Comment by mkolodny | Hacker News Reader

Comment by mkolodny | Hacker News Reader

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I don't think the point of the article is that gentrification isn't actually happening. I think it's that while people often talk about gentrification as a bad thing - something that hurts the poor - gentrification is actually more often a good thing:

"McKinnish and her colleagues found that gentrification created neighborhoods that were attractive to minority households, particularly households with children or elderly homeowners. They found no evidence of displacement or harm. While most of the income gains in these neighborhoods went to white college graduates under the age of 40 (the archetypical gentrifiers), black high school graduates also saw their incomes rise. They also were more likely to stay put. In short, black households with high school degrees seemed to benefit from gentrification."

And while people, including myself before reading the article, think of gentrification as a widespread phenomenon that is happening all over the US, it's actually only happening in three cities: New York, Chicago, and Washington.

Setting aside the questions about material improvement (in the form of income, etc) which seem well addressed by others, this way of looking at the problem overlooks one of the most serious critiques of gentrification: it disrupts existing communities, forcing longtime residents into environments where they no longer feel a sense of belonging and ownership, and reduces cultural diversity.

Another way of looking at the point: "gentrification" is more than just the arrival of affluent people to a previously poor neighborhood. "Gentrification" also refers to the cultural changes that come to a neighborhood as a result of an influx of more affluent residents. The latter can happen (infrequently) without the former.

Of course, this doesn't mean that gentrification is necessarily bad. It may be that the improvements to safety, material wealth, etc. that often come with gentrification are worth the trade-off.

> It's actually only happening in three cities...

The article does seem to be trying to imply that, but I don't think the census data they cite support such a strong conclusion.

"just three cities—New York, Chicago, and Washington—accounted for one-third of all census tracts that saw poverty rates decline from above 30 percent in 1970 to below 15 percent in 2010"

The criteria and timing seem to suggest that we're looking at neighborhoods that were done gentrifying by 2010. Neighborhoods currently undergoing gentrification could be much more widespread.

And because of their size and demographics, those three cities would account for a large chunk of gentrification even if every single impoverished neighborhood in the US were to gentrify. https://xkcd.com/1138/

Gentrification is a scientific term which became very popular. I think it's important to discuss counterarguments, if only to make the term 'gentrification' clearer to a wider audience.

Finally I think the authors last point is important and overlooked in most online discussions of this 12 month old article: Gentrification has become a middle-class fear and does not help to address the problems of the poor. A discussion about rent subsidies would.

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