[opportune]

Gentrification is a really complex issue, because on one hand it is objectively improving an area, and on the other, basically anybody without housing equity (ie a mortgage) in the gentrifying area gets screwed.

I think it needs to be solved at a macro level, in a way that is nuanced and delicate. Because on one hand, assuming the rest of the world doesn’t change, making an area nicer to live is objectively good. And upper middle class people deserve housing too, and landowners perhaps should have at least some level of control over what they do with their property (you can argue that landlording in general could be abolished, but that’s a separate discussion).

Of course on the other hand, it is a shame that poor people have to fight to keep their neighborhoods shitty so that they don’t get displaced to somewhere far away from their jobs and community.

I’m not sure if there’s a great economic solution that still involves a market housing economy. The least worst solution I can think of is to basically carve out special units for the exact people displaced. IE if I want to built a 300 unit condo tower in West Oakland taking up a whole block, I have to provide current-market-rate rents for all the people currently living in that block.