> Yes, but many of those people will be moving from other neighborhoods in the same city; when they move they vacate an older, less attractive, lower rent dwell

> Yes, but many of those people will be moving from other neighborhoods in the same city; when they move they vacate an older, less attractive, lower rent dwelling. You should probably provide a source on that one. Rents are sticky. Its equally likely they are already wealthy and want to move to a "hip" neighborhood which tend to be recently poor/urban. Rents don't fall as quick in the place they left but rise quickly in the place they're headed, which just raises the average rent in both places. It also creates demand for people who wanted to live in the former neighborhood and can now move there because there is a vacancy (or after any slight reduction in rent brings otherwise marginal renters). This is all just conjecture without data, and there is very little data studying this because, as the previous poster says, its complicated and there's no way to do a controlled experiment.