Yes. The production of gentrified businesses exists because if you built it, yuppies will come. But none of those yuppies individually are responsible for the construction of the business. The people funding it hold significantly more power of the details of what happens with the developments. Ideally a government would have proper zoning and oversee this to protect people from gentrification, but obviously those government functions become captured by capital quickly. So fundamentally the issue is labor relations, as always, but in terms of short term harm reduction and organization, renters unions are a good start, as are locally-owned workers coops
There's also studies showing that governments will rezone, increase policing, extend transit, and take other measures to pave the way for gentrification. It doesn't happen organically most of the time.
Yes. The production of gentrified businesses exists because if you built it, yuppies will come. But none of those yuppies individually are responsible for the construction of the business. The people funding it hold significantly more power of the details of what happens with the developments. Ideally a government would have proper zoning and oversee this to protect people from gentrification, but obviously those government functions become captured by capital quickly. So fundamentally the issue is labor relations, as always, but in terms of short term harm reduction and organization, renters unions are a good start, as are locally-owned workers coops
There's also studies showing that governments will rezone, increase policing, extend transit, and take other measures to pave the way for gentrification. It doesn't happen organically most of the time.
It'S URbaN ReVItaliZatIOn, sweaty