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>Similarly, gentrification is about people wanting to pay higher rent to live in a nicer neighborhood. Not the same people though. The quote from the article h

>Similarly, gentrification is about people wanting to pay higher rent to live in a nicer neighborhood. Not the same people though. The quote from the article holds true for tenants who cant afford higher rents. Gentrification is generally a processes of displacement. There the old saying, that graffiti tags keep the rent low holds true.

crazygringo 8y ago
Well of course. But that's just how the economy works. Workers whose skills are no longer needed get let go and have to retrain to more productive skills. People who live in a neighborhood that gets too nice for them to afford wind up moving to a neighborhood they can afford. If you argue that neighborhoods shouldn't improve because rents will go up, you're basically arguing against economic progress in general. It's the same as saying a longer-lasting higher-quality product shouldn't be released because it will cost more than the lower-quality one.
- nepeckman 8y ago
  But the point of the article is to break down the economic incentives. If you're personally disadvantaged by economic progress, you're incentivized to oppose it. I'd argue there's significant empirical evidence of this throughout history. The author posits that a large number of people in major cities are incentivized in this way, and while I don't know what the numbers are, I'd argue the theory is sound.
  - cataphract 8y ago
    I'm yet to see any resident going to council meetings complaining that the streets are too clean, that public transportation is too good. I don't think most people connect the two things, plus a good chunk of the residents are property owners and would prefer the land value to go up. Finally, I also doubt that the improvement of public services is the main factor driving land prices up. For instance, here is Lisbon, it's mostly due to the foreigners buying up the stock (more than half the buyers are foreigners). I suspect the cause is similar in London.
    - lmm 8y ago
      > I'm yet to see any resident going to council meetings complaining that the streets are too clean, that public transportation is too good. You'll see them complaining that rents are too high. And you'll see them objecting that better public transportation would "change the character of the neighbourhood" or whatever, which tends to be code for pushing up the rents. > Finally, I also doubt that the improvement of public services is the main factor driving land prices up. For instance, here is Lisbon, it's mostly due to the foreigners buying up the stock (more than half the buyers are foreigners). I suspect the cause is similar in London. No respectable economist agrees with you. Foreign investors are a bogeyman who are easy to blame for everything since they're not there to defend themselves.
      - crazygringo 8y ago
        The main factor is neither public services nor foreign investors. It's economic growth. With the exception of retirement communities, it's locally-situated companies producing more value, hiring more employees, paying them more, which results in those employees wanting nicer homes, nicer neighborhoods and better public services. And why shouldn't they?
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
tathougies 8y ago
As someone who used to live in a house that got graffitied almost weekly, often with gang symbols, my sympathy for neighborhoods that are shitty because of the idiotic choices of their own residents is zero. Bring on the gentrification, the people are way nicer, and they actually make the city a better place to live.
- scarejunba 8y ago
  You know, I think you can't really argue against gentrification _and_ against things like white flight. I suspect that most people actually feel like you do. What they don't want are the consequences of gentrification. They want things to get better but to capture all the surplus from the betterness. So they want to continue to live where they did, have the streets be cleaner, have the stores be nicer but not have anything go up in price. The economy isn't generally zero sum but some things definitely are close to zero sum.

crazygringo 8y ago

Well of course. But that's just how the economy works. Workers whose skills are no longer needed get let go and have to retrain to more productive skills. People who live in a neighborhood that gets too nice for them to afford wind up moving to a neighborhood they can afford. If you argue that neighborhoods shouldn't improve because rents will go up, you're basically arguing against economic progress in general. It's the same as saying a longer-lasting higher-quality product shouldn't be released because it will cost more than the lower-quality one.

nepeckman 8y ago
But the point of the article is to break down the economic incentives. If you're personally disadvantaged by economic progress, you're incentivized to oppose it. I'd argue there's significant empirical evidence of this throughout history. The author posits that a large number of people in major cities are incentivized in this way, and while I don't know what the numbers are, I'd argue the theory is sound.
- cataphract 8y ago
  I'm yet to see any resident going to council meetings complaining that the streets are too clean, that public transportation is too good. I don't think most people connect the two things, plus a good chunk of the residents are property owners and would prefer the land value to go up. Finally, I also doubt that the improvement of public services is the main factor driving land prices up. For instance, here is Lisbon, it's mostly due to the foreigners buying up the stock (more than half the buyers are foreigners). I suspect the cause is similar in London.
  - lmm 8y ago
    > I'm yet to see any resident going to council meetings complaining that the streets are too clean, that public transportation is too good. You'll see them complaining that rents are too high. And you'll see them objecting that better public transportation would "change the character of the neighbourhood" or whatever, which tends to be code for pushing up the rents. > Finally, I also doubt that the improvement of public services is the main factor driving land prices up. For instance, here is Lisbon, it's mostly due to the foreigners buying up the stock (more than half the buyers are foreigners). I suspect the cause is similar in London. No respectable economist agrees with you. Foreign investors are a bogeyman who are easy to blame for everything since they're not there to defend themselves.
    - crazygringo 8y ago
      The main factor is neither public services nor foreign investors. It's economic growth. With the exception of retirement communities, it's locally-situated companies producing more value, hiring more employees, paying them more, which results in those employees wanting nicer homes, nicer neighborhoods and better public services. And why shouldn't they?
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

tathougies 8y ago

As someone who used to live in a house that got graffitied almost weekly, often with gang symbols, my sympathy for neighborhoods that are shitty because of the idiotic choices of their own residents is zero. Bring on the gentrification, the people are way nicer, and they actually make the city a better place to live.

scarejunba 8y ago
You know, I think you can't really argue against gentrification _and_ against things like white flight. I suspect that most people actually feel like you do. What they don't want are the consequences of gentrification. They want things to get better but to capture all the surplus from the betterness. So they want to continue to live where they did, have the streets be cleaner, have the stores be nicer but not have anything go up in price. The economy isn't generally zero sum but some things definitely are close to zero sum.