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Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning again, everyone. We know that a lot of New York City residents moved out of the city during the pandemic, but where did they all go? Well, many didn't go very far. Data from a study by the group Pattern for Progress shows that the Hudson Valley gained a net of more than 33,000 residents from New York City in 2020, and that number has certainly increased since.

What happens to those towns, especially ones that are majority people of color, when white middle-class or higher remote workers move in in large numbers? A new book examines the case of Newburgh, a small city, if you don't know it, just 60 miles north of New York City below New Paltz, above Harriman. The book examines how gentrification unfolds outside of larger cities and how oftentimes that's framed as a good thing, a revitalization in the local economy, even though the locals wouldn't always agree.

Joining us now to examine the effect on racial and income balance in the Hudson Valley's Newburgh is Richard Ocejo, professor of sociology at John Jay College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, an author now of the book, Sixty Miles Upriver: Gentrification and Race in a Small American City. Professor Ocejo, welcome to WNYC.

Professor Richard Ocejo: Thank you, Brian. Good morning. Thanks for having me on.

Brian Lehrer: For the listeners who've never been to Newburgh, or maybe just think of it as Exit 17 on the Thruway, can you describe it a bit?

Richard Ocejo: Yes, sure. Newburgh is a small city of about 28,000 people. It, to give a potted history, was originally settled by European settlers in 1709. It had a rather prosperous industrial economy in the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century. It was a rather thriving little river town in the mid-Hudson Valley. As a result, it had an enormous wealth of architectural activity.

People who are interested in classical 19th-century American architecture probably know Newburgh, and then had a very severe decline after World War II and a lot of the same forces that we saw take place in large cities; the fleeing of industry and manufacturing jobs, businesses, residents start to leave, especially white residents moving to the suburbs.

We see an influx of Black residents, mostly from the rural south, and we see a very strong, very precipitous decline in the late 20th century, rising crime rates, property abandonment, unemployment, high poverty rates, neglect, a lot of the same outcomes taking place in Newburgh as we saw in a lot of large cities like New York.

Brian Lehrer: With that scenario, when urbanites tend to move into formerly bustling cities, it's sometimes framed as a comeback. I'm thinking of a much larger city. Pittsburgh, for example, as the steel industry around there declined and a lot of jobs went with it and some of the other dynamics you were just describing, and now they say Pittsburgh is coming back as a technology job center.

It's sometimes framed as a comeback and you quote someone using that term in your book. How do you think that applies or doesn't apply to Newburgh or even bigger cities?

Richard Ocejo: Well, I think it's always a little bit of both, where we're talking about gentrification processes and gentrification being a very specific type of urban revitalization, one that specifically concerns residents middle-class, upper-middle-class residents who choose to move to lower-income places.

On the one hand, this can certainly be reframed, and it often is framed as a positive thing because you've had all this disinvestment for so long to get some reinvestment in the form of people, in the form of capital is going to be a positive thing, but on the other hand, that's going to come with certain consequences because there are people living in these places who have been struggling, who are vulnerable to a sudden influx of wealth into their community and putting them at risk of being displaced and of not being included in the revitalization.

Brian Lehrer: Is the displacement-

Richard Ocejo: We see the trend in both ways.

Brian Lehrer: -happening? We talk on this program a lot about gentrification, but usually, it's in the context of New York City neighborhoods and the higher rents that occur when a neighborhood gentrifies. Is that how it plays out in Newburgh or other smaller cities?

Richard Ocejo: Yes. What's happening in Newburgh in terms of the gentrification is joining what has been an affordable housing crisis in Newburgh. In fact, we could say that it's exacerbating an existing problem of a lack of high-quality, good, affordable housing for people who live there. In terms of the impacts that it's having, yes, we see forms of residential displacement. We see greater housing insecurity.

Also, this comes with disruptions to the community itself, other kinds of displacement; social displacement, cultural displacement, and everyday displacement. Political displacement start to unfold there as well.

Brian Lehrer: All right, listeners. Hello, Newburgh. Hello, anywhere in the Hudson Valley. We know a lot of you call in from all over the Hudson Valley, so if you're from that area, especially if you're from Newburgh, if we happen to have any Newburgh listeners right at this moment, you heard our guest say it's a pretty small city, 28,000. 28,000 people probably live just in my neighborhood in Manhattan, probably more than that, but hello, Newburgh, hello, Hudson Valley.

Generally, what has it been like for you if you've been living there a long time to have people, from New York City or elsewhere downstate or elsewhere, with money or from bigger cities move to your part of the Hudson Valley? 212-433-WNYC. Did you find that they brought a lot of business, coffee shops, sometimes the leading indicator of gentrification, restaurants, bookstores, and to what extent did that help your community, or were the prices of the new merchants and eventually the cost of housing out of touch and out of reach? 212-433-WNYC.

