Discussion

After collecting data for this field study it can be concluded that for the most part, residential gentrification was noticeable by residents from Lower Manhattan in forms of changes to the physical landscape of their neighborhood and the decreased housing affordability in the area. In response to this, research has shown local organizations are collectively trying to fight against the forces of gentrification. This supported the original hypothesis where it predicted that due to Bloomberg’s pro development zoning plan, low income neighborhoods such as Chinatown, tenants would face issues on being able to live in their neighborhood comfortably. Factors that challenged the comfortability of low income residents are increased rent prices, inability to find new affordable housing, and landlord harassment. Field report observation supports that the zoning plan did take a toll on the physical landscape by placing new high rises, luxury buildings, and more trendy restaurants and chain stores. Survey results support that residents had trouble finding new affordable places to live with 80% saying it has been difficult to extremely difficult. Additionally, only 33% of people have not heard anyone or themselves experience any landlord harassment methods. However, when trying to discuss dramatic increases in rent prices in non rent stabilized buildings, 81.8% of respondents have not experienced such a thing. 

These results show that some factors of housing comfortability have been compromised with the development of Chinatown, but others, such as increases of rent to market rate pricing, were not as common. This was unexpected because as the demand and property value of Chinatown increases, it was hypothesized that landlords would increase the rent of existing residents to market rate pricing. Therefore, only wealthier residents would be able to afford living in Chinatown while lower income members get pushed out. While research showed that this may not be a main issue caused by zoning, the other results were expected because they were symptoms of a zoning plan that offers little to no protection. 

In addition to this, when residents were asked if they were aware of the actual zoning plan itself in 2008, only 1 respondent (6.7%) said they were aware but not knowledgeable. This was surprising because it was evident that tenants can see zoning being implemented by spotting new developments and that they can see the displacement of neighborhood residents through the unaffordability of housing. Despite seeing all of these changes, most residents were completely unaware of what the actual cause was.

Going forward, it would be better to have more evidence supporting the perspective of developers, landlords, and the local government. In addition to this, it would be more helpful to have a bigger sample size for the survey. However, with the research collected it can be concluded that zoning has caused residential gentrification. While speaking with the Coalition To Protect Chinatown and The Lower East Side, in order to help relieve this issue it is important to help create awareness of the issues, especially because it was found that many did not even know why Chinatown was gentrifying. Furthermore, it is important to take actions that will benefit the community such as electing new government members that have the people’s interest and campaigning and protesting when things seem unfair for our most vulnerable members in our community.