So has gentrification come to help or harm existing communities within New York City? Let’s find out what both sides have to say:
Advocates for Gentrification:
- Richer, more entitled parents can lift up weak schools in slummed neighborhoods
- Allows for basic upgrades in the quality of living – increased safety,
less overt drug dealing, better transportation, improved governmental responsiveness, property values increase, and more stores. - Unoccupied houses become occupied, ultimately decreasing the vacant housing rates in the area.
- Improved public services and other neighborhood conditions brought by gentrification offer incentives for poor renters to find ways to remain in their homes, even in the face of higher rent burdens and other stresses
Opponents Against Gentrification:
- Some people deem gentrification as an ugly word. Letitia James, a public advocate, stated, “We live in a gilded age of inequality where decrepit homeless shelters and housing developments stand in the neglected shadow of gleaming multimillion-dollar condos.”
- There is a risk of displacement for working-class residents, either through moving people from their homes or from their jobs (due to factories being converted into luxury houses), which leads to the possibility of many families becoming homeless
- The poorer folks who remain in gentrified neighborhoods usually receive some form of public or private assistance for their livelihood and are forced to allocate most of this money to paying expensive housing rents.
- There is a loss of social diversity, as neighborhoods overwhelmingly house white families in a disproportionate comparison to minority families.
Some Hidden Implications Behind Gentrification:
Low mobility rates among the poorer classes are usually used to justify gentrification as a positive benefit to their living conditions. However, these individuals usually do not have enough savings or capital to transport themselves to other neighborhoods. Thousands of tenants are forced each year to 
negotiate with the HUD (U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development) to preserve units of affordable housing. Yet, many of these units formally regulated by the state are now lost to vacancy and luxury decontrol. This enables private landlords to to remove units from the regulated housing stock under certain conditions.
Understand the Implications of Gentrification:
Conflict-Resolution: What’s Being Done?
Lower-income residents who remain in gentrifying neighborhoods fear that it is only a matter of time 
before they are displaced from their homes. These citizens are attempting to create neighborhood norms that value mixed-income communities, rather than those that are partisan to the wealthier classes.
- Many are pressing the city government to adopt mandatory zoning inclusionary requirements – Mayor de Blasio’s housing plan, Mandatory Inclusionary Housing, obligates that a share of new housing in all developing neighborhoods to be permanently affordable.
- Most are joining coalitions to press Congress to stop cuts to federal housing programs.
Next: Gentrification Through Time – Looking at West Village, New York