Or did you move to somewhere in the Hudson Valley during the pandemic or earlier for that matter? What was the experience or what has the experience been like to this day for you? How do you think about community if you are one of the Hudson Valley gentrifiers, and how do you give back? Enter on any of these questions, Hudson Valley listeners. 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692 for Richard Ocejo, who's a professor of sociology at John Jay and in the Graduate Center of CUNY and author of the new book, Sixty Miles Upriver: Gentrification and Race in a Small American City.

You're right, gentrification has long had two strong intertwined associations. One is with white gentrifiers' appreciation for racial and ethnic minority and working-class communities. The other is with the residential and social displacement of those groups. Your book defines the white gentrifiers as progressive. Talk about that because I'm sure that's attention. We know that's attention for a lot of the people who can be classified as gentrifiers. They consider themselves political progressives, and yet, the effects of gentrification would certainly not always be experienced that way.

Richard Ocejo: Yes, 100%. That is what the book is mostly engaging with is this moral tension that's really at the heart of gentrification. Most of the newcomers to Newburgh who are moving mostly into that city's historic district were displaced in some capacity from New York City. They were often living in gentrifying neighborhoods in New York City. Gentrification and being a gentrifier are topics and experiences that they're familiar with.

When they choose to move to Newburgh, in part because it is diverse, racially diverse, and ethnically diverse, something that they appreciate and want to continue to live in, in an urban environment, when they get there, they, on the one hand, really appreciate where they live, people who are there, but on the other hand, since they're so familiar with this process and its potential effects and its potential harms, they are very aware that their presence and the process that they're a part of and help to perpetuate could be putting these groups that they appreciate at risk of displacement.

This moral tension that they experience, and this was all communicated to me by them, has to be resolved in some way. There has to be some kind of way of making sense of this and some kind of way of acting upon it. The book really tries to situate this in the context of a small city, which is quite a unique place. It's a little different from New York City. It's obviously much smaller.

Your neighborhood definitely has more than 28,000 people in it. When you're in this real intimate environment and when you're so close to the process, because you're a property owner now, you're a business owner now, you're a real estate investor now, then these tensions, this dilemma is a lot more pronounced because you're so close to it. Then how do you try to resolve this? How do you act as a newcomer and act as a gentrifier in this place where you're so close to the process that you're a part of?

Brian Lehrer: David in Newburgh, you're on WNYC. Hi, David.

David: Hi, Brian.

Brian Lehrer: You have a story?

David: I moved to Newburgh in 2021 with my wife to start a family. One of the first things that struck me was we were looking at houses, it was really the only place that was affordable for us. The agent showing us a building, we asked, "Hey, is there anyone living in this building?" He was like, "Yes. If you buy the building, you can get rid of them and make a lot of money renting this out and live in this building," which really made us really surprised. We were like, "You could say something like that?" We're from Brooklyn, so we're very familiar with gentrification.

We ended up finding a house in the heights of Newburgh that was owned by an older Italian couple who sold it to us. On our block, it's people of all different backgrounds. Since we've moved there, the tax assessments on our house have gone up by a lot. I just can't imagine that anybody who's been living there for longer than us and might be of a lower financial background can survive much longer with the taxes going up like this constantly. It's just an interesting thing [crosstalk].

Brian Lehrer: How do you for yourself, because it sounds like you could be classified a gentrifier and maybe a progressive one in the paradigm of our guest, do you resolve the tension or some of the set of tensions that he was just laying out for yourself and your family and your community?

David: Well, first of all, and I'm not passing judgment on anyone else, but we decided for ourselves, if we're going to buy something here, we're going to buy it from someone in a way that seems fair. An older Italian couple that is ready to sell their house and move on and there are no tenants that might have to be evicted in order to make enough money to pay the mortgage, that was something we just didn't want to be a part of. That's A.

B, we live on the block and we try to be friends with everyone on the block and engage with our neighbors and understand the different cultural backgrounds that everyone has, and just try to be a good neighbor, which I think is the right way to do this. I can't help what's happening with the taxes as much as I can vote, but as a gentrifier, there's only so much I can do. I do think that being a good neighbor and engaging with your neighbors and not trying to be as morally center of the road as possible is the way to engage in a place like this.

Brian Lehrer: David, thank you very much for telling a little bit of your story. We appreciate it. Here's Lisa in Hillsdale in the Hudson Valley. You're on WNYC. Hi, Lisa.

Lisa: Hi. Thanks for this opportunity to talk about my town. There's a lot of tension because all the houses that are on sale are in the one million mark. What we used to have is a lot of farmers, and farmers are selling their lands. It's two populations going in different directions. We do have a farmers' market once a week now, and it's very expensive. The things that they sell there, it's just expensive all over.

