Gentrification & the City

I think there's a good side to gentrification too that a lot of people ignore in order to pursue a cause, and being from San Francisco, I see redevelopment and gentrification happening every day as well.

First of all, gentrification doesn't necessarily assume that members lower income communities are going to disappear when their communities are redeveloped. Instead, these populations with higher rates of crime and poverty are diluted, and they can seek low-income housing in other communities where they won't be so concentrated.

Because there is no longer any "poor" community that is easy to cut funds from, and instead a lot of communities that have approximately equal rates of income or crime, or other socioeconomic factors, funding and resources will be allotted to communities more evenly by the city or county.

It's a matter of dialectical materialism - poor communities ripe for gentrification are the thesis, the possibility of new, developped communities is the antithesis. Therefore, the synthesis is the integration of the lower income community into better communities. It's a gradual process, but let's face it. Lower income communities that are often targets for gentrification usually are less educated and receive fewer services or resources, because it's considered a waste of money from the budget. So, by gentrifying communities and causing lower income citizens to be members of communities instead of a community in and of themselves, they're more likely to receive what they need.

It's by no means an ideal solution, but it's one of the only realistic means of returning distribution of the budget among communties to some semblance of equilibrium.

**edit

Also, I don't support gentrification universally, it really depends on the population of the community on the chopping block. If it's an area of historical importance, or one with relatively low crime rates regardless of poverty, or are home more to a large proportion of elderly residents, then no, they shouldn't be gentrified. But in communities that are infamous for crime, especially in San Francisco, then yes, I think gentrification is the way to go.