I struggle to fully comprehend the gentrification battle.
While I'm from suburbia, certain towns are poorer than others, with more crime than others. Revitalizing the down town, or adding new retail centers is almost always looked at as a good thing. If an area is struggling and a reputable business moves in that thinks it can sustain itself....why is that so bad? Why should a poor area have only dollar stores, Kmarts and Wal-Mart's and shyt?
The original people of the community don't share in the growth. They're actually not the one's
empowered by the added businesses and remodeled housing. It's the external populations that enter the neighborhood with X amount of
capital, that reap the benefits. The disenfranchised populations still exist. They're either:
a) no longer a large percent of the population due to an influx of new residents
b) no longer a part of the population because they've been displaced
Either way, both instances give off the
illusion that things have changed for the better. They have - just not for the population you were supposedly making the change for. But if you were really targeting commercial businesses, then you won.
It's why we are seeing a trend called the
suburbanization of poverty. When white flight was the go to move, entire tax bases relocated to the suburbs causing a concentration of poverty in urban areas. Once the tax base left urban areas, financial support and political power did as well (see Detroit). *note: I don't think I need to get into why our communities needed economic support from the government*
