[timssopomo]

Having lived in Brooklyn and Jersey City for a combined 12 years, starting when an office worker could still buy a literal house in Prospect Heights, I'm fully convinced that "gentrification" is a meaningless phrase and we need a completely different way of studying this issue that looks at the role of finance and government in displacing the poor.

Wealthy individuals moved into "gentrifying" neighborhoods _after_ massive movements of capital, not before. In 2007, no professional was leaving the upper east side to move to Williamsburg or Prospect / Crown Heights. After Bloomberg rezoned the waterfront and rammed Atlantic Yards through, boatloads of money moved in. Vacant lots and abandoned buildings were torn down, new ones were built, "luxury" housing stock was created and _then_ rich people moved in.

It's not all that different than VC money in startups - investors are sheep. Once it becomes clear a big fish has made an investment in an area, money floods in and drives up prices. To justify the increase in land values, investors have to raise rents. To raise rents, they need to improve the housing stock. This creates the inventory that the wealthy purchase.

[Maxamillion96]

> It's not all that different than VC money in startups - investors are sheep. Once it becomes clear a big fish has made an investment in an area, money floods in and drives up prices. To justify the increase in land values, investors have to raise rents. To raise rents, they need to improve the housing stock. This creates the inventory that the wealthy purchase.

Priming the pump is the economic term for this, old Timey pumps needed to have a bit of water poured into a mechanism to lubricate and and make it possible to pump water out.

[thereticent]

My memory from the US Midwest is that Williamsburg already had a reputation as a hipster-level gentrifying area--to the point that the PBR-sipping indie set was already eschewing it for Bushwick. Then again, whomever I spoke to could have been parroting an odd blogosphere take by then.

[Tade0]

I can attest to that, as I've seen something of this sort happen in two cities already.

City councils talk of "revitalising" an area, but it's really about getting the most out of prime locations where the rich would had moved in already if it weren't for the dilapidated state of the mentioned.

Interestingly the shift seems to affect businesses the most. The moment the first luxury condo is built/renovated you start seeing a change in the types of services offered. The other day I bought a particularly expensive bagel in a cafe that looked really out of place in the barely standing building where it was located. I'm sure almost none of the people that are long-term residents of this area go there.