Fuck it, Urbanism hot take night, none of you bitches actually know what gentrification is
Those dilapidated warehouses being demolished and turned into a restaurant or an apartment complex is not gentrification
Gentrification is when developers and landlords prey upon an area of a city's poor/working class neighborhood's low rent/property prices as a speculative purchase of development. They are obtaining property not as a way to support the neighborhood and its people, but as a way to make a profit at buying the property at a low price then selling it off after the areas been developed.
Not all development is gentrification. A neighborhood can improve itself purely through generational investments, city planning and funding, and community interest. If the property is abandoned or unoccupied, someone purchasing it and fixing it up is development. Gentrification is specifically when development is done by outside forces, causing the average rent/mortgage to increase, pushing out the poor/working class folks who can no longer afford their own homes.
Oh no, this is completely right, I am posting about this because of my hatred of the classic “all development is gentrification” idea, this is honestly a good summary of the difference between investment in a community and gentrification of a community
