God forbid bad parts of town ever get good.

You mean make the non white parts white, right?

	▲	hunterpayne 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Can you guess what the #1 source of wealth increase in the AA community has been over the last 20 years? That's right, grandma's house...guess where she lived.

▲

KPGv2 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

That's not what gentrification is. Relevant to this article, I lived through the gentrification of large parts of Austin in the early 00s.

What happened was that good housing full of artists and musicians and other self-employed creatives began gentrifying, driving up property values, which drove up property taxes, which became unaffordable to the existing residents (who had owned their homes for a long time). Many (actually, most) of these artists had to sell and leave.

They often left for other cities. But hey at least the good houses everyone liked all got torn down to be replaced by McMansions for the influx of techbros.

Austin still has that slogan, "Keep Austin Weird." It failed. Austin isn't weird anymore. The University of Texas still is responsible for a lot of great stuff about Austin, but huge chunks of the city are just boring these days. There's certainly much less interesting culture happening. It's been airbnbified.

▲

triceratops 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

My interpretation of your comment:

The existing residents (artists) made money by selling their appreciated houses. Those who could afford to remain were now in areas with less crime and poverty.

The new residents spent a ton of money to live in a place they themselves culturally diminished.

We should re-evaluate the winners and losers here.

▲

FarmerPotato 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Let's talk about the East Side.

https://www.austinmonthly.com/in-photos-what-gentrification-...

I don't think many home owners got a price for their land that allowed them to buy a similar house elsewhere.

The world is far from an ideal model where what you get is what you deserve.

Note the history of the East Side power plant, which depressed property prices. Ditto, I-35 construction plans. The article says the plant will become a park now. After the new developers locked in purchases.

▲

mmooss 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> good housing full of artists and musicians and other self-employed creatives

It looks like - it might not be what you mean, but it looks like - you're saying 'good housing' is housing that has "artists and musicians and other self-employed creatives", as opposed to poor working people.

▲

JuniperMesos 3 hours ago | parent [-]

Many artists and self-employed creatives are themselves poor working people - making art is work (and so is marketing it to potential customers), and most artists are not lucky or successful enough to become wealthy doing it.

But yes, I think there is a sense in which people who are driven to create have some kind of ineffable, cultural capital that people without this drive do not have. So a neighborhood that is full of artists is more interesting, and therefore more valuable to spend time in, than one that isn't.

	▲	FarmerPotato 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		See the photo in the above East Side article. In the old neighborhood, people talked to the photographer because the front yards didn't have privacy fences.

▲

terminalshort 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

My heart breaks for those poor people whose houses became worth multiple times what they paid for them. A true tragedy. I would be devastated if my house became so valuable that the property taxes were more than I could afford.

▲

mmooss 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Good for whom? If it's good for the residents, that's great. If it's bad for the residents, who get driven out, but good for some developers and outside rich people - that's what gentrification is.

▲

triceratops 4 hours ago | parent [-]

Unless all of the housing is owned by non-residents prior to gentrification, some residents always benefit from their neighborhood going upscale. Either through increased home values, allowing them to sell and improve their lives. Or because it's now a more pleasant area to live in.

Even renters in gentrifying areas may profit if housing construction outpaces population growth. Yes, they may have to move, but also the places they move to on their current budget may be nicer - because the people who can afford better have moved too.

▲

mmooss 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> increased home values, allowing them to sell and improve their lives

That also raises property taxes, making the neighborhood unaffordable and driving them out.

> it's now a more pleasant area to live in.

For new wealthy residents. People who have spent lifetimes there don't want everything to change and have their communities destroyed.

> Yes, they may have to move, but also the places they move to on their current budget may be nicer - because the people who can afford better have moved too.

These are theoretical and very general averages. The actual individuals often do not benefit. Being forced to move is not a mere inconvenience to your theory.

	▲	triceratops 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		The alternative: new housing doesn't get built. Existing housing - including the "bad" neighborhood that isn't redeveloped for fear of "gentrification" - gets bid up to the moon. People who can't afford rent end up moving anyway and commuting from very far away, if they're lucky. Or they end up on the streets, if they aren't so lucky. That isn't theoretical. I just described the SF Bay Area.

▲

7speter 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

When people in NYC are driven out of their neighborhoods because of gentrification, they generally move down south. There isn’t some magical part of town that they can afford with their “current budget”