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.

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triceratops 5 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.

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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.

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

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.

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mmooss 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> 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.

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JuniperMesos 4 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.