Gentrification Lesson Plans

Lesson Plan 1: Gentrification and Wealth Inequality    

Lesson Plan 2: The Representation of Gentrification in New York City and in Harlem

By Katie Shine  

© Ken W. “Harlem, pre-gentrification, 2007”. 26 July 2007. Online image. Flickr. 15 December 2020. https://www.flickr.com/photos/kenandlisa/1063594587/

Audience: 

University Undergraduates

Course: 

American History Introductory Course and/or Seminar 

Timeline for Two Sequential Lessons: 

2 lessons of  60 minutes each; 2 hours total 

Format:

This document includes my suggestions for instructions, materials, and activities for two sequential lesson plans. 

The first lesson plan addresses the understanding of wealth inequality and gentrification, particularly in New York City and in the neighborhood of Harlem. The second lesson plan allows students to apply their understanding of gentrification specifically to an analysis of media representations of gentrification. 

To accommodate those instructors and students that are currently engaging in online classes, I placed notes throughout this document if the instructor would like to modify the class activities and materials for two virtual lessons. 

Please note that a virtual lesson does require that the instructor is familiar with the basics of remote teaching with a digital platform, such as Zoom. Instructor ideally can: create a Zoom session; send an invitation link to the class prior to the lesson time; act as the host of a Zoom session and monitor students’ participation during the lesson; and create breakout sessions for groups of students during the lesson.

Essential Questions for Lessons:  

Question for Lesson # 1: What is gentrification? What is wealth inequality? 

Question for Lesson # 2: How has the process of gentrification been portrayed by different media sources, particularly online newspapers and magazines? What do the media’s different portrayals of gentrification potentially reveal about the representation of wealth inequality in terms of race and gender?

Context for Lessons For Instructors

Political commentators, local governmental officials, journalists, historians, and other scholars have frequently written about and analyzed gentrification in the U.S. in many history books, cultural criticism, and newspaper and journal articles. They have represented gentrification as either a positive or a negative force that has affected urban metropolises, such as New York City, especially in the decades from the 1970s to the 2010s. Mass media sources, particularly news and magazine articles, frequently characterize gentrification as a process that has a multitude of effects. The authors of these mass media sources write about the challenge that gentrification poses to both the socioeconomic status, mobility, and livelihoods of individual residents; and to the intra-community relationships, average income level, and/or racial and cultural diversity of the greater neighborhoods that these individuals have resided in for many years.

Despite substantial funds and significant governmental attention directed towards affordable housing solutions in New York City by its mayoral administrations in the previous three decades, affordable housing and the impact of gentrification on specific neighborhoods remains a concern for many residents. Many New Yorkers were displaced from their neighborhoods as rent and housing prices rose in neighborhoods across the city, such as in Harlem, and have struggled to access new affordable housing located near their workplaces and family members’ schools. Women of color are more likely to be adversely affected by gentrification. These lessons’ assigned readings and media sources both explain in further detail how women of color have been historically discriminated against when it concerns equitable access to opportunities for wealth and fair housing in New York City. These conditions often occurred against a background of macro-level processes such as real estate development, urban planning and profitable partnerships between local politicians and leaders in the real estate and business industries.

Journalists, historians, and other scholars have also referenced wealth inequality in their discussion of the representation of gentrification. As the media sources in the second lesson’s class activity indicate, journalists and writers have represented gentrification as either a beneficial force to reform a neighborhood and bring more economic opportunities to low-income or middle-class residents, or as a harmful process that permanently displaces these same long-standing residents, especially women of color, from their neighborhood. When long-standing residents are negatively affected by gentrification, they are more likely to have increased difficulties in accruing more wealth than their counterparts: the new, more affluent, incoming residents to the gentrifying neighborhood. 

However, media sources often do not provide a concrete definition of the process of gentrification itself. The definition of gentrification is more likely to be oversimplified, vague and open to interpretation by the media outlet’s particular audience. This ambiguity has led journalists and other writers to present gentrification in a variety of misleading ways to the public.

When confronted with defining gentrification for academic purposes, students find it difficult to think about the process in terms of its explicit history. The instructor’s responsibilities for these two lessons include: assigning pre-class readings that analyze the historical context of gentrification and wealth inequality; guiding a class discussion that prompts students to critically analyze various media representations of gentrification; and helping students to consider the role that the discussion of gender and race serve in the representation of gentrification. 

The following two sequential lesson plans will allow students to collaborate to consider a variety of perspectives regarding gentrification in New York City and particularly, in the neighborhoods of Central Harlem and West Harlem in northern Manhattan.

