# Gentrification is bad **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 5, 2018, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gentrification-is-bad/805935 "2018-01-05T18:34:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 72
**Author:** ![Nadnerb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ee7513/32.png) [@Nadnerb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nadnerb)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2018, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gentrification-is-bad/805935/72 "2018-01-06T01:04:29Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > In addition to the already mentioend Detroit there is: > [ul] > [li]Birmingham, AL[/li][li]Cleveland, OH[/li][li]St. Louis, MO[/li][li]Toledo, OH[/li][li]Memphis, TN[/li][li]Scranton, PA[/li][li]Baltimore, MD[/li][li]New Orleans, LA[/li][li]Tucson, AZ[/li][li]San Bernardino, CA [/li][li]Gary, ID [/li][li]Lansing, MI, [/li][li]Camden, NJ[/li][li]Fresno, CA[/li][li]Harrisburg, PA[/li][li]Providence, RI[/li][li]Salem, NJ[/li][/ul] > > That’s just off the top of my head of cities with poverty rates exceeding 20% and severe problems with declining revenue bases, largely from more wealthy residents leaving for better maintained suburbs or better employmnet elsewhere. > > Nobody wants to live in a shithole city with no promise of improvement, and pumping money into “revitalizing” a neighborhood without attracting property owners who can provide a tax base upon which to recoup the costs of said injection is a nonstarter for reasons obvious to anyone who understands civic finance. It’s an unpleasent reality that people who are not well employed or on fixed incomes are often forced to move or pay rents and costs above what they can afford, but again, that calls for developing mixed income housing and addressing the sociatal problem of wealth inequality rather than simply insisting cities should somehow “revitalize” existing neighborhoods for the residents who can barely afford to pay the taxes on depressed property values they own. “Gentrification” is part of the cyclic process of decline and renewal that every city goes through and if managed properly is a net benefit, including to residents for whom the value of their property increases rather than continuing to decline. > > Stranger And I should also point out that gentrification is a form of class warfare. You realize that gentrifiers are prejudice against the working class and even minorities as well. And because of gentrification the working class is now a dying breed. If you lived in a Rust Belt city back before 9/11 you could work a factory job and make a good living that way without any formal education. That was when the American dream was alive and proud. Now the American dream is halfway in it’s coffin, and don’t expect Trump to bring it back. Gentrification has only benefited those burnt out Millennial hipsters working some high end professional occupation. And those people right there have no American dream. If Ross Perot were president he’d bring back the American dream and get the USA back to a hard working nation. And let’s not forget automation will only get more people sitting on the couch than actually going to work. --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gentrification-is-bad/805935)._