Princeton
Review by David Starkey

In the conclusion of his new book, Sixty Miles Upriver: Gentrification and Race in a Small American City, Richard Ocejo, a sociology professor at John Jay College and the CUNY Graduate Center, writes:
While it may seem like a rather innocuous life choice at first glance, deciding where to live can itself actually raise a lot of moral questions. When people have options for where to live, where should they move to? What are the moral implications behind their choices? Specifically, when power imbalances like those within racial and social class hierarchies are in play, what responsibilities do people have toward the communities they move into? Do people who gain from long-standing, negative conditions that others have dealt with and suffered from owe them anything, even if they weren't responsible for those initial conditions?
Though Ocejo goes on to say that “There are no easy answers to any of these questions”–issues that are central to the book’s focus–the rhetorical framing of the questions suggests that the answers are, in fact, pretty easy after all. Of course gentrifiers owe something to the communities they are infiltrating and displacing.
Ocejo’s subject is Newburgh, New York, a faded industrial urban area sixty miles up the Hudson River from New York City. At the time of his study, in the years just before the pandemic, Newburgh is experiencing–from the perspective of a certain portion of it its citizens–something of a renaissance. Long derided as a crime-ridden “ghetto,” Newburgh, which has plenty of cheap, spacious and historically significant buildings, all situated in a landscape overlooking the gorgeous Hudson River Valley, has been suddenly besieged, or blessed, by an influx of artists fleeing the high prices of the metropolis.
As Ocejo acknowledges, “Newburgh’s gentrification story is all too familiar.” Artsy, liberal home buyers claim to cherish the non-White urban environment they are moving into–Newburgh’s population of about 30,000 is “majority minority”–but soon, in their new roles as property owners, the White gentrifiers find themselves embracing and justifying the NIMBYism they had heretofore disdained.
What makes Newburgh worth examining, Ocejo argues, is that it demonstrates how gentrification unfolds “differently than it does in big cities.” In a small city, the gentrifiers have much more power than they would in a larger urban environment. As “influential placemakers,” they may at times feel guilt about the dislocation of the working-class Black and Hispanic families whom they are pricing out of a neighborhood, but economic self-interest nearly always outweighs vague notions of doing the right thing.
While Sixty Miles Upriver is an academic book published by an academic press, it is quite readable as a general interest take on gentrification. Part of what makes it work as (semi-)creative nonfiction are Ocejo’s many interviews with citizens both old and new and returning, Black and White and Latino. Not surprisingly, the invading army from out of town doesn’t come off especially well in many of these conversations. For instance, at a rap concert held downtown, we meet “Zach, a White musician standing on the outskirts of the crowd.” Zach comments: “‘I don’t think this is even music…. And the sad thing is this is part of their culture.'” Ocejo’s summary of Zach’s observation is hardly necessary: “People in Newburgh’s majority-white suburbs often harbor this attitude of cultural superiority toward low-income communities of color.”
Ocejo is also quite good at description. Of that same concert, he writes: “Black and Hispanic residents pour in from the surrounding neighborhoods, making their way toward the main stage. Their energy is palpable. The Hudson Highlands frame the scene like a proscenium arch. At seven o’clock, Poet Gold, a local spoken word artist, walks onto the stage. She’s there to get the crowd riled up while Chandra spins records. Pardison Fontaine’s DJ sets up fifteen minutes later and Chandra cedes the turntables, dancing across the stage.” Vivid moments like this are scattered throughout the book, keeping it from descending into a mere treatise.
That said, those who read nonfiction hoping the myriad details in the body of a book will add up to a surprising conclusion will be disappointed. Indeed, the very fact that Ocejo has done such a good job from the outset of listening to and recording the thoughts and actions of Newburgh’s citizenry means that we know by the end of the Introduction how things will turn out. Those who come into power will consolidate that power. Those who have been excluded from prosperity will continue to find themselves on the outside looking in. No matter how big or small the city is, the basic story remains the same.