Note: 

As a disclaimer, please keep in mind that some of the reading material and discussion questions may be sensitive for students. Some students may react to gentrification, and debates about race, gender, and economic dislocation in different ways. This particularly may apply to students that are either originally from New York City: or are living and/or studying currently in New York City. As an instructor, I suggest that you prepare for class discussions and student reactions accordingly. I encourage the instructor to consciously adjust the lesson plan, discussion questions, and monitoring of the lessons according to the instructor’s specific knowledge of their particular students’ learning and emotional needs. 

The goals of these lessons are to: foster critical thinking, debate, analysis of historical events, and inclusion of students’ diverse views about gentrification and wealth inequality. I also suggest that the instructor consider collaborating with another teacher and/or administrator at their university. This could allow the instructor to acquire feedback and insight to deliver these lessons to the students in their particular university in an optimal manner.

Pre-Lesson Questions for Instructor:

• What does the term gentrification mean to you as an instructor of students of American history? How would you define gentrification?
• How would you define wealth inequality in terms that are comprehensible for your undergraduate students based upon what they have learned in the course thus far?

• What are the historical macro-level processes that have propelled gentrification to change the living conditions of residents in New York City, especially in Harlem? 
• Why has gentrification affected certain communities and not others in New York City? Which groups of people, based on their gender and/or race, have been most affected by gentrification?
• As an educator and historian, what impact has the discourse of gentrification, especially from various news outlets, had on your understanding of the process of gentrification and its potential beneficiaries?

Learning Objectives for Two Sequential Lessons

Students Will Be Able To: 

1) Understand the definition of gentrification and apply that definition to the analysis of change in neighborhoods in northern Manhattan.

2) Apply the understanding of gentrification, with Harlem as an example, in their responses to the discussion questions and during participation in the group activities.

2) Compare and contrast the representations of gentrification between various media sources.

3) Use detailed examples, such as historical facts, theory, arguments or data, from the assigned readings to support their explanation of the changes in housing in New York City.

4) Evaluate a variety of media representations about gentrification in New York City and their implicit discussion of race and gender.

5) Synthesize their understanding of the material with a post-class assignment.

Instructions for Instructor: Preparation and Materials for Two Lessons

Pre-Class Reading Materials for Lesson # 1:

Instructor can view the full list of recommended assigned readings at the end of this section. Instructors should make every effort to ensure that the students can access these materials.

For each lesson, Instructor can assign students about 50 pages of reading material and up to 20 minutes of listening and/or visual material as a target goal for the class to review. The lists of assigned readings are recommendations based on the material’s content, the author’s level of analysis, and its relevance to the discussion questions and activities. There are also additional suggestions if the instructor would like to review more options.

Instructor can notify the students of the assigned readings in one of the following methods, ideally at least one week prior to the lesson:

1) Include the list of readings on the syllabus.

 2) Email the students the list of assigned readings with the appropriate attachments or instructions to access the materials online.

3) Post the readings and their links and/or attachments in the course’s classroom tool that is visible to all students (i.e. Google Classroom).

Recommendations:

1. “Gentrification and the Increasing Significance of Racial Transition in New York City 1970-2010” by Stacey Sutton in Urban Affairs Review v. 56, iss. 1, pgs. 65-95 (January 2020)

Location: Online Academic Journal. Abstract available here. 

Total Pages: 30

2. Race for Profit: How Banks and the Real Estate Industry Undermined Black Homeownership by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press (2019)

Read: Chapter 5 (“Unsophisticated Buyers”) or Chapter 6 (“The Urban Crisis Is Over-Long Live the Urban Crisis!“)

Location: E-Book and Print Book Available for Purchase.

Total Pages: 43 (Chapter 5) or 41 (Chapter 6)

3. Race Capital? Harlem as Setting and Symbol edited by Andrew M. Fearnley and Daniel Matlin. New York: Columbia University Press (2019) 

Read: Introduction 

Location: E-Book  and Print Book Available for Purchase. 

Total Pages: 25

4. Capital City: Gentrification and the Real Estate State  by Sam Stein. Verso Books (2019)

Read: Chapter 2 (“Planning Gentrification”) 

Location: Link can be  provided by Instructor prior to the lesson. Print Book Available For Purchase.

