Gentrification And Comparison Of Two Cities Similarities

SOC 3200
Tyler Blaize
6/2/15

In today’s world there are two countries that are similar but have their differences that separate it from the rest of the major cities in the world. These two cities are London, UK and New York City, NY. These two cities share many similarities in a different way, but is shared and a problem for many other cities, such as obesity, homelessness, race discrimination and gentrification. The factors that separate these two cities are how is the problem being handled and which city does a better job of trying to fix the problem. The city of modern day London compared to the modern day city of New York City has a lot of string differences when it comes to living standards in terms of pricing of the necessities,

In areas like Park Slope, which was going through the gentrification process before the other parts of Brooklyn, was seen as an area with a lot “potential” to the middle class that was looking to work closer to the city (4). New York City also gave tax redemptions to people who lived in these areas or use these areas for private interest (4). People hearing this in the suburbs will slowly start to look to buy these houses in these areas since they will get tax redemptions and a potential to sell the houses in these areas for more they purchased making them more money. This will peak the interest for people to make more money rather than making a more livable city for all classes. This is seen in the borough of Barnsbury in London where landlords were starting to see tenants as unprofitable. The landlords started to emptying the properties and selling the properties as privately owned properties rather than having tenants (4). This lead to a 21.9% increase in private ownership of the properties and a 58% decrease of tenant rented property (4). These two areas did not only get support from people looking to make an investment but also got a lot of support from the government. The government gave these areas grants and low interest loans to fix up the neighborhoods and rehabilitate the houses.