'Gentrification' Redux: Wealth, Opportunity, Community

Quoting loosely from Ben Brown's essay on gentrification, "A city, as Jane Jacobs famously reminded us, is a living thing, growing, dying, changing all the time. Within all that change, the increasing appeal of urban amenities is powering a market that may trump efforts to shield those without means to adapt. You can have a job and still not be able to build wealth. That’s true with most people in poverty in America. Talking only about income inequity makes it too easy to focus narrowly on jobs. Low-paying work that requires long hours and commutes inhibits responsible parenting and depletes savings that build wealth."

"Broader transportation options (especially the self-propelled kind), dignified housing, high-performing schools, quality childcare, affordable healthcare, access to healthy food and exercise: We know amenities like those build tax base and community wealth in infill urban areas and in close-in ‘burbs with quality bones. Wealth generation, after all, is the upside of gentrification. But right now, we’re allowing the price for those advantages to be bid up to a level that only a narrowing percentage of families can pay and still build wealth. Why not invest in strategies that capture that value in more equitable ways? Why not spread out the costs community-wide?"