Total Pages: 43

5. “Thomas Piketty’s “‘Capital in the Twenty-first Century”’ Explained” by Mike Llewellyn. Ideas.Ted.com (October 2014) 

Location: https://ideas.ted.com/thomas-pikettys-capital-in-the-twenty-first-century-explained/ 

Total Pages: Approximately a 10 minute read

6. “The Threat of Gentrification With Rezoning in East Harlem” by WNYC Radio with Jennifer Levy and Kat Meyers (January 2018)

Listening Time: Podcast of 16 minutes

Location: https://www.wnyc.org/story/legal-aid-society-enters-fight-affordable-housing-nyc/

Additional Suggestions:

1. “The Gentrification of Harlem?” by Richard Schaffer and Neil Smith. Annals of the Association of American Geographers 76, no. 3 (1986), pgs. 347-363 

Location: Online Academic Journal. Available in select university libraries and on JSTOR.

Total Pages:16

2. The Death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs. New York: Vintage Books (1992)

Read: Introduction (pgs. 3-25)

Location: E-Book and Print Book Available for Purchase.

Total Pages: 22

3. Race Capital? Harlem as Setting and Symbol edited by Andrew M. Fearnley and Daniel Matlin. New York: Columbia University Press (2019) 

Read:  Ch. 11 (“Race, Class, and Gentrification in Harlem since 1980”)

Ch.12 (“When Harlem was in Vogue Magazine”); and Conclusion (“Harlem: an Afterword)

Location: E-Book and Print Book Available for Purchase

Total Pages: 43

Pre-Class Reading Materials for Lesson # 2:

Instructor can assign these media source readings and group assignments to the students before the start of Lesson # 2. 

For a virtual lesson, Instructor can send an email providing the students with their group assignment and the corresponding assigned media sources that they will read for homework before Lesson # 2. 

For an in-person lesson,  Instructor can either email the media sources to the students or print the appropriate number of copies of media sources for each member of every group and hand out to the students at the end of Lesson # 1. 

Class Activity: Suggested Groups and Assigned Sources

Group 1: 

1. Benjamin Schwartz,  “Gentrification and its Discontents”  The Atlantic, June 2010

2. Beth J. Harpaz, “Harlem getting its first major hotel since 1967” NBC News, October 12, 201

3. Christopher Bonanos, “From Alligator Shoes to Whole Foods:Watching One Harlem Corner Over 28 Years” New York Magazine, July 13, 2017

OR

Sam Roberts, “No Longer Majority Black, Harlem Is in Transition” The New York Times, January 5, 2010

Group 2:

1. Soni Sangha, “Gentrification in Washington Heights forcing out longtime mom and pop shops” Fox News, Published December 29, 2015, Last Update January 11, 2017

2. Michael Henry Adams, “The End of Black Harlem” The New York Times, May 27, 2016, 

AND 

New York Times Editorial Board,  “How Gentrification is Changing the Face of Harlem” The New York Times, May 31, 2016

3. Talmon Joseph Smith, “We’ve Seen New York’s White Flight Before” The Atlantic, August 26 202

Group 3:

1. Richard L. Cravatts, “Gentrification is Good for the Poor and Everyone Else” American Thinker, August 1, 2007

2. Elizabeth Kim for WNYC Public Radio,  “Rezoning and future of Harlem” , published October 10, 2019, by The Brian Lehrer Show, video, 7:00

AND 

Jessica Gould, “The City’s Top Gentrifying Neighborhoods” , published May 9, 2016, WNYC News, video, 1;00, 

3. Stacy M. Brown, “For People of Color, gentrification is more a curse than a blessing” New York Amsterdam News, February 19, 2020 

Group 4:

1. Leani Garcia, “El Barrio Tours” Americas Quarterly, October 19, 2013,

2. Justin Davidson, “Is Gentrification All Bad?” New York Magazine, January 31, 2014

3. Denver Regine, “Ethnic Cleansing, aka gentrification, debate rages”  New York Amsterdam News, June 21, 2018

Class Agenda For Lesson # 1:

Part 1: Opening Discussion

00:00-2:00

Instructor will introduce the lesson by stating the “Essential Question” for Lesson # 1 and providing excerpts from the “Context” section of the lesson plan if needed.

02:00-10:00

Instructor will open the conversation with these discussion question: 

Based upon our reading of the assigned materials and knowledge obtained in the course thus far, how would you define wealth inequality? In American society, who is more likely to have difficulty accessing and maintaining wealth? Why is that?

Inform the students that they may use notes from their reading of Mike Llewellyn’s article about Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-first Century. 

Allow at least 3-4 students to respond.

10:00-19:00

Instructor will commence the following activity by sharing this discussion question with the students: 

How does our definition of wealth inequality shape how we define or evaluate gentrification? 

Class Activity:

Instructor will place the students into groups of 2-3 students each or Zoom Breakout rooms (for a virtual lesson). Instructor should use their phone or another device to keep track of time for this activity.

For 1 minute, students will reflect on the question and individually write down their response.

