Gentrification gets a bad name because when landlords realize that yuppies are willing to pay very high rents (double, triple, quadruple, quintuple) to rent apa

Gentrification gets a bad name because when landlords realize that yuppies are willing to pay very high rents (double, triple, quadruple, quintuple) to rent apartments in old buildings, they jack up the rents of people who have been living there for decades or even do illegal things to force them out of their homes. Gentrification would be wonderful if people owned their homes, because they would get the benefit of rising property values. Instead, the landlords get that, and most people have to face the costs of uprooting from their home. It may be worth mentioning also that many urban neighborhoods were formed in the mid-20th century when many African Americans were excluded from home ownership and suburbanization by explicitly racist laws and practices, such as redlining, blockbusting, restrictive deed covenants, and other practices now illegal and unconstitutional. TNC lays part of this out in the first part of this article http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2014/05/the-case-for-reparations/361631/ http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2014/05/the-case...