce gentrification in Mexico? Leave me your comments, which are always valuable. Like this video if you really liked it and share it if you think it's fair. That's all from me. See you in the next video. I want you to be well, and goodbye. Ciao. Ciao. Ciao. Ciao. [Music] [Music] [Music]