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Comment by fhood | Hacker News Reader

Short answer, by pricing out the poor people.

This is really disingenuous. The poor people left long before the transformation started because there was no where for them to live. The housing collapsed pushed most of the land lords out of business and the buildings were left vacant. The article itself says the population of the neighborhood fell to under 5,000, in a city of 300,000.

Most of the buildings in the neighborhood were empty and collapsing. Renovating the dilapidated building and infrastructure and bringing in new tenants is what seems to have had the biggest impact.

The 2001 riots destroyed the neighborhood and most people left. Then 3CDC bought the majority of the buildings.

I grew up in Cincinnati and was in OTR during the riots, albeit in a third floor secure apartment. It wasn't nearly as bad as the press coverage made it out to be... mostly a bunch of stupid kids trying to smash and grab. But the bad press definitely ruined OTR's economic prospects for a decade.

And execute the do-gooder liberal activists. EDIT: I am being literal. Read the article.

Ha. Never has executing liberal activists been part of the gentrification there.

Is this the basis of your statement?

> Wilbur Worthen, a mentally-ill 56-year-old whom Gray had befriended, burst into his office at the Drop Inn Center and shot him to death with a .357 magnum.

The Drop Inn Center is a homeless shelter. Buddy Gray was shot by a person he had previously helped at the shelter.

> Is this the basis of your statement?

No, the basis of my statement is the lengthy sections of the article describing Gray's political power and obstructionism which was causing the district to decay and how his death lead to a vacuum in which the gentrification could happen. Describing it as execution was just gallows humor. They could also be bought off with grants.

Has anyone ever proposed a large 1 time lump sum payment to long term renters driven out of gentrified neighborhoods to be payed for by part of the increase in property taxes?

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