How do you feel about gentrification?

[JustinTheGreat]

Gentrification is when they take low income neighborhoods and remodel them, turning them into expensive houses, running out all the poor people

The apartment I grew up on was a $500 a month roach motel in the ghetto.
Now it’s a $2500 a month “pent house” lmao

I took a walk through my old neighborhood, and it’s all completely gentrified. Every apartment is all redone with luxury cars parked outside. It’s not too far from Brown University so I think they redid them for housing for the college students.

I wonder what happened to all the poor families that were told they had to leave so they can quadruple the rent and move richer people in 😬

[AmandaYVR]

I used to be overall quite positive on gentrification. On the plus side, it beautifies, often makes neighbourhoods safer and better maintained. The area might get refreshed and attract new retail businesses, and new people.

But now I'm actually quite against. My city has gone overboard. They clearly have an agenda, and I believe they are falling into the greed trap of too much "progress", too fast. We are already way too population-dense, and the city is trying to attract industry (mostly in the tech sector), and unfortunately it's working. So many developments are planned. I cannot go anywhere without road blocks, the roads being cut up, scaffolding up high with warnings "demolition area." It's infuriating, to say the least. And you are right, as the old buildings go down, the new are almost invariably higher cost (although my mayor claims he will not approve residential projects without the proviso that the tenants are temporarily inconvenienced and will eventually be allowed back at the same rate as what they were paying before. I do not believe this. And what happens is, in the mean time, they have to find their own housing elsewhere, and they are pushed out of the area completely.) Some residents are fine with/happy about the changes. Many are not. And they speak up. But city council meetings, flooded with people both registered and not registered to speak, are simply shut down and the people shooed away. How is that fair or taking into account public opinion? It's a dog and pony show, is what it is. All lies. The projects go ahead, regardless.

I've watched many documentaries, and one of my absolute favourites is one called Surviving Progress. It was fascinating. And depressing. Wish more people understood just how much we are all part of the machine. When you're in it, you often can't see the forest through the trees. I highly recommend this doc:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/17FBp74JW44

Ronald Wright, author, A Short History of Progress.
"In defining progress, I think it’s very important to make a distinction between good progress and bad progress. Things progress in that they change. Both in nature and in human society, there appears to be a clear trend towards increasing complexity as change proceeds. We tend to delude ourselves that these changes always result in prudence from a human point of view."

"Most of the structure of the human brain predates mammals, prior to the last 50,000 years.
Between the fall of the Roman Empire and Columbus sailing, it took 13 centuries to add 200 million people to the world’s population. Now it takes only three years. We’ve only been living in civilization, as near as we can tell, for the last 5000 years at the most, which is less than.2% of our evolutionary history. The rest of the 98% of the time we have been hunters and gatherers. Since then, culture has taken off and become completely detached from the face of natural evolution. So we are running 21st century software on hardware that hasn’t updated for 50,000 years, and therein lies the problem. Our human nature is back in the hunting and gathering stage, whereas our knowledge, our ability to do harm and good to ourselves and others, has grown all out of proportion."

"Faith in progress has become a kind of religious faith, a sort of fundamentalism, rather like the market fundamentalism that has just recently crashed and burned. The idea that you can let markets rip is a delusion, just as the idea that you can let technology rip, and it will solve the problems created by itself in a slightly earlier phase."

"Things that start out seeming like progress, they’re very seductive, it seems like there’s no downside. But when they reach a certain scale, they turn out to be dead ends. Or traps. Progress traps. They seem to provide benefits in the short term but actually lead to disaster. (Like driving a hundred mammoths off a cliff – they’d made too much progress.)"

[RosieMelts]

It’s terrible because it’s a pie in the face- no

it’s a Louis-Vuitton-leather-glove slap to the face

why? Because they have money to invest in brick and mortar

and they won’t invest that kind of money, at least in part, into change or equal land ownership for all people

if everyone had their own land in the us alone,

they wouldn’t have to worry about being homeless and could get a certain job just to buy food and maybe maintain the place,

but instead it feels like a modern day

running out the native Americans

and building some hotel on someone’s grave. The disrespect for another human is astonishing.

