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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At its base, gentrification is an expression of *the* fundamental idea of market capitalism: a scarce good goes to the person who is willing to pay the most for it. This often has the effect that the scarce good goes to whoever needs or values it the most, but it can also result in it going to whoever has the most money saved up.
A neighborhood begins to gentrify when prospective residents are willing/able to pay more to live there than current residents. The process of giving the scarce good (residency in the neighborhood) to these new prospective residents necessarily involves the displacement of current residents. You can use subsidies, low-income housing policies, and even outright bans on certain gentrifying activities to fight that flow, but it will always be an uphill battle because everyone involved (including the people making the policies) typically has more to gain from working with the market rather than against it. Gentrification also tends to work like a ratchet; it goes forward and never backwards. Low-income people forced out of the neighborhood tend to stay out for good, and there is a finite supply of housing, so the process will eventually complete, even if it goes slowly.
There’s also something to be said for picking one’s battles. Some gentrifying neighborhoods (especially in the US) would never have become low-income communities if not for decades of racist housing policies and practices that drove segregation and the concentration of poverty. These neighborhoods often sit on prime real estate: near the city center, close to public transit, great parks and amenities, etc. That land has been *under*valued for decades, and the price pressures on it now are absolutely enormous. Efforts to hold onto these downtown apartments are doomed to fail and could be better spent making less expensive areas more suitable for low-income populations, and perhaps even encouraging home-ownership.
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