Can the gentrification process be stopped?

Supporters and opponents of gentrification seem to agree on one thing: It can’t be stopped. The more important question is whether the process can be managed — its benefits maximised and its costs mitigated. With enough will and engagement at the community level, as well as strong direction and coordination from local governments?
The first thing to note is that gentrification — defined as the process of a low-income community becoming a high-income one — isn’t nearly as widespread and threatening as many seem to believe. A report by the Economic Innovation Group released last fall ranked US zip codes as prosperous, comfortable, mid-tier, at-risk or distressed. Between 2000 and 2018, “prosperous” and “comfortable” communities gained in
population, becoming even more prosperous and comfortable, while their overall number remained roughly the same. Meanwhile, the cohort of mid-tier, at-risk and distressed communities grew, even as those neighbourhoods shed population and declined in prosperity.
In other words, the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. They meet only rarely, in neighbourhoods adjacent to superheated urban housing markets. That’s where the debate over gentrification rages most fiercely.
For newcomers in these areas to obtain affordable housing without depriving established residents of community stability and amenities, the two groups must engage each other directly and robustly. To do so, they need a process through which to allay fears and forge strong partnerships. Gentrification should be a chance to expand opportunity, not diminish it.
There’s evidence that such a process can work. The Chicago office of the Local Initiative Support Corporation (LISC), a national nonprofit community development financial institution founded in 1979, worked with several Chicago neighborhoods to create the New Communities Program between 2003 and 2013. The goal initially was to identify nonprofit investment opportunities and build neighborhood capacity. By default, the program became a means of managing gentrification, giving several Chicago neighbourhoods the tools they needed to court revitalisation on their own terms. I was privileged to work in some of those neighbourhoods.
To build on this experience, local communities around the country should pursue a six-step process that is led by residents themselves, with assistance from local government, institutions, businesses and nonprofits. Neighbourhoods have to open a dialogue between “long-timers” and “newcomers” — the split that lies at the heart of nearly every gentrification controversy. A dedicated Community Task Force can identify community strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats, and then develop a consensus between the two groups on which should be priorities.
The task force can also establish relationship-building programs and activities, while tracking the interactions between residents
and representatives of key institutions such as the police, schools, churches, parks and so on.

—Bloomberg