For 3 minutes, students will briefly share their responses with their group members. Instructor will then bring the students back to the classroom or Zoom meeting.

For 5 minutes, the students will share with the rest of their class what their groups discussed. Instructor can extend the discussion here if it needs additional time. 

19:00-25:00

Instructor will convene the class to discuss these questions: 

If gentrification can be evaluated as a historical process, what are some of the historical factors that have contributed to gentrification in New York City that we can identify as a class? Do the forces that drive gentrification benefit only certain people, based on their income level, gender, and/or race? Or can gentrification benefit all New Yorkers? 

Allow several students to give their brief responses to this question.

Transition: Inform the students that we will be now playing the role of historians to define gentrification. The goal is for the students to create a definition of the term as a process that they can experiment with for this lesson and the next lesson.

25:00-40:00

Class Activity Instructions: 

• Divide students into 4 or 5 in-person groups or Zoom breakout rooms (for a virtual lesson) to collaborate on a definition of gentrification.

• Inform students that they will be assuming the mindset and role of a historian. Remind them to consider the historian’s intended audience and use of evidence to support their statements. Circulate the room in person or pop into Zoom Breakout rooms (for a virtual lesson) to answer questions and address any roadblocks.

• If students are struggling with defining gentrification, the instructor can offer this definition by a social scientist from one of the suggested pre-class readings to get them started.

“The theft of space from labor and its conversion into spaces of profit” 

(Ipsita Chatterjee in“Gentrification and the Increasing Significance of Racial Transition in New York City 1970-2010” by Stacey Sutton).

• Give the students 7-8 minutes to come up with a definition, or at least a set of words and/or terms that are associated with gentrification.
• Instructor will then ask 1 student from each group to write the definition, or a collection of words associated with gentrification, on the classroom board. 
• For a virtual lesson, Instructor can create a Google Doc and share it with the entire class. Students can post their definition or word association on the document. 
• Allow the students 7-8 minutes in total for each group spokesperson to share their definition.
• Ask the students to write all of these definitions or word associations because the class will be revisiting these definitions later in the lessons.

Transition: Instructor will introduce a series of discussion questions that draw upon the assigned readings and incorporate the class’s definitions of gentrification.

Part 2: Discussion Questions

40:00-1:00:00

Instructor can ask 2 of these suggested discussion questions based upon the students’ comprehension of the topic and individual interests. 

I suggest that Instructor asks Question #4 in order to transition the discussion to the next lesson about the media’s representation of gentrification.

1. What has physically been taken from gentrified neighborhoods? How can we describe the products, processes, profits, or other social or economic entities leaving the neighborhood?

2. In contrast, what types of products or processes are arriving in the neighborhood? What is the perceived value of these products or processes to current residents in comparison to possible future residents?

3. Who are the historical actors shaping gentrification in New York City? What is their identity in terms of their gender, race, access to wealth, and/or profession? Are there specific people who have historically benefitted from gentrification and accrued significant amounts of wealth as a result?

4. Based upon your assessment of the assigned readings, how did the media specifically work to influence the conversation surrounding gentrification? Were certain Americans, such as women of color, specifically mentioned regularly as either ideal or ill-suited homeowners?

In closing, Instructor will allow a few minutes to assess the students’ understanding of the concepts thus far and address their concerns or questions. Instructor can inform the students that the next lesson will address the representation of gentrification and that they will be placed in one of four groups. The students will receive their assigned group and three media sources to review shortly after this lesson.

Class Agenda for Lesson # 2:

Part 1: Extended Class Activity

00:00-05:00

Instructor will introduce the lesson by summarizing the students’ definitions of wealth inequality and gentrification from Lesson # 1; stating the “Essential Question” for Lesson # 2; and providing excerpts from the “Context” section of the lesson plan if needed.

Notes for Instructor for Extended Group Activity:

Learning Objective for Students: Utilize the information learned from the previous lesson and assigned media source readings to analyze the representation of gentrification in New York City.

For an in-person lesson, Instructor should give the students the two parts of the activity, Key Aspects and Discussion Questions, in written form. Instructors can write these on the board or print out copies of this information for all of the students.

For a virtual lesson, Instructor can share the Key Aspects and Discussion Questions in a shared Google Doc or in the Zoom Chat function. Instructors will need to create several breakout rooms for the groups. Instructor can provide the assigned media sources (that the students received prior to the lesson) in a shared Google Doc as well, just in case the students need a reference while they answer the Key Aspects and Discussion Questions. 

Instructor should answer any questions and inform students that there is no “wrong” answer in this activity. They can answer the questions to the best of their abilities based upon their reading of the media sources prior to this lesson.