Build elsewhere. How many buildings does a single person or company need?

it’s not just indifference, it’s not walking past a homeless person

its taking a sandwich out of their hand. All they’ve got.

its saying “hey! MOVE. I want to stand there.”

Its “real estate bullying”

it’s ‘desensitization’

and lack of any intelligence whatsoever,

to find an alternative route for their “building of empires,” other than resorting to this so called gentrification.

If not at least being smart enough to solve two problems at once, at least find a different solution to their problem - which is hardly a problem to begin with.

Standing on the poor/ less fortunate to get a leg up is not intelligence, nor is it admirable, or noble.

Sorry for the long rampage of a response, but it’s something I felt passionate about,

and anyone who will passionately oppose some part of my opinion… I don't know I’ll either rage on it, or happily ignore, as their words will be deemed dead to me.

[RosieMelts]

You know what it reminds me of? Some kid putting two incompatible bugs together or a bug in a spider’s web- shoving some helpless critter to their doom and watching in amusement.

It’s almost a mental disorder if you ask me! Inhumane

[exitseven]

It is too many people trying to occupy too small of a space. It is simply supply and demand. Everyone needs someplace to live but God stopped making land a long time ago.

[RosieMelts]

@exitseven then they should help birth control and less abortion and less things that don’t work like condoms. If they can keep rates like cats and dogs in check with spay and neuter they can do the same with people- you don’t kill people!

[exitseven]

No, some need to be spayed or neutered

[RosieMelts]

@exitseven my point? So what’s the reason for your no? Oh, you must’ve misunderstood.. oh well.

[ZenJen444]

It's getting overcrowded as hell so they have to continuously build. I hate how animals have to suffer though. Their land is being taken up they have no where to go.

[RosieMelts]

@ZenJen444 it’s everyone’s land and they don’t know how to share 😟

[monorprise]

There are many places that have remained Ghetto for a 100+ years. It's ironic that many of theses places are located geographically in some of the most ideal locations near the center of cities.

You would think theses locations would demand a high price given their advantageous position relative to everything else. But instead due to a combination of mostly politics and the resulting crime they become and remain Ghettos.

That a few people are willing to buy them anyway and put large sums of money into restoring them and defending them from the crime allows many of theses places and the surrounding neighborhoods to be revived and upgraded for a time.

In truth people who cannot or even will not trade their skills for acquitted compensation (IE poor) need by necessity to do more for themselfs.

This requires freedom, thus putting them in places where there is the least (such as the center of cities) only helps to insure that they remain poor for the same reasons that made those areas poor in the first place.

Moving as such is a good thing.

[lightbulb27]

When… without a time stamp prices are useless. The house I bought was 100k now goes for 350k… pure inflation.


Not sure about gentrification… in general improves that area but pushes the lower income earners and crime out or into govt housing which is bad. It’s part of a formula that can do good (jobs, improvements) but downside as well. The real issue is poor people don’t own stuff and are trapped and fall down the rungs too often in junk schools, low opportunities, and poor social env and parents leading to more poverty. How to deal with that mess.


If people owned property they’d see their wealth grow with the inflation… but like the history of Central Park the black peoples land is taken and not compensated (maybe they didn’t own it … but when do they get the chance) and they turn it to huge sums. Fairness is not business.
Some black and low income move back to success areas… it’s more about education… but nyc has a lot of crappy education as do other areas.

[ShaTTeredMasterpeace]

Gentrifuckation sucks. I ride through my old neighborhood and don't even recognize it. They don't care about these communities that they're building over and the people that live there. They've been trying to get us to sell our house even tho we continue to decline. It's damn near harassment at this point. What's worse is, they've closed down so many schools just to turn them into luxury apartments. I hate it.

[Pinay_ako]

I feel disgust coz developers only look at profit and not give a single fck about the poor. You wonder why there’s a rise in homelessness in everywhere you look. Even robbing off people who actually buy the real estate with ridiculous fees and sky high interest rates! Owning and renting is pretty much the same, the difference with renting you can never own the house but paying the same amount a homeowner is paying. Highway robbery in your face!

