In your first three paragraphs you take the author to task about their comment that gentrification started in SOHO and moved to Chelsea. You then validate his a

In your first three paragraphs you take the author to task about their comment that gentrification started in SOHO and moved to Chelsea. You then validate his assertion by saying that yes, galleries moved to SOHO, and then to Chelsea, because of "larger space", and later cheaper space - two of the primary motivators behind gentrification! "If gentrification occurs so infrequently—and if it may help rather than hurt existing residents—why are so many people so upset about it? ?" Huh? Nice bit of editorializing there. How is that editorializing? He's posing a question to begin explaining his position. People are upset about gentrification - just ask my brother, who was an anti-gentrification activist in DC for years. It is in no way controversial to state that. Yes, the studies quoted are "old", but they are also highly valuable, because they come on the coat-tails of a major decline in the quality of life of ethnic communities in inner cities (read: crack epidemic). This time period is when gentrification would have begun to increase in earnest in many metro areas, and so the study has value. The last 10 years gentrification may have become more visible, but that isn't to say it didn't exist before then, or that the last 10 years were a flash point. Another interesting study was between 1970 and 1990. This was a critical time in many metro areas, as the wave of whites fleeing instability post-MLK riots in '68 emptied out the cities, crushing the local economy, but also making it more affordable for latinos to move in, which then saw an upswing in opportunities for low-income black neighborhoods. Again, just because the study was old doesn't make it invalid.