05:00-10:00

Activity Instructions for Students:

Instructor will deliver the following instructions.

“Prior to this lesson, I have assigned you to a group with a few assigned media sources to review. Each of these 4 groups is responsible for relying on their definitions of gentrification, wealth inequality, and knowledge from the assigned readings and previous lesson to complete two tasks. You will have 15 minutes in total to review and analyze the sources to complete two tasks.”

Tasks: 

1. Delegate among your group to determine which group members will address the Key Aspects of your assigned sources. 1-2 people or so can present this information to the entire class.
2. Delegate among your group to determine which group members will address the Discussion Questions. They can respond to the questions with a few sentences or bullet points. 1-2 people or so can present this information to the entire class.

Key Aspects of the Source:

• Content 
• Author, Publication, and Publication Date
• Type of Source and Purpose of the Source
• Tone and Perspective of the Author 
• Source’s Historical Significance 

Possible Discussion Questions:

1. Who is the target audience for each of your assigned  media sources?

2. Are there any conflicting messages about gentrification either within one source or between the two or three sources? Who do the authors suggest is being either positively or negatively affected by gentrification? Do they mention specific groups of New Yorkers, based on their race and/or gender? Why do you think that is?

3.  Imagine that the authors are in dialogue with one another. What would they say to each other about gentrification? Would they agree or disagree on one issue in particular?

10:00-25:00

Students will work together in their four in-person groups or Zoom breakout rooms (for a virtual lesson) to complete the instructions as a team.

25:00-50:00

Instructor will convene the students either in-person or in the general Zoom meeting (for a virtual lesson) to check in with the students and answer any urgent questions before they present their findings.

Remind the students that all groups will have no more than 6-7 minutes to present their findings to the class. Inform the students that this is meant to be a challenging activity and their attempts to be concise and accurate are all appreciated!

Part 2: Closing Discussion Question and Post-Class Assessment

50:00-55:00

Instructor will convene the class to assess what they learned from the group activity and give students an opportunity to ask any urgent questions. 

Instructor can follow up with these discussion questions:

Based upon our class readings and the group activity, how do newspapers, magazines and/or journals portray gentrification in New York City? How does the media specifically operate to develop ideas about neighborhoods? Did you notice any instances when the media employed certain representations, language, or images to emphasize a particular belief about communities based upon the residents’ socioeconomic status, race, or culture?

55:00-1:00:00

In closing, Instructor can choose 1 of the following discussion questions to ask the class.

1. How does your analysis of the assigned readings and/or the media sources affect how you, as a student of American history, evaluate gentrification? Do we want to keep or revise our historical definitions of gentrification from the previous lesson?

2. What responsibility do we have as both students of history and regular consumers of mass media information to present an accurate view of gentrification? 

3. As historians, what do we need to keep in mind about the media’s portrayal of gentrification? Is it possible that even trustworthy media sources can deemphasize factual information to build certain ideas about a neighborhood, its residents and perceived culture?

Instructor ends the lesson and informs the students of availability to answer questions or concerns by email and/or during office hours.

Instructor informs the students that they will receive an email after this lesson with all of the media sources that each group received. Their reading of these sources is recommended.

Assessment Options after Lesson # 2:

Instructor can choose 1 option to assess the students evaluation of the material.

Option 1: 

Instructor can assign one of the remaining final discussion questions to the class for their consideration.  Students can pick 1 of the questions to explore in a brief response essay of 1-2 pages. Properly cited outside source material can be used to support the student’s response. Students can email the assignment to the professor no later than 2 days after Lesson # 2’s conclusion.

Option 2: 

Instructor will send the students all of the media sources that each group received. Instructor will ask the student to choose another group’s assigned media sources (i.e. Group 2 if the student was in Group 1), read the materials, and analyze the sources for their audience, content, and context. 

Students will then holistically evaluate both the media source group that they selected for this assignment and the media sources that they were originally assigned during the class activity. 

Students will write a brief reflection response of 1-2 pages based on their evaluation of this larger set of media sources about gentrification. Students will email the assignment to the professor.

Optional: Instructor can provide students with 1 of the following discussion prompts to help them focus their written response for Option 2.

• What overall message about gentrification are these sources sending to the reader? Who are the authors arguing that gentrification is helping and/or hurting?

• Do the authors clearly define gentrification for their audience or is its meaning and impact on New York City and/or Harlem ambiguous?

• Is there 1 media source that you selected that has an argument that persuades you most effectively? Why? What is the journalist specifically doing with the evidence, historical context, or visual presentation of the material? Does his or her argument about gentrification influence you to revise your own definition of gentrification, as an aspiring historian?