[JustinTheGreat]

Apparently my credit score is not good enough to pay a $1200 mortgage so I’m paying a $1500 rent instead 🥴🥴

[Pinay_ako]

Exactly!

[Still-alive]

Ohh pinay with the hot take!

I agree completely by the way

[Daniela1982]

Yes, but you are not dealing with all the negatives of owning a house. You don't pay $300,000 in interest over the life of the loan, pay property taxes, home insurance, or pay for any repairs if they are required. By the time you pay all those you could live in an apartment for 20 years and be money ahead.

[Pinay_ako]

@Daniela1982 yea but still as a renter, you’re flushing your hard earned money down the drain.

[Fuentes]

@Daniela1982 a house is way better and if I need anything fixed I'll hit up the illegals. You pay property tax yearly and if something ever happens you have 5 years ti take care of your tax payments before it goes into auction and you can start a payment plan at anytime in most counties in Cali and if your mortgage gets bad you can get a payment plan for that. If you fuck up on rent in Cali & most places your shit outta luck. Why would you discourage anyone in buying a house that's ridiculous lol

[Daniela1982]

@Fuentes Because the price of houses is outrageous. It cost you almost all you make just to make a house payment. At the end of 30 years you have paid $400,000 in interest. You could live in a $2,000 a month apartment for 17 years for what you paid in just the interest on your loan. Then you still owe the $500,000 for the original price of the house. That house therefore cost you around a million dollars. You could live in an apartment for 40 years and have had all that extra money you were paying out for other things.

[Fuentes]

@Daniela1982 I mean their are places I'd never LIVE that I noticed are cheap like Columbia, SC or Eugene Oregon. Also Menifee, CA is also cheap also of you can knock off PMI with a higher down payment you won't be left on the hook with all the interest. Blame Biden for the sky rocket prices but I much rather pay a arm & leg that's something that is considered mine then ever pay a landlord, who picks and chooses when to get stuff done or even having to share the same walls as crazy narcissist Neighbors or not be on the verge of a eviction if something happen the next month you have to pay. A house is way safer if you ask me. Theirs loop holes to everything when surviving.

[Daniela1982]

@Fuentes Something that you consider yours? Try not paying your mortgage payment for a couple months and you will see who really owns it. Hmmm, I guess you are really a renter after all.

[Fuentes]

@Daniela1982 did you not read what I said? I said if you don't pay for your mortgage and something happens you can lose it but you have time and payment options to fix that the same as the taxes if your behind which I clearly wrote above you versus paying RENT to a Landlord and miss one month og a payment your evicted and it hits your record for 7 years and you can't live anywhere but roach motels and ghetto places lol you think playing with eviction in Cali is cool? Lol which clearly proves being under a mortgage is way better and if you end up foreclosing theirs no 7 year penalty that blocks you from living anywhere else.

Owning a house is the best thing anyone can do if your Smart and can handle your adult life.

[Daniela1982]

@Fuentes Tell that to all the people who get foreclosed on when they wind up in financial trouble when they can't pay their house payment and then get divorced because of it.

[Fuentes]

@Daniela1982 how does other people with bad financial practices prove RENT is better? Did you grow up privileged and you think that if you get evicted you can just get another place? You ever read every single normal apartments qualifications that says "NO Evictions" that doesn't happen when you foreclose or get put on a tax lien. Banks & the county work with you, landlord don't.

[JustinTheGreat]

@Daniela1982 regardless if you pay interest or not, eventually you’ll pay off the house and own it and not have to worry about mortgage at all. Then you can pass the house along to your children or other members of your family. So I would say buying a house is still a better investment then paying rent the rest of your life without having anything to show for it

[Daniela1982]

How about put that money in the bank and when you die your kids get over a million dollars.

[DermalPunch]

This is a question of particular interest to me especially the way it intersects with race & class.

