Gentrification Quotes

• Some people are afraid of gentrification, but what I see is young people want to live in a different world. And they see possibilities here. They see that rents are relatively cheap compared to places like New York and California.

  Grace Lee Boggs

  New York, California, People

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

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• People tend to think of gentrification in terms of race because it's presented that way, and I think it's presented that way because in poor cities that's what's really going on. Beyond that, I think it's presented that way as a way for the people who are really pushing it to make it just a black problem, so people don't care.

  Killer Mike

  Thinking, Race, Cities

  Source: www.complex.com

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• We need to define gentrification as separate from the process of displacement.

  Justin Davidson

  Needs, Process, Displacement

  39 Copy quote

• Artists are always the Johnny Appleseeds of gentrification.

  Scott Hutchins

  Artist, Johnny Appleseed

  Scott Hutchins (2012). “A Working Theory of Love: A Novel”, p.258, Penguin

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• It's more about subtracting every single buck from the tourists that still flock there. Gentrification and the need for developers to maximize their profits from every square inch of the place means that there just aren't any scruffy little basement clubs left. Those scruffy little basement clubs were the areas lifeblood. Now, it's all penthouse flats and global brands. They destroyed the very thing that drew people there in the first place - it's superficial sleaziness.

  Derek Ridgers

  Mean, Squares, People

  Source: therumpus.net

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• Gentrification and consumerism... have destroyed the character of my favorite American haunts, like North Beach, Berkeley, Venice and Aspen.

  Tom Hayden

  Beach, Character, Venice

  27 Copy quote

• As a child growing up in pre-gentrification Boerum Hill, Brooklyn, I went everywhere by bicycle. My bike was in many ways the key to my neighborhood, which, at the time, was Boerum Hill, Brooklyn. This was in the 60s and 70s, before all the white people and restaurants. I really can't underscore boldly enough the fact that I grew up in Boerum Hill, Brooklyn, before it was gentrified. You could get mugged!

  Jonathan Lethem

  Growing Up, Children, White

  20 Copy quote

• I'm not dismissing prostitutes, but a lot has changed. This so-called gentrification, it can never be stopped.

  Benjamin Clementine

  Changed

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

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• When the back-to-the-cities trend started taking root, albeit very unevenly, cities were so glad to finally land deals that they routinely overpaid, not having a solid grasp of the demographic and market forces they should have been channeling instead of subsidizing. It’s especially true for retail and entertainment projects, which generate very poor-quality jobs. I have yet to find a city that has figured out how to ‘take the foot off the pedal’ and stop over-subsidizing, even when gentrification becomes a problem.

  Sandy Smith

  Jobs, Should Have, Land

  14 Copy quote

• MFA programs are to the world of art what gentrification is to your neighborhood.

  Sarah Schulman

  Art, World, Program

  "AIDS and (Its) Gentrification" by Alan Davies, www.poetryfoundation.org. April 9, 2013.

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• I often notice how students can gain the capacity to use certain critical methodologies through engaging with very different texts - how a graphic novel about gentrification and an anthology about Hurricane Katrina and a journalistic account of war profiteering might all lead to very similar classroom conversations and critical engagement. I'm particularly interested in this when teaching law students who often resist reading interdisciplinary materials or materials they interpret as too theoretical.

  Dean Spade

  War, Teaching, Reading

  "On Normal Life". Interview with Natalie Oswin, societyandspace.org. January 15, 2014.

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• ulturally, we are definitely seeing people being to ask hard questions. There's been a major shift over the last year. The NSA revelations played a big part but there are all sorts of other issues too, like inequality and gentrification in the Bay Area, and labor abuses everywhere from Amazon's warehouse, to Apple's factories, to start-ups like Uber and TaskRabbit.

  Astra Taylor

  Years, Nsa, Uber

  Source: therumpus.net

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