A thought, inspired by this thread by @BBolander, and spurred also by feedback I've heard re THE CITY WE BECAME.

Folks. Gentrification is not good for cities, unless you're a landlord. It's not even good for landlords in the long run. https://twitter.com/BBolander/status/1330969147300261891
30 seconds of googling tells me part of the reason why ppl think it's good: the first definition I see talks about "improving housing and attracting new businesses". Sounds good, right? Sure, current residents get displaced, but that just happens. Net good overall, right?

No.
First of all, that displacement is anything but the natural outcome of supply and demand. Think about the treatment of poor Black residents of NOLA post-Katrina. And in NYC -- man, folks think I made up the deed theft subplot in TCWB. I didn't need to. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/21/nyregion/deed-theft-brooklyn.html
Again and again, this country steals from BIPoC communities. We build healthy neighborhoods and they deliberately position highways to destroy them. We build thriving towns, they bomb them. Gentrification is a modern, "gentler" continuation of this cycle.
(Voiceover: It is not gentle. Police brutality operates in tandem with gentrification. Plus there's the chronic effects of environmental racism, food deserts/swamps, poor healthcare access, homelessness... Gentrification kills people all the time.)
But let's consider the word itself -- rooted in "gentry," or wealthy landowners. That's primarily who gentrification benefits (in the short term). What kinds of "new businesses" move in with the gentry? The kinds of businesses they like. What kinds of housing? What they can buy.
Here in NYC that means grocery stores dwindle because the wealthy dine out more. It means our subways catch fire twice a month -- because the wealthy drive cars, so the state cuts investment in public transportation (eventually killing it).
The businesses we lose are *the ones cities need to survive.* They're replaced by trendy businesses better suited to a tourist resort. We lose permanent residents, families, and get instead folks who stay only a few years -- if they live here at all. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/01/american-housing-has-gone-insane/605005/
There's no long-term benefit for cities. Short term they look neater (tho not nicer), get a richer tax base, etc. Long-term, they lose population, innovation, infrastructure, political power. It becomes a service/tourism economy, much more fragile than it was.
Then the city no longer generates culture (the wealthy consume art; they suck at making it), no longer supports family life or real communities, and no longer has economic flexibility. We lose a powerhouse for the nation's economy and get another playground for the rich.
How long are the trend-chasers who moved into a gentrifying city likely to stay, once the city's not trendy anymore? How will businesses stay open without a big work force? How long are those investment condos going to stay valuable in a shrinking, boring city?
I guess we'll see, since NYC and some other cities are now moving toward this later stage of gentrification. Personally? I think we're going to lose those cities. Maybe other cities will step up, but that's a lot of churn instead of forward movement.
Anyway. tl;dr, Gentrification is gross and racist and classist and it strangles cities. I turned down the TED talk folks so thank you for coming to my long-ass Twitter thread.
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