4 Chapter 4 Gentrification Changing Lives, Especially Nora’s

Gentrification Changing Lives, Especially Nora’s

The Lost Ones, by Sheena Kamal, features a detective Nora Watts, who lives in Vancouver, Canada. Vancouver is a place known for immigrants to come live. Nora’s father was a First Nations Boy who moved to Canada. Just like Nora’s dad, immigrants have come for many different reasons to live in a place like Vancouver. In the novel, it is explained that specifically Chinese immigrants have come over to own properties for their businesses and to relieve their tax burden. In The Lost Ones, there is a wealthy Chinese family that is portrayed by the Zhangs. The Zhangs have moved to Canada for their family business, Zhang-Wei Industries. The company was originally based in Hong Kong, where the family is presumed from (Kamal ,189).They moved to Canada for almost the same reasons as any other Chinese family did, because they could afford things at a cheaper price. Most families who migrated, like the Zhangs, were usually wealthy, which caused an impact on the residents already living there. The Chinese immigration is important overall in Vancouver because it affects the city, physically and to the people. Some people, who are most affected, are angry at the Chinese.  In the Novel, a guy named Carl, a guy that Nora met outside the city, explained the nature of the housing crisis in Vancouver. He stated that “Vancouver has become a hedge city where rich foreigners park their assets, drive up housing values, and price out the middle class, all while underreporting their overseas income to relieve their tax burden” (Kamal ,181). Many citizens who are in the lower or middle class feel like the Chinese immigrants are taking over and running them out. Most of them feel this way because of gentrification, the process of renovating neighbors and making them better, which in turn, makes living prices increase. This tension between the rich and the other classes is seen throughout the novel. Nora would have fit in at the lower-class side. While the novel didn’t explicitly mention how Nora would have been affected by gentrification, but I believe that it impacted how she lived and it brought on her long-term drama with herself, and her daughter. 

Vancouver Tidal Wave of Gentrification

Since the late 19th century, Asia has been connected with Vancouver. During that time, the first Chinese laborers were sent to the city to build the trans-Canada railway. Now, the Chinese population is coming in because they want their own property and wanted to build their businesses. The more Chinese Immigrants that were brought it, the more the prices were driven up. The tidal wave of the Chinese immigrants has brought a dramatic economic, demographic, and physical transformation. It also brought gentrification, which is the process of central and disadvantaged neighborhoods being changed. It is defined as

“an urban phenomenon by which better-off people appropriate space initially occupied by less-privileged residents or users, thus transforming the economic and social profile of the neighborhoods for the benefit of a higher social class”  (Campbell).

The neighborhoods change because developers believe that the town is too old, or it needs renovating. Since the land is usually cheaper in run down areas, these developers take advantage of the low cost and buildings and bring in new business. Some buildings are either just redone or torn down from top to bottom to make room for the new, expensive buildings. The places redone become more expensive because there are municipal taxes and rents that people have to pay. This is when it forces the residents and businesses who can’t afford to pay to other areas. When people are forced out, community business shut down as well. This includes churches, local businesses, clubs, and community centers to be shut down because the local community won’t be there to attend. Neighborhood gentrification can have significant impacts on lots of different people. There are some studies that reveal how different people are affected. Older adults are more likely to be affected because of their low incomes and exclusion from all of the new places. It also impacts the population already there. They feel shut out because of all the new businesses, especially if they cannot afford the services. Not only are older residents are affected, but according to an article from the New York Times, Liebson (2019) wrote about how gentrification would push out poorer and largely minority residents. More places would become unaffordable. There is also a risk of displacement with gentrification.

Connection with Nora

There is a connection between Nora and the gentrification process in Vancouver. Nora has grown up in Vancouver all of her life. She grew up with her mom, sister, and dad. They all have left for different reasons, besides Nora. Based on the novel, we know that Nora doesn’t own her own house or apartment. She lives in her office upstairs. She has a job, but it is not enough money to pay for her own place because the city is too expensive. Gentrification brought on by the immigrants did not allow her to buy a house. If she didn’t have nice enough friends, she would be living where Carl was living, out in the middle of nowhere because he couldn’t afford it. We also could see that she was affected by gentrification because of how she lived. She didn’t live in her own house, but she also did not own her own car. She walked everywhere and she found her cat on the street. Nora has her own views about immigrants coming over and the impact that they have on others. Nora stated: I have never been able to afford property, prime or otherwise. So, immigration doesn’t bother me (Kamal ,181). She did state that immigration doesn’t bother her, but we can see that all of her life is affected by gentrification. She doesn’t see it because of her trauma, but her trauma was caused by gentrification and the immigration. All the drama started when she went somewhere local and she met the Chinese that are connected with the Zhangs. If she didn’t go to that cheap bar, the only place she could afford, she might not have met them.

Why Gentrification

The whole plot in The Lost Onesis centered around how much Vancouver has changed and is still changing from the Chinese immigrants that have moved there. The reason I wanted to state the facts about the book with the gentrification caused by the Chinese population in Vancouver is because the whole plot is surrounded by what the Zhangs did the Nora and her daughter. The Zhangs kidnapped Nora’s daughter, which was the driven plot line to the book. The Zhangs were allowed to get away with what they have in the past because they were allowed to hide things. This was because “terrorism” wasn’t being looked into, which is what they were doing. Canada wasn’t looking into these kidnappings because they were proud of the immigration process they had, and they didn’t want to look like the bad guys for brining immigrants in. They wanted immigrants to stay and make their city wealthy, but this is what they caused in the kidnappings. The Zhangs could stay and not get into trouble for what they were doing, so they kept doing it.

Works Cited

Campbell &  Pearson. “The City That Had Too Much Money.” Bloomberg Businessweek, 20 October 2018, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-10-20/vancouver-is-drowning-in-chinese-money (Links to an external site.)

Kamal, Sheena. The Lost Ones.William Morrow, an Imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, 2017.

Liebson, R. (2019, November 26). As Newark Rises, Could Black Residents Be Pushed Out? Retrieved December 14, 2019, from https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/26/nyregion/newark-development-gentrification.html?searchResultPosition=1.

McMaster. “Gentrification: When Neighbourhoods Change, Lives Change.” Default,McMaster Optimal Aging Portal, 17 July 2018, https://www.mcmasteroptimalaging.org/blog/detail/blog/2018/07/17/gentrification-when-neighbourhoods-change-lives-change (Links to an external site.).