This has been something I have struggled to grapple with as someone who spends a lot of time in far left spaces as well as urban planning spaces. Hopefully you guys can correct me if I'm being a lib or even worse, a neolib.
On one hand one I love cities and one of the things I love is how dynamic they are. Each building and street tells a story about the city and the people that live there and how they have changed over time. I don't think we can stop that process from happening and since I believe cities to be our best chance to fight climate change they must change. We need more housing, more transit, and we need to invest in our cities to make them better places to live for everyone. I believe that means making it easier to build more housing. You might even call me a YIMBY. That means there is probably going to be a lot more a lot more 5 story buildings with a coffee shops on the first floor, bike lanes, and inevitably breweries, but what is the alternative? If we don't build those yuppie apartments then yuppies will just move into existing apartments which will accelerate displacement. If we don't invest in the most disinvested parts of the city we will just recreate places like the south side of Chicago or Detroit that essentially had no investment in generations and creates extreme segregation. That's not good for anyone.
Of course if I were dictator for a day I would just make all housing public but since I can't do that I think we have no option but to embrace the YIMBY strategy while simultaneously fighting for realistic housing reforms to protect current residents, like rent control, with the long term goal of decommodifing housing. I live in Minneapolis and I'm involved in a few Socialist/Left orgs and I can't believe there are people that were against the plan to get rid of single family zoning in Minneapolis because it was supposedly a handout to developers. Single family zoning is one of the most reactionary policies in America that entrenches a white petite bourgeoisie, and socialists are opposing eliminating it? People just seem to hate developers more than solving actual complex problems.
The real problem isn't gentrification, but capitalism. As long as housing and land, the things we all require to live, are commodities cities with opportunities will always be expensive because demand to be there will always outpace supply of land and housing. I just feel like so much of the gentrification discussion on the left is purely reactionary and doesn't have any actual solutions that could actually help people in our lifetime.
Am I just a lib?
Gentrification as it exists in the US is specific - it's the displacement of impoverished people from properties that become more and more desirable as the surrounding areas also increase in value. If you're just investing in these impoverished areas, with the intent that those impoverished would enjoy the fruits of that labor, how is that gentrification? I don't understand this post.
Gentrification in a place like Chicago simply displaces poor people from areas yuppies desire to areas that are already broke down bad. The last Cabrini tower fell 10 years ago to this date. Most of the residents got scattered to the wind into the south and west sides of the city. Since the 70s, the residents of Cabrini could smell gentrification coming from a mile off, and they fought hard for decades to stop that happening, but the city didn't give two fucks and didn't do any real upkeep on the buildings for a good few decades.
I don't know what org you're in over there in Minny, but you need to start checking them. That sounds like some chauvinistic bullshit in regards to their refusal of better zoning policies.