Gentrification problem

[Recursion]

I keep coming back to this and can't think of a way around it:

1. How do you make a neighborhood a nicer place to live than it is now, without by that making more people want to move there?

Alternately,

2. How do you have the number of people wanting to move to a neighborhood go up, without by that increasing rents, credit requirements, and social signalling requirements?

[fun n serious]

1. What I have noticed in my own town

is.. No one ever cared about that particular neighborhood until the city's population increased and property close to downtown was more desirable. Rather than expand suburbs people became interested in inner city property. It was never about making a neighborhood nicer. It was about TAKING over more valuable land as the city gets bigger.

[EllieBC]

2. Involve the current residents.

Instead of doing it to them, do it with them. Ask them what changes they want. Let them take a lead in deciding what their neighbourhood should look like.

You have to get the current community invested in the vision and to do that you need to make them part of that.

[Travis_0004]

7. Im not sure how you do that

Especially if a high percentage rent. I own a rental in a neighborhood that is experiencing gentrification, and Im planning on selling the house in a year or two. The residents can get a say, but if a 100k house will sell for 200k, you are going to see displacement.

[HassleCat]

3. Urban planning

Zoning and building restrictions can limit the effects of gentrification, which feeds on big houses and other amenities. The key is to identify characteristics of working class and mixed neighborhood that discourage gentrification, and implement zoning and building codes that keep some neighborhoods they way they are. Square footage is a big one. If a neighborhood is filled with 900 square foot bungalows that can't be knocked down and replaced with larger homes, the area will be slow to gentrify. Wealthy people are attracted to big houses, big yards, three car garages, and so on. If you zone those things out to the suburbs, the old neighborhoods will be slower to gentrify. You can't stop it altogether, but you can slow it down.

[Recursion]

4. The architecture in SFO hasn't changed, so I don't think it's that

I know Brooklyn had that problem, but SFO and DC, for instance, have the exact same houses now they did 20 years ago.

[Wilms]

5. Reduce income inequality. n/t

[Recursion]

6. I think that's it

Real estate supply is inelastic so that's where income inequality really hits.

[Wilms]

8. Two more components.

Real estate agents and flippers.

In their defense, I will remark that some structures are saved as a result of the change of ownership and the deferred maintenance that gets carried out.

[Doctor Who]

9. I think crime drives it..

I don't have your answer, I wish I did. We have to lower the crime so community's can feel like communities (sp?) again. How do we do that?