The Hidden Winners in Neighborhood Gentrification

Anyone can see the changes at work in a gentrifying neighborhood. Rents rise, crime drops, wine bars bloom in vacant storefronts. But it’s harder to see what’s happening inside people’s homes and lives. For all the handwringing that accompanies gentrification—from how common it is to the meaning of the word to what people should do to stop it—there are rarely robust efforts to tease out the impact of a neighborhood’s economic upswing on its original residents. Few resources exist to show how change really affects residents, for good or bad.

Instead, the conventional wisdom about gentrification is practically set in cement. Often it goes without saying that the drawbacks of neighborhood change—above all the displacement of existing lower-income residents, but also increases in rents and upticks in cultural conflicts—greatly outweigh any benefits. Anxiety over gentrification is such a powerful force that it stopped Amazon in its tracks when the company tried to open a second headquarters in New York.