Conceptually, it is good since neighbourhoods should not be left to waste. In practice it doesn't work out very fairly.

Gentrification, which involves constructively evicting those who cannot afford the rent hikes, speaks to the dehumaniztion of low-income people.

Just because the people are poor and the neighbourhood is bad, it doesn't mean that it isn't a community.

My neighbourhood is currently experiencing gentrification but thankfully the various BIAS put a stop to some of the more displacing ventures that some developers were attempting. Disgustingly, a rather famous neighbourhood in my city was being gentrified and they wanted to do the high end sode and the rent co trolled sode and have segregated entrances. Well, that didn't go down too well.

[desperatelyhungry]

Where do you live

[DermalPunch]

@desperatelyhungry I'm in Morocco but I'm not talking about Morocco here.

[TenderFantasy]

"I wonder what happened to all the poor families that were told they had to leave so they can quadruple the rent and move richer people in " They probably moved to a cheaper state/location/city. Either that or they had two/three families in those crackerbox apartments or split up and the grown-up kids when their separate ways, room for rents, college dorms, room with a friend/girlfriend/bother/wife, etc.

Others who were really unlucky probably ended up in Section 8 housing, homeless and abuse shelters, etc.

[abc3643]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whfQf3Pd5bU

Hi boys and girls.
It's your old pal, Mister Robinson.
So much has changed since we last spent some time together.
My neighborhood has gone through so much.
It's gone through something called "gentrification".
Can you say "gentrification", boys and girls?
It's like a magic trick.
White people pay a lot of money and then *POOF* all the Black people are gone.
But where do they go, boys and girls?
Back to where they came from, of course: Atlanta!

[SlightlyEccentric]

So I understand...

You live in a slummy, ghetto, roach infested neighborhood where crime is high and people are dying on the streets everyday from violence and drug overdose.

Then someone comes along and rallies the good people of said neighborhood to clean things up, make the neighborhood safe again.


Business owners see the good work the community is doing and decides to set up some shops to bring business to said neighborhood.

Money brought in gets used to demolish run down, roach infested buildings and new homes and apartments are built in their stead at an increased price (because that's how marketing works).

In time, the neighborhood that was once a place not many decent folk would wanna live is now a place people are wanting to come visit and even reside in.

And you're upset by this process?

[bingbongbangbung]

So I understand... you're strawmanning

[SlightlyEccentric]

If you're not gonna give an actual rebuttal or explain what is wrong with my statement then you can kindly fuck off.

[JustinTheGreat]

Why can’t they just fix up the neighborhood but still make it affordable to those who already lived there?
People live in shitty areas because they can’t afford to go anywhere else, and instead of giving it up and making it a more pleasant place for current residents, they fix it up and then kick them out

[JustinTheGreat]

Fixing it up*

[blissinanarchy1]

I’m from Kensington in Philly. Lots of documentaries were made about it, due to the open air drug market, fiends out in public trippin, all types of shit. It’s called the “BadLands” along with some other neighborhoods around there”, and also frequently referred to as “ZombieLand”. Honestly, gentrification ain’t the best idea. You’re bringing in richer people to a neighborhood where people get shot in the head broad day dozens of times a year. And you can’t exactly exterminate all the addicts. Kick them out of one spot, they go to the next, possibly starting a drug war with another neighborhood, upping the crime rate, maybe they go to a richer neighborhood and turn that into the hood, etc.

[ArtemisSilver]

Developing an area should come with a balanced requirement to build some in-market but low-cost housing elsewhere in the city. In-market because it's not reasonable to expect people to run a charity, but there's no reason that we can't strive for better corporate and municipal governance.

There should be social programs in place to ensure that those who can't afford in-market housing for valid reasons like age or disability still have housing. If not, the city should try to make at least boarding housing available even if it's at a sustainable loss.

[macjets007]

It's just the free market doing what it does best. It raises the living standards, and if they can't afford it, anyone can move out of that city to somewhere that is more afforable (and still close to the gentrified area).

