SuperJail Warden wrote:
I don't think there is a cycle for the most part. Those neighborhoods in NYC where hipsters are moving into and pushing the poor out were never that great. They were originally working class areas that relied on nearby factories. Developers building luxury units there are not bringing back the glory days of Brooklyn. They are just creating a permanent high income residential zone for Manhattan workers.
Also people being priced out isn't just a natural process like the tides coming in. It is always a government sponsored movement of undesirable people that destroys support systems that took generations to build.
There were a lot of nice parts to Brooklyn originally. Before its unification with Manhattan and the rest of what is now NYC, Brooklyn was the second largest city in the country. Park Slope and Brooklyn Heights were full of wealthy people, it's why Prospect Park was commissioned.
Gentrification sucks only to those that fetishize being poor. Yes, in places like East New York it means that communities are being uprooted and changed. I've watched Crown Heights and East New York change dramatically in the last few years. I walk down the street there and I see hipster white people and shellshocked looking black people. They don't mingle, they don't interact, they live separate lives side-by-side. The white people jog or walk their dog down the street, the black people smoke cigarettes and walk at a measured pace. The hipsters have their own gluten free vegan shops, and artisanal bakery right next to the guy selling jerk chicken. One day, the guy selling jerk chicken, whose store they never frequented, will be replaced by a dunkin donuts or a starbucks and they will lament the lack of authenticity in their neighborhood, a neighborhood they were never really a part of.
The developers are building condos in those neighborhoods left and right, driving up home values across the board. The smart homeowners are holding on and waiting for higher prices. When they do sell, they'll be in good shape and able to afford a much nicer home than what they left behind. Gentrification is ultimately a wealth transfer from well-to-do morons from the Midwest who come to the city with daddy's credit card paying the bills to people who were smart or fortunate enough to get in front of them. The developers benefit, the existing homeowners benefit, the losers are moron hipsters and those unfortunate souls who were renting in the neighborhood prior to its development. Renters are transitory and not the foundation of a community anyway.
