The Upside of Gentrification for Long-Term Residents

Guest: Professor Jonathan Wynn, Associate Professor of Sociology, University of Massachusetts Amherst The topic of gentrification brings out heated emotions in big cities like New York or San Francisco. It’s when the hipsters move into a run-down neighborhood and give it a new identity, complete with funky boutiques and artist collectives and coffee shops. The place becomes a cool new urban hangout and its original residents move because they can no longer afford the rent or property taxes.  There are upsides for a city to have a rough neighborhood turn into a magnet for young urbanites, but we don’t hear those stories as often. And the thing we definitely don’t hear much is an argument for gentrification as the solution to what ails struggling small and mid-sized cities. Jonathan Wynn makes that case with us today.