When ‘Gentrification’ Isn’t About Housing
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> Once a specialty of uptown bodegas, the sandwich had caught the attention of novelty-seeking foodies: Whole Foods was selling them for twice what they cost in the Bronx, where they went for $4 and still do.
Why would an item cost the same at a Whole Foods versus the Bronx?
> The poor are still gentrification’s victims, but in this new meaning, the harm is not rent increases and displacement — it’s something psychic, a theft of pride.
I don't believe the people they claim to be victims of "cultural gentrification" would consider themselves victims in this sense. Do people in lower socio-economic class really concern themselves if something they had enjoyed is being enjoyed by a larger audience?
Yes. And they are getting pissed.
You don’t have to talk to very many people from outside the affluent bubble to hear the resentment. Sure it’s anecdotal evidence that “they are getting pissed”, but it’s evidence none the less.
“Cultural gentrification” is the usual hand-wringing nonsense; it’s virtually certain that the only people complaining about this are precisely those that are unaffected by these changes.
The economic impact is a bigger problem. The idea that property sits empty, while prices and rents continue to increase, definitely indicates that something is wrong.
It’s not unreasonable to think that the free market has failed in this case, and that perhaps preventing speculation through regulation might be an effective approach.
I would also note that the same group writing about these issues are the ones generating controversy and resentment. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy. Now that someone write about it, someone reads it and believes it to be a problem. I think we should celebrate the spreading of culture and ideas. It's very American.
Does it? People still have to pay taxes on that property, there will still be a mortgage that has to be paid, that means there will be fewer people living there, which in some ways makes it better for everyone else who lives there. Of course, it is in some ways an "artificial" restriction of supply.
However I question how many of these places actually sit "empty". I can't imagine owning property, not living there, and not renting it out. Of course rentals offer their own hurdles, but there are plenty of property management companies out there that would do it for a fee. Seems like a totally missed opportunity cost to me that would be economically foolish. It wouldn't be the first time a wealthy person has done something economically foolish, but it could be the last for that person.
>It’s not unreasonable to think that the free market has failed in this case, and that perhaps preventing speculation through regulation might be an effective approach.
Ultimately with speculation, people are taking a risk by buying the property, while it may be a hip and cool place today, will it be that way in 10 years? Will there be more housing built that will undercut any kind of appreciation you might be accumulating. Real estate has historically been a pretty good investment, however it isn't like it has never seen a downturn.
In practice there's a huge gap between users who come to HN to gratify intellectual curiosity, who in the course of being interested in a bunch of things occasionally comment on a political topic, versus accounts that only are interested in divisive flammable issues and use HN to prosecute their views on them.
It used to be fashionable to say the US was imperialistic and imposed its culture via soft imperialist power. But now since people are consuming Korean, Chinese and other sources of culture, it's kind of impossible to still say the US is a cultural imperialist without also implying China, Japan and Korea are cultural imperialists --not to mention Mexican "imperialism" in south America via their "telenovelas".
So, now, since imperialism is a weak strawman, the new dead horse is "cultural appropriation".
All cultures take from others. No-one "owns" a culture. They evolve. Without "appropriating" from the Greeks and Romans, where would we be today? It's a bogus accusation meant to incite a population and distract them from other more productive activities.
A class, in their search for authenticity, have "gentrified" the authentic experiences -- and hardships -- of an originating lower class into trendy symbols.
The social metamorphosis is complete when the symbol replaces the experience entirely, to the annoyance of the originating class; in part because the experience was a symbol of their own identity.
The effect is then highlighted in language ostensibly for the gentrifying class, on a virtual property catering to the same, and posted for discussion on another such virtual property.
Finally, like the author who pretentiously signals a more authentic worldview through the symbolic understanding and condemnation of the effect, so this poster signals the same through bemused expression of its symbolic and recursive nature.
What's more of a problem is the downscale food fad of putting cheese in everything. That didn't happen by accident. It's a plot by Dairy Management, Incorporated.[1] US cheese consumption per capita has doubled since 1980. This is a major contributor to the obesity epidemic.
[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2017-07-19/the-mad-c...
My particular plight is the people who think it's trendy to visit my formally really bad neighborhood to eat and take up all parking. Damn food tourists.
It's a tragedy...
I have William Shatner singing " Common People" in my head now.
Spicy advocates demand it