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I'm all for a happy medium when it comes to gentrification. I love it when good businesses come into a bad neighborhood and make the place better, but I hate it when they displace good, locally owned businesses. There are places that have a good balance, but it's rare. I'd argue that the Elmhurst, Jackson Heights and Woodside neighborhoods in Queens are good examples of that balance.
Burlington, VT- even though it is smaller than most cities, it is the largest in VT. It used to be a safe, clean city with its own identity, but now has been flooded with those fleeing larger New England cities. The result has been to change BTV into a mini San Francisco, where either people are really well off and fight any progress or they are extremely poverty stricken and cannot get ahead because of insane rents and being taxed to death. There is no charm left in the downtown area, all the stores now cater to the more affluent. There is nothing unique about Burlington anymore.
So it would be better to leave run down, crappy looking buildings than to replace them with new ones? I say gentrification is a great thing- as others mentioned, look what it's done for DC- it is 100% better now than it was 20 years ago.
So it would be better to leave run down, crappy looking buildings than to replace them with new ones?
I'd rather see older, run down buildings rehabbed, than see them demo'ed to make way for new ones. The architecture and building materials used a century ago can never be replicated today due to cost.
Columbia City in Seattle was kind of run down and had a drug and crime problem in the 80s. It too was cleaned up but the difference is quite a few of the black businesses which were there for quite a long time remained and cleaned up. Whites came in and opened a couple of great restaurants, a nice pub, a cool bakery and other establishments. Latinos and asians are part of the mix too. Some of the newer construction was affordable housing and the lightrail is a couple of blocks away. What I like is it truely is an intergrated neighborhood full of people from all walks of life and incomes.
Is there anywhere in DC like this? From what I can see DC is becoming a city for the rich and to me that can be boring.
When speaking about gentrification and areas going through gentrification I think every single block in manhattan (Washington heights included) fits the criteria.
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