copied from @rybson@todon.eu alt text: a grafitti of a silhouette of a dark grey pigeon with slightly messy feathers. The text below says: take a shit on gentrification.
this post was submitted on 22 Aug 2024
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Sweet Graffiti and other acts of wholesome vandalism
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I'd be willing to bet most Lemmy users are passive gentrifiers at best - though they'd be deeply personally offended if people (accurately) called their housing choices gentrification. Still cool image tho 😂
I’d take that bet. Even from an American centric perspective, what percentage of people are “gentrifiers” is known to some extent, and if you limit your scope to the last decade, studies put it at 20%.
I think if you’re zoomed into a place like NYC, I get why you’d feel that way. But in the Midwest (outside of city centers), even big cities are building on open land.
I admit it's hard to tell. But Lemmy users aren't a random selection of Americans - they lean white, male, urban, liberal or leftist, and significantly more technologically savvy than the average person (which is why they use Lemmy in the first place - don't forget how many users are Reddit refugees who left because they knew enough about Reddit's policies, and had strong enough opinions about them, to want to leave). And that demographic is quite likely to engage in, or passively benefit from, the gentrification of low income urban areas.
While I think its useful to highlight individuals role in big processes like gentrification, most people do not really have a choice. From my understanding gentrification is much more the result of way housing is currently owned and distributed, and how society as a whole actually limits individuals chances to make ethical choices.