gen•tri•fi•ca•tion n. – The restoration and upgrading of deteriorated urban property by middle-class or affluent people, often resulting in displacement of lower-income people.

This process has started happening just east of IH35 in downtown Austin. My wife doesn’t want to move there because she thinks it’s horrible. I desperately want to move there because the new developments going up are mostly mixed-use with condos upstairs and office space downstairs. They are also being largely occupied by artists and other creative industry people.

The lower income people, some of whom have lived there for years, are being displaced. The property values are going up and they can’t afford the rents or taxes that go with the increased property value. Some of them really don’t want to go.

I don’t want to be insensitive but we don’t always get what we want. I read an article the other day about a “distressed” neighborhood downtown. The residents were afraid to come out of their houses, there were needles lying in the street, and the area had an incredibly high crime rate. This is what happens in “distressed” neighborhoods and it affects the surrounding neighborhoods as well.

So it is inevitable that, when population density reaches a certain point, areas only a few blocks from the heart of a city will become prime real estate for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is location. The opportunity to reduce the crime rate, increase tax revenue, and create more usable public spaces are all strong reasons too.

The people who are renting in these neighborhoods will almost certainly have to move further away from the center of the city and lose out. People who own residences in these neighborhoods stand to gain quite a bit. In many cases they will be able to sell their property at a price that will let them move to a much better neighborhood with less crime and less fear. It seems to me the old owners win, the new owners win, and the city wins.

Maybe I’m just niave. Or maybe I really want to move downtown and I can’t afford anything West of IH35. But with every article I read about “distressed” neighborhoods, I feel more confident that gentrification is simply more good than it is bad.