Derek Hyra

According to Hyra, who is also a researcher in equitable development at American University’s Metropolitan Policy Center, many of these requests could make a tangible difference in fighting displacement. He also says the city can float bonds for tax increment financing to provide funding opportunities for business owners, though it would be a different approach.

“You have minorities who are looking for more affordable housing, so they’re moving out to the suburbs,” said Derek Hyra, a professor of urban policy at American University.

“Some people who stay in place don’t see the dog parks, upscale housing, and posh restaurants as being for them,” says Derek Hyra, SPA professor, MPC founding director, and author of Race, Class, and Politics in the Cappuccino City. “They feel excluded from their own communities.”

"Derek Hyra, who directs the Metropolitan Policy Center at American University’s School of Public Affairs, hopes that the redevelopment project in Baltimore is able to not only be an economic success, but offer equity stakes to small and minority-owned businesses, while also ensuring that affordable housing in surrounding neighborhoods remains."

"Derek Hyra, a professor of public administration and policy at American University, said it appears Greenville and other cities have failed to learn lessons from the past."

"Hyra said the COVID-19 pandemic impacted gentrification in two ways. Economically, disparities between low-income and high-income jobs affected people’s ability to sustain households, he said. The other impact was on real estate. Apart from the moratorium on evictions, low-interest rates made developments easier to initiate during the pandemic, according to Hyra."

"What I'm seeing is the assets of the public housing authority are really just seen by the DCHA or the City Council or the mayor as something where maybe we could get some development done … to get mixed-income housing that raises economic revenue for the city tax-base as opposed to thinking about how to use redevelopment to actually maintain the existing public housing stock, according to Hyra, who has served as board chair for the Redevelopment and Housing Authority in nearby Alexandria, Virginia."

“We usually provide tax incentives for public goods. We’d like to have a movie theater, but it’s not a public good,” planning commissioner Derek Hyra said at the Sept. 21 meeting. “It’s not a public high school. You have to pay to go there.”

“It’s a choice between the status quo, which is a more centrist type of Democratic politics, and the progressive wing,” said Derek Hyra, a professor at American University and the author of “Race, Class and Politics in the Cappuccino City.” The District has flourished economically under Bowser’s watch, Hyra noted, but at the same time, “It keeps growing unevenly.”

“He can use the racial equity platform he has built up to run for a citywide seat,” Hyra said. “I think he has an opportunity to potentially be one of the candidates running for mayor the next go-around. He got disqualified, but he didn’t do anything wrong. I think he has a very good future if he still wants to pursue elected office.”

“Even though the Amazon investments are significant, the number of units we have lost and will continue to lose greatly outweighs the number Amazon contributes to preserving,” said Derek Hyra, an urban policy professor at American University and a Falls Church planning commissioner. “So basically, it’s a drop in the bucket.”

“What we've seen is there's been a real movement in the last ten years of gentrification coming to southern cities," Hyra said. "So it went from D.C. to Durham to Atlanta. We see Nashville has had a huge wave of gentrification, and we see that it's moving further south. So a place like Memphis is likely going to be a place where gentrification occurs.”

“If you’re going to have someone on the progressive side to challenge Bowser, you’re going to have to consolidate the constituencies that Trayon and Robert have,” Hyra said. “If you split that progressive vote, it makes it even more difficult to go up against Bowser, who has such a good ground game.”

“Hyra expects high-price developers to target low-income communities of color across the more aggressively as the country emerges from the pandemic due to rising property values. “It’s just scratching the surface of what’s happening on the ground in a lot of low-income communities of color,” Hyra said of the looming problem facing Black and brown communities.”

“Now the country is changing again. Urban neighborhoods have once again become more attractive in many cities. “There’s traffic in the suburbs, and millennials don’t want to drive to work,” said Derek Hyra, a professor of public administration and policy at American University in Washington, D.C. “We’re starting to look more like European cities, like Lyon and Paris, where poverty is being pushed into the ring of neighborhoods surrounding cities.”

“Many of those private sector technology companies have government contracts — and this spending didn’t just lead to an influx of new, wealthier, residents in Virginia. It also led newcomers, many of them white, to historically Black D.C. neighborhoods, according to American University Professor Derek Hyra.”

“Hyra notes that even though Washington, D.C. has affordable housing policies that keep people in place, there is still a sense of loss amongst the community because of new amenities coming in, or because of the political dynamic shifting for the newcomers. In Hyra’s words, “Just because this neighborhood is redeveloping, and people think this is a wonderful thing, long-term residents can’t even utilize the amenities because it is beyond their price points.”

“Still, the trend of institutional investors buying single-family homes and multifamily units for renting can be expected to increase and become more of a political issue as long as the market remains hot, according to Derek Hyra, a professor and founding director of the Metropolitan Policy Center at American University who’s studying the impact of the pandemic on the real estate market. And there’s no denying it’s one of the factors affecting the market and communities, he said.”

““There would be less emotional reaction to dog parks if other amenities, like affordable housing, were coming at the same time,” Hyra said. “When people see a dog park come in, it’s just another signal they’re not wanted in the city.””

“The affordable crisis didn’t happen because of Amazon,” Hyra says. But the amount promised, he adds, “is a drop in the bucket of the affordable housing needs of the area.” Those needs will greatly intensify as Amazon’s highly paid workers flood into the area, and they will be felt most acutely by those with the lowest incomes."