Gentrification and Place Ownership in Santa Ana

From Marketplace to Promenade: Gentrification and Place Ownership in Santa Ana Ryan Tuong An Koyanagi California State University, Fullerton Abstract The impact of gentrification on neighborhoods cannot be conceived of purely in terms of physical displacement. The physical displacement and exclusion of the incumbent population is accompanied and preceded by the psychic displacement and exclusion of the incumbent population. This is accomplished through a combined effort of municipal government and propertied interests rebranding space and effecting a transition in place ownership from the incumbent population to a quasi-imaginary privileged class. As this privileged class is not tied to race or ethnicity, younger and more-affluent members of the incumbent community’s racial or ethnic group are just as likely to be party to the gentrification process. This article examines the correlation between the use of the Spanish-language and Latin American aesthetics in businesses in downtown Santa Ana, California, and how these businesses resist, contribute to, or adapt to the neighborhood’s changing place identity. Key Words: genitocracy, gentrification, place identity Introduction Due to its myriad causes and multifaceted impacts, gentrification is a hard topic to pin down—in both the popular and academic discourse. This is to say nothing of the financial and ideological interests that benefit from reducing gentrification to its isolated component parts or to a meaningless buzzword. Commonly, definitions of gentrification focus on the process of displacement of incumbent communities in low-income neighborhoods that accompany economic redevelopment (Ellen and O’Regan 2011, 89). This understanding of gentrification as primarily a process of physical displacement does not consider the role alienation from the landscape plays in preceding displacement. Contrary to a view that identifies displacement as the primary negative outcome of gentrification and the affluent in-migrant as its primary agent, this article argues that it is the construction of valorized space that is the primary agent of gentrification, and that its first impact is the appropriation of place. Rather than the affluent in-migrant drawing associated amenities The California Geographer 58, © 2019 by The California Geographical Society into the neighborhood and displacing incumbent residents and businesses as a means of valorizing space. Through habitation, a structure’s use-value is through market pressures, it is a concerted effort by capital interests and extracted from its exchange-value through wear and tear, creating an invest- local government that creates affluent spaces and its attendant amenities and ment lifecycle; a structure must remain in use long enough for sufficient value programming that initiates the displacement of incumbents and attracts a to be extracted from it before demolition or extensive retrofitting becomes new class of migrant (Doucet 2009, 300; DeVerteuil 2011, 1563; Lejano and profitable. This cycle encourages the accretion of new development along González 2017, 8; Smith 1979, 81.) the outer edges of urban areas as capital aims to reap the greater potential profit from greenfield development than that possible through redevelop- This combination of capital influx and government incentives act together ment and infill. As the urban core is left largely intact through this process, to spur targeted redevelopment that changes the shape and ownership of its older structures begin to lose value through wear and tear, downward neighborhood space, which in turn results in the forceful transfer of the filtering, and deferred maintenance, while the suburbs, by virtue of their ownership of neighborhood place. In the case of Santa Ana, California, a more recent construction, remain unprofitable for redevelopment. With concerted effort to promote the interests of a privileged class of in-migrants greenfield sites further afield becoming less profitable due to their distance is visible not only in the physical structure of the city’s downtown, but also from the city center, capital returns to the inner city, whose buildings have in its character and psychosocial presentation (Lejano and González 2017). now had their value largely extracted, creating a land value valley between This change is reflected not only in visual presentation choices made by the central business district, where land retains a high value by virtue of its in-migrant businesses, but also in that of incumbent businesses, as both location, and the outer suburbs, where land retains a high value by virtue parties seek to carve out a niche in the new “Downtown Orange County.” of the exchange value of the recently built structures that rest upon it. At the individual parcel level within this land value valley, capital is drawn to The remainder of this article is organized into four sections: a literature redevelop parcels where the potential ground rent on the parcel outstrips review that expands upon the causes and impacts of gentrification; an the current structure’s ability to capitalize on that rent, and the cost of acqui- introduction to Santa Ana; an overview of the methodology of this study; sition, demolition, and redevelopment is lower than that potential ground results of the study; and concluding thoughts regarding future research. rent. This rent gap acts as the driving force attracting redevelopment capital into a neighborhood. As high value structures and amenities are built in a Literature Review and Theoretical Framework neighborhood, the potential ground rent on surrounding parcels increases A traditional view of gentrification separates the “positive” effects of gen- as well, further increasing the rent gap on these parcels and accelerating the trification (e.g., rising property values) from its “negative” effects (e.g., dis- rate of redevelopment (Smith 1979; Smith 1982). placement) (Ellen and O’Regan 2011, 89). To disassociate gentrification as an act of construction from gentrification as an act of destruction creates a Gentrification as Attraction of the Genitocrat narrative of a morally ambivalent, though natural and necessary, progression. As redevelopment attracts further redevelopment, we are left to ask: Who This, of course, ignores the fact that gentrification is an act of construction are these new structures built for? Who are these new structures built by? through destruction—the existing place and space are both demolished, and Cui bono? Introductory real estate principles assert the importance of loca- the gentrified place and space are built from the recycled wreckage of the tion, location, location; no developer would build a luxury development in incumbent community. With this in mind, this section will explore gentri- the midst of an area otherwise seen as blighted. Rent gap theory explains fication as attraction—first of capital, then of its attendant classes—followed the mechanics behind the influx of capital, but capital does not move un- by an exploration of its impacts on the surrounding community. restrained—it must contend with zoning regulations, with environmental review, with resistance from tenants and landowners. Gentrification as Attraction of Capital The influx of capital has constructed a new landscape—new physical space in Neil Smith lays out the role of capital flow in gentrification as part of his rent the gentrifying neighborhood that did not exist before (e.g., new apartments, gap theory (Smith 1979). In the late industrial era, capital flowed outward businesses, sidewalk amenities), or was locked away (e.g., loft conversions, from the central city, manifesting as mortar and stone—the physical structure reactivation of sidewalks, alleys, and rooftops). While this new space cre- of capital. Each structure acts as a deposit of capital—both as investment and 22 The California Geographer n Volume 58, 2019 Koyanagi: From Marketplace to Promenade 23 ates a new sense of place, it is just as much a prescribed sense of place that Gentrification as Psychic Exclusion justifies the creation of new space. In addition to tax abatements, favorable In a gentrifying neighborhood, an incumbent population that largely remains zoning, and publicly funded amenities, local governments and real estate in place does not remain in place. While the incumbent population may boosters put forth a unified vision of a specifically branded redevelopment persist through gentrification, the changes to the landscape and its attendant zone (Brown 2015; Gainza 2017; Masuda and Bookman 2018). This brand shift in the balance of power transfer ownership of the neighborhood’s place (often an “arts district”) creates an image of the ideal inhabitant in the capi- and inevitably change the ways in which one occupies the space. talist imaginary—whether or not this inhabitant exists, or exists in any great numbers, they are unduly privileged in the gentrifying neighborhood, as Among the territorial gains taken by the gentrifiers are third places—non- new development is meant to attract and sustain this population. This is the home non-work places that anchor a community. With each business re- “genitus” of the genitocracy laid out by Raul Lejano and Erualdo González. placed by the higher-end version of that amenity, the incumbent population In contrast to the gentry of gentrification, the genitocrat is not necessarily is increasingly alienated from their community, while the genitocratic pop- a person of higher class (e.g., the working-class artist), but often occupies

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