The gentrification argument has always felt a little off to me. Like it's missing the point somehow. It's less about billionaires moving in next door, and more

The gentrification argument has always felt a little off to me. Like it's missing the point somehow. It's less about billionaires moving in next door, and more about billionaires buying up thousands of "investment properties" that they never intend to live in and being rent-seekers and causing negative externalities that affect the local neighborhood that they never even go to. It's less about local businesses jacking up their prices because they "smell money" in the neighborhood, and more about local businesses getting fucked by the lack of anti-trust enforcement and by local government on the take from billionaires. It's less about the billionaires themselves being the source of the problem, and more about the winners-keep-winning systems that allow people to accumulate so much wealth in the first place. I guess the reason I make these distinctions is that many reactions that seem like they could be solutions to "gentrification", like running those rich boys outta town, or even something like rent control ... they just don't feel like they're really solving anything. It's an entrenched systemic problem, and the system is huge and interconnected. You can't fix it locally. We need to actually tax the rich. We need to actually enforce anti-trust and consumer protection laws. We need big taxes on properties number 3 through N that go toward subsidizing affordable housing ... or something to that effect. I'm sure others have better ideas than this too. But what we don't need is neighborhood signs that say "no rich people".