[flir]

It's cold comfort, but gentrification isn't an end-state it's a process. Large parts of London have reached their soulless peak, and are going to start sliding down the other side of the slope. In a couple of generations they'll be filled with the marginalised again, and the cycle will start over.

[astrange]

The counterfactual to gentrification (no investment) wouldn’t help anyone; you’d just have some rotting empty buildings.

Though, what people call gentrification is often just younger people moving into an area replacing older people. So maybe you could fight it by building senior housing and whatever it is old British people like. Model trains maybe.