Do you think some locals secretly enjoy gentrification?

*Saw* a middle class person? No. Witnessed their neighbourhood get turned into Montessori preschools and dominated by greyhounds in jackets and found they and everyone else had gotten priced out? Stranger things have happened. If not crack, then hitting the bottle is not unlikely. Don't make me say username checks out, be for real. As if people don't do things like that when whole neighbourhoods get taken over by the rich and the point includes they weren't necessarily in that state before. It's also not just residential accommodation that gets lost, but businesses and services. Are you honestly really that sheltered that you've never experienced this ever? Even middle class people can get priced out by richer people. I don't think the lower middle class tend to displace people tbh - and they can still be displaced. It's the upper middle class and the rich. Now class is no longer particularly associated with old money or position at birth and there's a lot more social mobility, it's not unusual for a person to be able to see more than one side of this within their own lifetime. Surely you understand that middle class people can also be forced out. However arguably a wealthier person is more likely to own their home than rent which is one of the most pivotal factors. Increasingly people who own are richer or have an inheritance - property ownership demographic used to be a lot more diverse and is narrowing. In a way when it comes to gentrification it's not that the middle class can't be affected but it is like a two class society of property owners and tenants who are somewhat like serfs even if they may be from a middle class background and ultimately likely to inherit at some stage. So often if the middle class is negatively impacted in some way there can be a silver lining because they're more likely to own their home and so any loss eg of community is usually accompanied by profit if they were to sell Thereby leading people with an economically sheltered existence to perceive gentrification as beneficial Basically the key dividing factor would seem to be not class background but property ownership Does everyone middle class own property? Not necessarily in cities where a hole in the ground can cost millions. It depends. Increasingly there's a middle class renter bracket who can be just as impacted by gentrification - likewise there may be an exodus of these people from the region they can't afford to the region they can - ironically in the process often driving up prices for the locals by competing over properties considered cheap compared to the area of highest demand A lot of this isn't about a meritocracy of study and work hard and you will get your just desserts, and if you're a weak person with bad character you'll be a crackhead in a doorway - never mind that rich people love a lot of drugs themselves like cocaine Rather a) government policy strongly influences who can afford to buy and how and b) a lot of wealth is a lottery, a trust fund kid is not inherently more deserving of a secure home, a lot of people with high paying jobs get their foot in the door first and foremost due to who they know, not what they know For all you know the Montessori preschool owner is doing lines, they just don't have to do it in a doorway because they couldn't afford a home. Is this more meritorious? Surgeons, lawyers, judges, peak athletes etc are not dissociated with risk taking activities, they just have a relatively thick wad of protection, every now and then though the bubble leaks and they fall from grace but even then the judicial punishment seems quite light as they're deemed to have suffered enough just by their reputation being publicly besmirched So, do be real, it's not like the wealthy are inherently more morally upstanding even when it comes to drug use, they just aren't forced into loitering I'm not saying anyone wants to encounter someone wants to encounter a guy with a crack pipe looking wired But just because some people grew up with a cast iron safety blanket to catch them every time they eff up doesn't make them superior And people can lose jobs, lose money, lose everything - if you have someone who could always rely on a safety blanket then they have nothing, they actually have less life experience of getting by and they can be even more vulnerable I think what is more concerning is when you have generations of people depending on welfare without any tertiary education or work experience and a concentration of people in the same demographic because socially disenfranchised areas are often associated with very specific problems and part of the nature of that is people growing up without any positive role models or opportunities in some cases. Situations where people have nothing to lose can get very scary very quickly This shouldn't be confused with people who are simply not wealthy, especially the working class. Older working class people are more likely to have owned their own home and younger working class people are more likely to be needed by society and yet increasingly unable to afford either their own home or local rents. Conditions are obviously very dependent on region but this is the thing, the unaffordability can't necessarily be escaped especially because of the interests driving developers. People will forgo living in an area they want and need to stay in and move somewhere much less suitable, sometimes only to find they get priced out of that as well. For all you know crack pipe guy moved between six locations before succumbing. So yeah you don't want crack pipe guy near preschool but there is a context It's like when pubs and bars with live music often get shut down in gentrified settings when people move closeby then complain about the noise. You know. And maybe there's some local character with a mental health problem who's lived there all his life but is known to be harmless, hangs out on the corner, in the ungentrified setting with long term residents, maybe everybody knows him and nobody pays him any mind. But when the Montessori preschool opens up, suddenly he's an unsavoury character posh parents don't want around. And it's not like the new preschool owners are going to look out for him, it's not in their interests to do so. It's a lot more complex than looking at a "middle class" person, obviously