Gentrification and Over-Gentrification

As a society develops, it increasingly obtains the energy and the luxury to look toward its past, and begin to incorporate its remaining history into sustainable future development.  Europe, as the leader of modern economic development, has already reached a stage where tradition is combined into modernity.  The same traits of tradition's new-found role in economic progress is spreading from Europe to Asia, especially China where, despite large scale destruction over the course of ten-year-long Cultural Revolution, significant amount of traditional customs and architectural heritage remains intact.

Yet, given the long-term neglect and overuse that these architectural treasures have endured over the past decades, to present them as part of modern society not exactly an easy matter.  To keep them intact means their perpetual dilapidation, marked both by internal lack of amenities indispensable for modern daily living as well as external vulnerability to both human and natural disasters that easily present destructive risks to the buildings and their users.  To maintain the traditional buildings, then, require their creative innovation, just to ensure their survival into the next generations.

A couple of issues crop up when innovating these old buildings.  One is that, for these buildings, just by the virtue of being old and beautiful, to stand as empty museums for gawking, is a financial waste that cannot cover their costs of innovation and maintenance.  They must act as functional and productive members of the community.  And second is that, paradoxically, to make the buildings overly sanitized and blended into the surrounding neighborhood also destroys the very purpose of their continued existence, i.e. to remind users and passerby of their glorious past and, by extension, the community's history. 

Simply stated, it is a conflict to see how gentrified that the buildings can be made into without looking its authenticity.  And modern China, with its increasing resources and changing consumer tastes that reemphasizes the old, the conflict is as, well, conflicting as it could potentially be anywhere with a substantial architectural history.  The city of Shanghai, with its wealth of both colonial European and classical Chinese architecture set against the background of the country's greatest concentration of wealth and pace of change in cityscape, stands at the forefront of the conflict.

The results so far is just is expectedly mixed.  In some cases, especially in the Former French Concession area lined with colonial villas, the buildings have been internally renovated to be sold as high-end residences for the rich and classy or set up as chic boutique hotels with air of colonial opulence.  Certainly, the financial profits of these renovations have been great enough to justify the no-expenses-spared investments in both the buildings themselves as well as the surrounding infrastructure to ensure both the preservation of the traditional feel and guarantee of modern conveniences.

In other cases, the old buildings are left in their half-derelict state, feeling neglected but maintained enough to ensure they continue to stand strong, to serve as cheap rentals for prospective commercial establishments.  Surprisingly, for the not-so-rich general public at least, such endeavors have created quite a bit of value in terms of public good.  The formation of artistic colonies in these old buildings have led to set up of many an interesting shops peddling never before seen goods of spectacular creativity.  The positive effects in creating inbound tourism and a bustling economy around it is sustainable.

While in both cases economic benefits can be seen, in both cases, for the developers, there is a "Goldilocks point" of how much to gentrify.  People who live or visit these gentrified neighborhoods, after all, are there for the history.  And to see value in seeing the history, the history must feel as genuine and not tampered with.  If the place is too "clean" or "modern-looking," increased investments in gentrification may actually bring negative returns as people reject the "fakeness."  If that is the case, then it is probably better to just leave the old buildings as they are, and have them develop organically.

And perhaps, as people become wealthier and more knowledgeable, they will leave the gentrified neighborhood, period.  After all, no matter how discreetly a traditional neighborhood is gentrified to remove any elements of its slum-like seediness, many would see the slum-like seediness (excluding the physical dangers associated) to be part of the traditional culture that makes the neighborhood authentic.  Gentrification can only spruce up the buildings and physical elements, but as residents and visitors change, the culture will undoubtedly change as well.  This is something that gentrification cannot take into account.