Is anything wrong with gentrification?
It all depends on how much money people are willing to pay for a cup of coffee or other services and conveniences about town. Otherwise, people stay at home and mind their own business, and it doesn't matter.
Say there are ladies and gentlemen, landlords, tenants, homeowners who have steady jobs and nice property in a certain neighborhood with well-born children who attend good schools, etc. Such people are called gentry.
There are always nice neighborhoods in more humble rural or small-town or outlying areas with a much lower cost of living and more space available, and nobody should be disadvantaged by selling or moving out of an overly gentrified area.
Moving into a "gentrified" area is another matter. Local economies are always cyclical Excessive rent and property taxes are due in an overvalued neighborhood, and once homes and apartments and commercial buildings have reached their peak valuation, the whole area is subject to urban decay once the children of the money-making generation have to move out on their own and find steady jobs on a W-2 or start uncapitalized businesses of their own to do temporary work or odd jobs on a 1099 basis. There is no way for youth or young people starting out or getting married to keep up with the Joneses in an overpriced gentrified neighborhood, so they join street gangs for survival and additional income from organized crime proceeds.
Buying into a "gentrified" neighborhood which has already reached its peak valuation on a generational timescale is a very bad idea indeed.
The Meaning of Blight
Nikki Goth Itoi
Marco Santarelli