Hipsters and Their Discontents

I am tempted to agree with Molotch on the triumph of exchange value over use value. An place that I experienced that had conflicting values over happened to be Williamsburg. I live fairly close to the Williamsburg Bridge and during the summers, I enjoyed running across the bridge to the other side. I did idealize the place as something beautiful and peaceful. It was a retreat from the hustle and bustle of the city. I loved the small streets, the quiet and the seemingly idyllic atmosphere. But in actuality, it was really just a mirage I had cast over the place. Its use value did not lie in its seeming idealism but its community and structure. Community and structure helped build strong support systems for its residents, allowing them to live peacefully and advance socio-economically. The image or illusion of a halcyon world increased its exchange value far above any actual use value. Exchange value is created by those who desire but do not actually possess the commodity. It is comprised of superimposed ideals that represent your own unfulfilled desires. The use value and exchange values did not contradict necessarily. But exchange values were superimposed and probably artificial. The idyllism and hipness people seek in gentrifying neighborhoods did not exist prior to their conceiving it. I’m sure the working class families did not see their neighborhoods as hip or ideals.
That being said,I don’t see what right the “original” inhabitants of any neighborhood have to a loosely defined block of land. Change is inevitable. Chinatown was once Jewish and Irish, German and Italian and going back further, Dutch and English. Heck, we could backtrack to the Native Americans and their ethnic successions. Chinatown is Chinatown now but is it not arrogant and selfish to want it to be Chinese forever? Why should any inhabitants of any place be allowed to be immune to history? The objection to the hipsters replacing the “original” inhabitants of any place is asking for the group of people who lived just before gentrification occurred to have the privilege of being the permanent racial and socio-economic makeup of that particular neighborhood. Granted, malls do not have the same old time charm that ma and pa shops have. Besides eventually new comers become old timers. Eventually the wave of hipsters and yuppies will be replaced by some other group.