Exceptionally good article. Pragmatic.
Consider that a big hypothesis for why poor white don't tend to have as much crime, poverty, and so on is that poor whites aren't all shoved away into ghettos and slums, "forced" to live more sparsely through society rather than shoved into a corner and ignored. "Forced" to live a somewhat more expensive life that requires more work, but also ensures a larger amount of stability and higher levels of mobility and education. Turns out shoving a ton of poor people into a dense area isn't a great idea. Yeah, people are being forced from their homes by raising rent prices. Yeah, that sucks. However, it's also the only way to break up and destroy the effect of having created these situations in the first place. People forced out will find somewhere new, likely with less crime around, likely more stable, and have children with better educations who go on to live better lives. If "black neighborhoods" cease to be a thing, that will be a great thing for the US. Not because having a large group of black people in one area is negative, but because many of the current "black neighborhoods" are formed from an era that was pushing people into a corner for not-too-good reasons. It's about time they go away, hopefully to be replaced by societies that are at least moderately less poor in time. And is culture going to be lost? Sure. But that's a good thing. Culture isn't some sacred thing needing protection, it's the actions and enjoyments of people, a culture isn't obliterated, it's replaced, the people living under that culture find a new place, a new way of life, and it is almost always better than past ones. We shouldn't regret the loss of active practice of ancient Mayan culture, instead we should celebrate it, or at least treat it like it is, unimportant outside of understanding their actions.Hudson is right about one thing: to stop gentrification, educated young people should steer clear of Brooklyn, D.C., San Francisco, London, and many other cities. Aside from that glimmer of wisdom, he’s come up with about the worst idea for cities—including their minority populations
You were doing great until which I will never agree with. Probably not for the same reasons as Spike Lee, though. Anyway, the rest is more or less true, except that moving involves transaction costs which create problems. But the benefits outweigh them.people living under that culture find a new place, a new way of life, and it is almost always better than past ones
Depends on your definition of better. Overall, a groups culture always is formed in reaction to the circumstances they are in. A modern culture, one created to fit the modern world, will almost always serve a group better than an older culture created to fit an older world. Some fun practices or traditions are fun no matter what, but culture is much larger than that. Culture is all of a person's tendencies to act and think and feel certain ways. It's a hundred practices that all create different feelings, remind us of different things. Important, also, to know that things I may see as good from where I stand, are not necessarily what are good overall. A modern culture may create less "good' from where I stand, but it undoubtedly creates more good from the position of where those who participate in that culture stand. Otherwise they wouldn't be participating in it.
Great read! I'm a complete layman when it comes to urban planning and city theory, but I have recently become fascinated with the subject after making my way through Richard Register's book Ecocities. I spent 2011-2013 living in SF, and despite my very small scope of "what's going on" at the time, I noticed a lot of my suburban-raised, poor-but-actually-well-off undergrad peers moving into the rougher neighborhoods like SOMA and Bayview. While I'm sure the lower housing prices had a lot to do with it, these neighborhoods were also gaining popularity from their Bohemian appeal. If I could go back to that time, I would be interested to hear if the original residents of these neighborhoods shared the sentiment of anti-gentrification presented in this article.