tragabigzanda wrote:Let the markets decide. The "undesirable" places descend into crime and vacancy, then they become more affordable, then people move there and reinvigorate the economy and culture. See Spokane, Detroit, Galveston, St Louis, Lowell...
This, but in order to fully get there, cities need to change their zoning laws to allow for the markets to build what people need. This applies to both "desirable" cities, and can also apply to "undesirable" ones if the "desirable" cities refuse to change.
tragabigzanda wrote:BurtReynolds wrote:As a newly minted member of the gentry, I'm cool with gentrification and letting the market decide. I just wish it could create some art and architecture that wasn't a soulless blight on the landscape.
I think the art can happen, but not really the architecture. That shit is expensive.
Once again, this. All of the boxy midrises exhaust me, too, but if you want more affordable housing, prettier facades get in that way.
tragabigzanda wrote:Honest question, doesn’t gentrification only occur along ethnic/racial lines? Which wouldn’t be the case in some of those places. But if I’m wrong I’ll wrong.
I agree with Burt in that it isn't strictly racial, even if it often falls down those lines. One major example I can think of are trailer parks, whose residents often get screwed by rising housing costs when they own the structure but not the land--so they get booted out when the landowner wants to develop to the new highest & best use, while having to figure out where the hell they're going to put their trailer.
The root cause of gentrification, though, is when the more high valued parts of the city are zoned too sparsely. Without upzoning in those areas, often because old money raises hell in person at council and P&Z meetings, the new money that wants to move there buys up property in the lower valued areas, raising prices there and thus pricing out the incumbent residents.
