so i've heard of this as a bad thing and my question is why does it matter how long someone's been in a neighborhood if it's going to be improved into a more desirable state?
staying in the ghetto for a few months while i'm between places and this place could certainly use some upgrades and i wouldn't mind it meaning some of the undesirables get priced out

This post wreaks of "I got mine so screw you if you didn't get yours"

Wouldn't adding more stores, businesses, and resources in run down neighborhoods provide more jobs and wealth to those neighborhoods, having a positive impact not only on those who move in, but those who already live there?

Also, when property increases in value, a lot of current property owners of more run down lots will tend to sell, and "move up" to another area, where they now have a better quality property, housing and often money left over for other things to improve their lives.

I don't have the first clue what "social capital" is or how it's helpful to anyone. Like, it seems to be referring to culture. But if the culture is to shit in the streets and throw all the trash in the nearest river, how is that beneficial?

I think it's good when white people are pushed out of their neighborhoods and forced into poverty.

It's telling that you proclaim you don't know what social capital is and didn't just look it up.

Usually in low-income neighborhoods there aren't that many owners, they're primarily renters which means the benefits of higher property prices aren't benefiting them. Additionally, just because your current home is worth more doesn't mean you can move up to a better one, often it means the opposite since your property taxes or rent increased but your income didn't, so you end up getting priced out instead of moving up.

When gentrification happens, it means most of the benefits go to the people renting the homes in the area, who are usually not the residents themselves.

Maybe you're fine with that, but we've seen in California what the consequences of this are if taken way too far, where you've got to drive multiple hours a day just to find a home that the support staff can afford, so it's really hard to find support staff. Gentrification is an inefficiency, the economy runs on its baseline of low paid manual laborers, and fundamentally gentrification makes it harder to keep those people around which causes increased costs on everybody.

I clearly looked it up. It's mostly a gibberish term that means something close to culture, and is often not a good thing. Read better.

So if it's low income without owners, just renters, but there's not a lot of jobs or opportunity, how do you improve the lives of the renters and either turn them into owners, or get them into better areas? Typically, more/better jobs, better education (which is funded via more tax income), and better job training programs. The idea behind "gentrification" in and of itself isn't to turn everything into a closed system that prices the 97% out of the market leaving only the 3% remaining. It's to provide enough opportunity and generate enough wealth to bring the 97% up closer to the 3%'s level.

If you're a property owner, and your property values double or triple, you do not "move up" by staying. You "move up" by selling to developers who seek to improve your lot and make a profit off it, taking your profits, and using them to purchase a nicer property in another area. See, I live in a country where we are not serfs, tied to the land we work, prevented by law from leaving our little plot. Instead, there's an insane level of mobility, where you can go wherever you want and do whatever you're capable of. Novel idea, I know.

It seems like your issues run more against high taxation policies of places like LA or San Francisco, where you have high income taxes, high property taxes, high sales taxes, and the purchasing value of the dollar has been eroded to the point where $15/hour is worth the equivalent of $3/hour in rural Indiana. Believe it or not, get away from the city and it's poor policy makers, and throughout most of the "flyover states" $15/hour, or even $12/hour is a doable living wage, outside of shitholes like Chicago.

There was a shooting in the neighbourhood last week and we've got one person dead

gentrification doesn't always mean a bad thing, its just that in practice things arent normally fixed until the whites start moving in. in reality this is a mixture of causes, the whites having more money so landlords and businesses follow to get their money, and a tinge of racism because people fix things once the colored people are pushed out.

most times in practice it has the feel of someone buying a 1969 charger, ripping out everything under the hood, reupholstering the entire inside, slapping in a brand new motor from a modern car, tossing in a new stereo system, but keeping the iconic body of the car. no one wants to take the time to chase down old parts and restore it properly, easier to gut and replace.

the sad thing in america is we've all heard how impossible it is to fix the ghetto as a stated fact that we've bought it, hook line and sinker, and now apply that same mentality to fixing anything in the ghetto. systematic racism is hard to fix, gangs are hard to fix, educational ideals in the home are hard to fix, but there's plenty of things we could do for cheap to improve the area. community gardens, community cleanups, tax breaks on businesses willing to open there, volunteer school walking path monitors, after school programs, etc. but its that dusty old 1969 charger, and no one wants to change the oil if they cant see themselves rebuilding the engine.

Gentrification is not the only parameter to take in consideration. Historical configuration & evolution have to be monitored too.

Typically: Everything ends up in being inherited or sold to owners who will divide and rent all buildings: when this happen the prices are slowly going down while local markets/places/social activities are dying.

Rich people buy poor neighborhoods, destroy them, and build a neighborhood for themselves sometimes using the same name. It isn't fixing a neighborhood up, it is destroying one and building another. It is only a problem if you think poor people should be able to live somewhere or care about homelessness. The number one cause of homelessness is lack of affordable housing and gentrification exacerbates this problem. If you don't care about homelessness and don't care whether or not the working poor have a place to life then its no biggie.

There are neighborhoods that get better, and that isn't gentrification. Gentrification involves the involuntary movement of people and is colonial in nature, but there is nothing illegal about it. Neighborhoods improve through Community Development Corporations and community based resource development.

Someone said the new jobs will benefit the old people who lived there ...those services aren't for them, they are for the new residents replacing them. Also this idea misses out on the whole dynamic of our service based economy. Those jobs are for people to ride the bus from poor neighborhoods to do lol. They want working in the new sandwich shop and going upstairs to the new swanky apartments lol. Someone watched too much Friends.

This post was edited by Skinned on Sep 22 2020 09:53am