Who benefits as Lancaster becomes bourgeois?
Lancaster City has come a long way, from a downtrodden city to a cultural hub dubbed by the New York Post as “the new Brooklyn.”
But in the original Brooklyn and other revitalized cities nationwide, longtime residents fear getting priced out of their homes. Now, echoes of that same cry are heard in Lancaster. Just who reaps the benefits when cities rise from the ashes?
“I wouldn’t say there’s a danger of gentrification happening,” says activist and Meals on Wheels of Lancaster executive director Kevin Ressler. “I’d say it’s actually happening.”
Throughout Lancaster, private and public entities are dangling the threads of solutions, but others ask: Are those threads weaving together into a fabric promising prosperity for all?
Economic Jolt
When Lancaster City Alliance was tapped to lead the creation of a new economic development strategic plan, then-mayor Rick Gray emphasized creation of commercial hubs beyond downtown. Community residents convened to provide input and sent one message “loud and clear.”
“You can’t look at continuing economic growth without looking at challenges, including unemployment and poverty,” says LCA President Marshall Snively (lancastercityalliance.org). “We need to have housing that everyone can afford to be in, but at the same time, we need to be working diligently to raise incomes.”
After all, says architect and planner Eugene Aleci of Community Heritage Partners, the nation’s widening income gap means that low- and middle-income households are devoting disproportionate shares of earnings to housing (chpartners.net).
“If we don’t get to solving this wealth gap, I don’t think we can expect real estate and development and housing design to work for people,” he says. “If people can’t afford to find housing at a third or less of household earnings by relying on one job–a stable job–it’s very hard for those people to advance.”
Lancaster’s economy and redevelopment are “not working for everyone,” agrees ASSETS
co-executive director Jonathan Coleman. ASSETS supports new and growing businesses at the intersection of entrepreneurship, social change, and economic development (assetspa.org).
Neighborhood improvements aren’t a bad thing, but gentrification results when upgrades “lead to a misalignment with the cost of living and the wages and incomes of the people living there,” Coleman says. “We look at not necessarily how we keep prices down. We work on the side of the equation of how we increase incomes and increase access to economic opportunity.”
Any jobs program relies on transportation to connect people with work. The city is partnering with the Lancaster County Chamber of Commerce, Four Seasons Produce, and High Concrete to pilot a transportation program to job opportunities in Lancaster County.
“Since the city has little available land for new industrial and commercial development, providing access to employment opportunities in the county is critical as a means of lowering the poverty rates within the city,” says Lancaster City director of economic development and neighborhood revitalization Randy Patterson.
Entrepreneurism for all
LCA and ASSETS, with support from the Lancaster County Community Foundation, created Cultivate Lancaster as a one-stop shop for entrepreneurs to connect, access resources, network, and–it’s hoped–stay in the city, says Snively (cultivatelancaster.com).
“The heart of the city is built on entrepreneurism,” says Snively.
Small businesses get city support through loans and the City Revitalization & Improvement Zone program, says Patterson. CRIZ was a major funder, with additional support from Community First Fund and others, of Conestoga River Plaza, bringing affordable housing and minority-owned retail to Lancaster’s Southeast.
Business ownership by people of color must more than double to reach parity countywide, and women also have a long way to go, says Coleman. ASSETS facilitates access to financing among entrepreneurs who might lack well-off family and friends to tap for support. Its microloans help entrepreneurs improve credit scores as a first step.
“Business ownership by people of color must more than double to reach parity countywide, and women also have a long way to go.”
“So many times, we see people with a good business idea, but they have a credit score that doesn’t even allow them to get past the receptionist at the bank,” says Coleman.
The housing factor
The city’s strategic development plan, now administered under Mayor Danene Sorace, set a goal of 2,500 new residential units by 2030. However, residential units are “difficult to finance and pencil out,” and the scarcity of subsidies makes affordable housing especially challenging, says Snively.
Few developments have caused physical displacement, but new and upgraded housing is sending rental rates upward, even where landlords aren’t making improvements, Snively adds.
New and upgraded housing is sending rental rates upward, even where landlords aren’t making improvements.
City homes are available for purchase at a broad range of prices, and programs such as the Lancaster Housing Opportunity Partnership help with down payments and closing costs, says Patterson. But a tight housing market and low vacancy rates “allow rents to escalate because of low inventory.”
Most of the city’s slow progress toward 2,500 new housing units has encompassed market-rate homes, but factors such as low-income tax credits, a planned tax abatement, and homebuyer assistance could accelerate the development of affordable units, says Patterson.
Ressler, a former mayoral candidate, sees better neighborhoods–“which everyone wants”–that also drive up taxes and fees. The elderly and others on fixed incomes shouldn’t have to worry about losing their homes but should, instead, pay taxes according to age and income, he says.
He also appreciates a city crackdown on slumlords, but if it forces tenants out of their homes and into homelessness, “is that better than substandard housing?”
Aleci sees problems with the city’s “laissez faire attitude” to enforcing upkeep of deteriorating buildings, he says. Plus, streets at city boundaries spliced by neighboring municipalities create arbitrary dividing lines where “two different sets of rules, governments, and enforcement people” create confusion.
The livability question
Housing always leads any discussion on gentrification, but amenities often come next. Advocates ask: What good is a coffee shop for people who need health care? Or a pricey concert venue amid residents who can’t afford tickets? As Ressler puts it, “I would argue that people have a right to entertainment.”
Lancaster’s Cabbage Hill community, rebranded as SoWe, illustrates planful development designed to attract needed services, says Aleci. Conversely, “most of what goes on in this region is development, not planning,” he says. Government should set “rules and parameters and guidelines, or the market will do what the market will do.”
Coleman cited one ASSETS entrepreneur–a bilingual counselor–who used microloans to seek licensure. Her thriving business now provides “a much-needed service.”
"We’re working directly within communities where individuals are at risk of displacement through gentrification, tapping into the economic growth that’s here, so they win from the growth instead of being harmed by it," Ressler says. He likes where Lancaster is going, but there’s “always more you can do.”
“There’s always someone below the rung you’ve set as the basic bar. It is always the responsibility of a neighbor to be a neighbor, and until we recognize the need for us to say our government is here not for the best of us but for those of us who struggle the most, then we’re not doing enough.”
