This idea is underlined in Robert Caro’s book The Power Broker.
Source
And that’s what happened to teenage Roxie’s favorite arcade. The existing community was kicked out, replaced by something designed with absolutely no input from the community. It wasn’t even the community’s choice to kick the arcade out. There was no vote, there was no decision, there were no surveys. The people who control the neighborhood aren’t the people who live there, the people who hang out and enjoy its offerings, but instead some higher-ups with money, making secret deals on golf courses miles away, only concerned about moving numbers around. Gentrification, really, is the loss of ownership, the loss of community, in the places where you spend your time. Gentrification is the sense that you’re no longer welcome as anything more than a cog in the machine. 1
tags:
links: Robert Moses communities gentrification control
connected ideas: