Gentrification

This Phoebe Maltz post (via Yglesias) raises some interesting issues. But more than anything, it reinforces my belief that “gentrification” is, at least as a normative concept, entirely worthless. (And, at least among progressives in Seattle and NYC, it seems to be used primarily as a pejorative analysis, not as a descriptive term.) As far as I can tell, “gentrification” conflates a whole bunch of consequences, some good (reduced crime), some annoying but not really good subjects for coercive state authority in most instances (introductions of shitty chain restaurants and corporate coffee houses), and some genuinely bad (losing low-cost housing without adequate replacements.) These issues are all quite different, and bundling them together conceals significantly more than it reveals. This strange concept can lead to even the smartest people to combine desperately necessary arguments with stuff that’s as baffling as David Frum moaning about people being too likely to grow beards in Dead Right. And I think Maltz is correct that there’s a very strong class element to hipster complaints about “gentrification,” which is all the more odious for being concealed in the form of anti-classist language. This combines a level of snobbery that can make even a diehard anti-suburbanite like me think that Michael Lind has a point. Look, you’re not going to find me in an Applebee’s either, but unless there’s some danger of chain restaurants replacing New York’s hundreds of good independent restaurants I hardly think it’s much to get worked up about. And transplanted Midwesterners are as good for the city’s cosmopolitanism as any other group. At any rate, I may be missing something, but as far as I can tell discussing all these issues under the “gentrification” rubric contributes nothing to our understanding of the politics of urban development.