Comments on: KunstlerCast#12: Gentrification - Transcript

By: Duncan Crary

Duncan Crary — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 02:40:34 +0000

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By: RC

RC — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 21:56:21 +0000

One of the factors you failed to mention is that if you have rich people in a city, you also have to have the other classes, or they have to be located within affordable commuting distance. The middle class has to do the professional work for the rich {doctoring, lawyering, accounting, dentistry, veterinary, store operators, master craftsmen, plumbers, private investigators} and the poor or more accurately blue collar and working poor fill all the roles from exterminator to cop to masseur and chef. If the city is set up right and, as Jim does point out, the housing and zoning laws are made to work for everybody, then there is place and a job for all, or at least a city can strive for that.
At the same time, worldwide, a whole class of persons, more of a philosophical class than an economic class, need to get way back out to the land and do something to fix that mess out there too. The reality isn’t just that the suburbs mostly do not work, but that because farming town employment has been constricted and social upheaval and industrial upheaval have skewed all the places and circumstances related to US residential patterns into a dynamic asymmetry, all aspects of the problem, the social, economic, energy, racial, psychological and political have to be managed
and reconfigured.
Now with commuting being much more expensive the only solution is to have the various classes in the same place at the same time.
Finally, for the incorrigibly poor, the countryside is better. That’s another topic for another day.

By: Richard L.

Richard L. — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 20:34:46 +0000

Very good discussion, even though I just read it - didn’t hear it. Yeah, when I travel around to cities that have improved a great many of their falling down neighborhoods, I cannot help but be inspired. “Gentrification” has taken on an unfortunate subliminal meaning - Rich White People are kicking out the poor. I dunno. I think improvement is a good thing. I mean, what is the alternative? Neighborhoods turning to absolute crap so more poor people can cram themselves in? We need fewer poor people and better neighborhoods too. The two things are not necessarily connected - at least not in my experience, which is saying something because I’m an old guy.
When I visit Chicago these days, I see a lot of improved neighborhoods that you didn’t used to be able to drive through with your doors locked. Now they are great places to live. It’s a good thing.