It’s positive that neighbourhoods become more mixed income, and wealth revitalizes and beautifies, but at the same time there’s a new tragedy unfolding when the new wealthier residents don’t care to take an interest in the established culture.

And yeah, the concept is simple: a primarily white middle and upper-class with the power and privilege to *choose* where they live invade and then wholly occupy a region that was once predominately poor and working-class (usually) people of color without the power and privilege to *choose* where they live — folks who don’t have the power to successfully resist being pushed out of the neighborhoods in which their ancestors resided.

What is there to debate about that?

Why is it so difficult for so many middle and upper-class white folks to simply accept their complicity — both voluntary and involuntary — in the oppression of others? Right… their indulgences must be guilt-free… see, hear, nor speak evil…

What’s interesting about gentrification is that it always starts, as you and some of your commentators point out, with the “slummers” — middle & upper-class white folks in search of illegal leisure activities and/or the “exotic,” which (they perceive) people of color of being so good at providing. These poor neighborhoods of color were, in a sense, created by middle and upper class whites who demanded segregation — a safe haven (i.e., suburb) in which to raise their children free of the vices they believe proliferate neighborhoods of color. So, the neighborhoods in which poor, law-abiding people of color live become sites for illegal gambling venues and prostitution (for example) because these poor folks do not have the power to stop these vice institutions from taking root and thriving in their neighborhoods.

Middle and upper-class white folks take the meaning of “don’t shit where you eat” to heart when they leave their comfortable homes in the suburbs, albeit temporarily, to consume cheap, available and illegal sex, drugs — whatever their hearts desire — and once they’ve satiated their various appetites, they return to their homes… homes situated in what mainstream media tells us are morally pristine communities.

White “tourists” create these poor neighborhoods of color and white gentrifiers demolish them to establish permanent playgrounds.

Gentrification is not right.

Anyway, in a class last semester, we learned about a few concepts that white christian europeans used when justifying colonialism starting in the 15th century. One is Terra Nullius, the idea that colonized lands are “no man’s lands.” Because the people are not Christian, they are not people. In addition, there was the idea of the ne plus ultra, or a point beyond which Christian peoples did not go past because it was considered too dangerous. I think both of these concepts can be directly applied, like what you’re talking about. When there is an “economically depressed,” largely black/brown neighborhood, I think white people tend to consider them to actually have no people there, as evidenced by such comments as, “Oh nobody lives there,” or “that’s a pocket of poverty.” Also, there are many ne plus ultras. Living on the Upper East Side, it was up around 96th street. “Oh there’s nothing up there,” or it’s SUPER dangerous past 96th street.

Let’s remember that these neighborhoods now being “colonized” by whites were probably occupied by whites as recently as 60 years ago. Then came WWII, and the resulting migration of Southern blacks to the industrial North. The 1950′s and the growth of suburbs, resulted in urban ethnic whites leaving the cities in high numbers–a phenomenon now known as white flight. The consequences of white flight were tremendous–cities lost their much of their property tax bases, their populations declined, and their middle classes were decimated. Crime increased, main streets were boarded up, and blacks were increasingly left in segregated urban ghettos.

In the past few decades, an increasing percentage of black Americans are joining the middle class, and many are moving to the suburbs. This is good. Also, many whites are moving back to the cities, which is reducing crime, increasing the tax bases, and creating economic activity in urban areas. Admittedly, these whites moving in are likely to be what you call “postmodern hipsters” and not families with children. That’s the next step. But let’s take what we can get.

Undeniably, we have further to go. Far too many blacks stil live in poor, high-crime, segregated neighborhoods, and far too many whites live segregated from people of other backgrounds. But the gentrification of the cities and the diversification of suburbs are part of the solution–not the problem.