Take a moment to think about your living situation in Oxford. You probably live in a dorm, apartment or house and pay a certain sum to live there. As a paying tenant, you can guarantee that the university or your landlord will not kick you out of your home, correct? Well unfortunately, not everyone has this luxury. In cities that are not too far from here, people are being kicked out of their homes in order for new construction to take place. Cities want to attract higher paying visitors and residents to their cities, and are getting rid of run-down buildings in order to replace them with something more attractive to do so. The problem is that the residents of these old buildings are left with nowhere to go afterwards since they cannot afford the new high-end developments. This problem is known as gentrification, but as a college student living in Oxford, Ohio you may be wondering why you should care about this topic.
Gentrification is a problem that everyone should care about no matter where they live because it deals heavily with ethics. As future members of a working society, we are going to be called to make many ethical decisions in our careers. A good place to start with this is when considering the less fortunate.
In cities with over one million inhabitants, more than 28.6 thousand families live below the poverty line. The media depicts these people to be bums, druggies and alcoholics, but these people are actually like you and me. They have families, jobs, and are trying to get by in their day-to-day lives. When these people are asked to suddenly move and begin a new life elsewhere, this changes things especially if they do not have the proper funds to do so. A modern apartment complex or shopping area may look good and attract people to an area, but unfortunately there are people that cannot afford this luxury lifestyle.
This does not mean that we have to cut out urban development altogether however. After all, our cities need to grow and thrive in order for anybody to economically stable. That is why citizens of a community have to work together in order to find a balance between ethics and growth. An example of this is the company 3CDC in Cincinnati. This company not only works to develop and fix up areas throughout the city, but they work with the Cincinnati Equity Fund as well to "support real estate development and compliment the low-income housing market by providing market-rate housing units to create mixed-income neighborhoods." This is a great mission statement, but it is citizens like us who have to make sure that these practices are actually happening and are not just words on a piece of paper. Ways in which we can make sure that these practices are being sought out include writing letters to city officials, voting in elections, and simply just thinking about these issues while we are still in school.
The practice of ethics goes well beyond the topic of urban development as well. As college students going out into the real world soon, we have to make sure that ethics are being enforced in our work forces and communities. If these things are not happening, it could be detrimental for all us. No one wants to live in a corrupt society. Unfortunately, the whole world is not like our little bubble that is Oxford, Ohio. It is time to look at the bigger picture, Miami.
Paige Drees
willi394@miamioh.edu