I understand what it is and why it happens, but often when its explained it seems like no one ever gets into how it can be resisted, fought, or even outright prevented.
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Nobody wants to stop it 100%. Ultimately, keeping more well off residents around, seeing neighborhoods cleaned up, homes renovated, etc. are good vs. just letting areas continue to be crappy. But there are ways to slow gentrification, mitigate the effects.
For example, I live in an area that has undergone heavy gentrification over the past 10-20 years. Some of the initiatives that have been done to help mitigate its effects include:
– Requirements for affordable housing units included in larger developments. So a 100-unit “luxury” apartment needs to rent 10 units for below market rates to residents who make income below some threshold.
– Doing away with parking requirements for buildings within proximity to public transit, reducing construction costs, increasing space that can be devoted to housing, etc. to help keep costs down
– Demolition surcharge for tearing down an old house within a certain boundary area, to dissuade tear-downs. For a time, there were tons of 100-yr old cottages sold for $400-500k to be torn down and replaced with $1.2m 3-story homes.
– Loosening of rules to allow ADU’s, making housing more affordable by letting home owners subsidize mortgage with coach house above garage or garden-level rental unit while creating more affordable rental units in the area.
– Grants/subsidies for lower income home owners to help them maintain their properties, eg. roof replacement, window replacement and such. Many of the older homes getting sold and torn down were done so because owners couldn’t afford to make the major repairs needed.
While these make some impact, there are still issues like skyrocket property taxes, shifts in types of businesses around, cost of patronizing those businesses, etc. that still make it hard for longer term residents to stick around.
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