Real estate companies are going to develop new properties, and up and coming professionals are looking for nice properties for a cheaper cost. Best example is Harlem (was in W Harlem Sunday) and it is such a great neighborhood now. Less crime, easier access to education, and if the original residents own the property, then the value went up for them exponentially.

It's objectively a good thing. Take Brooklyn for example. Those could not afford to live there anymore simply moved to other parts of brooklyn/bronx/queens that are similar cost.

[JamesDiaz11]

I'm all for it. Poor people degrade an area to the point where it becomes profitable to purchase the houses, improve it, and begin attracting more affluent people. This simply makes sense. Survival of the fittest.

As far as the poor people, they simply move to other crappy areas; although they should be liquidated.

[MrKinktastic]

It’s generally unavoidable. The value of the property increases past a certain point and the incentive to buy property there to fix it up becomes irresistible. Making laws to prevent that would be very difficult without an absurd amount of government overreach.

[RobT312]

It’s a natural thing that’s happened for hundreds of years.. neighborhoods and cities for that matter go in and out of fashion for many reasons and investment follows that trend. Hmm I guess I’m overall in favor of it… go Providence !!! Cool little city glad it’s getting cleaned up! Maybe everyone gets kicked out to Pawtucket?

[Smoke-n-Growls]

They're either dead, about to die, or they've had to uproot themselves and go elsewhere.

Gentrification sucks and is a capitalist's exploitative game.

It's also highly unnecessary and often just drives a community deeper into vacancy and debt.

[ObscuredBeyond]

It's a good thing when neighborhoods self-improve. But when an entity, especially with government backing (i. e., cronyism) is able to steal land from landowners outright, and offer zero compensation, then remake the land by force into a fortress for cronies who are among the few able to afford to live there, that kind of forced gentrification is literally theft, and is obscene.

When it benefits a foreign entity, that borders on treason!

[Dargil]

In the past, Urban Renewal was another name for Negro Removal.
The appropriate governments must provide somewhere for them to live at some cost they pay, to encourage them to work. Zoning (AKA big government democrats) evicted them and they have to balance it off. And I am a conservative. Ya gotta do what's right.

[globetrotter22]

Well the poor people who owned houses/condos usually see their real estate values shoot way up too. Also if helps revive areas that were once very depressed.

I get the frustration of the skyrocketing rent costs. But gentrification isn’t itself a 100% “evil” concept.

[dustybiker]

They did this to a few trailer parks in my area that were once hidden on the outskirts of town, ended up butting up against new developments. This was probably 15 years ago.. the foundations are still there and look far tackier.

[JustinTheGreat]

My mom lives in a trailer park and every time someone moves out one of the older ones, they tear it down and put a brand new one in.
I saw people posting on TikTok about how trailers are slept on, which is true. A lot of the newer trailers are really nice! But I feel like since they’re becoming more popular, someone’s going to buy out a whole park charge people $2000 a month to live in them…

[dustybiker]

That should be a lawsuit if it ever happened.

[GlassTop]

If you don’t like it, too bad. Remodeling and making neighborhoods better is a good thing. Why would you want an area to store poor for the sake of poor people? That’s not how the world works. And the remodeling is a risk on those people trying to make money. It could fail and become ghost towns, which has happened. Then the poor are free to take over again.

[ODC2112]

I feel nothing, it is a fact. The place where you grew up before was either disgusting or dangerous and the poor paid little in money and a lot of risk. Now that the neighborhood has been cleaned up and the risk has decreased, people are willing to pay more in money as the risk has decreased.

[HighValue]

Describes almost all of California with the insane cost of living here. $1,200 per month to rent a 1br 1ba apartment in the Central Valley. Ridiculous.

[midnightmoon05]

I thought California is more expensive than NY. NY is average $2k one bedroom.
Many moving out… rent still crazy high. I don’t get it.

[HighValue]

@midnightmoon05 The $1,200 for a 1 bedroom was for a town in the valley, not for the large cities like LA. It is much more than $1,200 there I am sure.

[JustinTheGreat]

When I went to LA, one of my Uber drivers told me that rent for a 1 bedroom was like $2000