There's an opportunity for the town mayor and other officials to try to bring us together. We have a very lovely library that appeals to everybody, I believe. Otherwise--

Brian Lehrer: Is there an answer that would serve everybody in the community, or ultimately, with the economics you're describing, do there have to be major winners and major losers?

Lisa: Well, we used to have a farm store that sold supplies and shovels and things like that, and seeds and little birds, chickens, and stuff. That's gone. Then there's one fancy store, and then one Four Brothers store. There should be a committee that takes a look and says, "How can we bring these two communities together? What do we need to do?" I don't see that happening.

Brian Lehrer: Lisa, thank you very much for your call. Let's take one more in this set, and then we'll have you comment on it, Professor Ocejo. Tom in Middletown, New York, you're on WNYC. Hi, Tom.

Tom: Hey, Brian. Thank you. Great show as usual. I'm from Middletown, but I volunteer several times at Habitat for Humanity in Newburgh. I wonder if the professor could address the efforts of groups like that to bring low-income housing or quality housing. I worked on a house in the Historic District, and Habitat does a great job. Can you comment on that, sir?

Brian Lehrer: Tom, thank you. Actually, before you do that, let me throw in one more, and then that's going to be our callers for this segment. Emily in Newburgh, you're on WNYC. Hi, Emily.

Emily: Hi. Thanks for taking my call.

Brian Lehrer: You moved to Newburgh from the city?

Emily: I did. I moved just not even a year ago. It was in post-pandemic. I'd moved back to my small town in California during the pandemic, and then coming back to the city, I just felt like I wanted a smaller community and nature, and I found Newburgh and really loved it. Having lived in Washington Heights in New York City and now moving to Newburgh, I am very aware of the gentrification issue and have a lot of concerns about making sure I'm part of the community and where my place is and not being a negative impact, I guess.

Brian Lehrer: How do you take steps to ensure that you are a positive impact on your community, not a negative one, if you found ways?

Emily: I think one of the things that I am just getting used to living there and settling in, because I am still commuting to the city, is making sure that I'm not just in the city and then just sleeping in Newburgh, essentially, but finding ways to connect with that community and be involved. It's a lovely place, and I want to contribute to that.

Brian Lehrer: Emily, thank you very much for your call. Well, an interesting set of callers. Professor Ocejo, where do you want to enter? What were you thinking as those callers went by on any particular one or them as a group?

Richard Ocejo: Let me comment on something that both David and Emily just now talked about in terms of not having a negative impact by being good neighbors and being respectful. A lot of the people I spoke to say the very same thing, and that's very admirable. It's really the least that anyone to any new community could do, especially one where there's such a power disparity and such an imbalance in terms of social class and race between a newcomer and a majority of the existing residents who are there.

What I think is important to distinguish is that gentrification we often talk about in individualistic terms, like people making this decision to move there, not to move to a place, when really, we should be thinking of it much more as a structural collective process. Yes, it's a series of individual choices, but really, it's a large-scale reinvestment process. That is what causes these issues.

Brian Lehrer: Do you make recommendations in the book for policy-level structural approaches, either to accommodating gentrification or to preventing gentrification zoning or whatever else?

Richard Ocejo: Well, I don't in the book, but you're just naming now a couple of the solutions that get proposed to try to mitigate it. Rent control, for example, in terms of residential rent control, commercial rent control, strong housing policies, inclusive zoning, the establishment of community land trusts, making some sort of regulation on renting, and how many rental units a landlord is able to have. All of these are examples of solutions that are rather piecemeal and sporadic nationally that, unfortunately, in Newburgh, we really haven't seen very much of.

Newburgh doesn't have a very strong housing policy. As a structural problem, it's going to require structural solutions and individual newcomers being good neighbors and frequenting certain establishments, let's say. These kinds of things, they're fantastic, and they're really great, but if we're looking to do something to address a process that creates unequal conditions, then we're going to have to look at it more from that structural perspective.

Brian Lehrer: Is your hope, in an ideal world, that your book raises the level of that conversation that you were just describing needs to take place in Newburgh City Hall?

Richard Ocejo: Yes, that is a hope, Newburgh City Hall and communities and other places, other municipalities that are facing similar issues. That's a hope, yes.

Brian Lehrer: Well, I'm glad we were able to give you some exposure and have you interact with some people from the area for that purpose. Richard Ocejo, professor of sociology at John Jay College and the Graduate Center of CUNY. His new book is called Sixty Miles Upriver: Gentrification and Race in a Small American City. Thanks so much for coming on today.

Richard Ocejo: Thank you very much, Brian. I really appreciate it.

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