>Recently spent a couple of days in Seattle and Portland and was
>surprised at how gentrified the downtown areas have become
I'm only a recent transplant to Seattle (about a year and a half now), and an even more recent transplant to lbo-talk, so with those disclaimers in mind:
Gentrification here is *very* far along -- folks speak about essentially every neighborhood in-city as either wealthy, gentrifying, or "in danger of gentrification," though it's not clear to me if that final category means anything beyond "relatively cheap and thus not gonna last." Seattle is further along than most places, I think, partly because it got pop-culturally hot a bit earlier than most cities. (We also have a nice assortment of Guiliani-esque laws against postering on utility poles, sitting on sidewalks, and other quality of life offenses.) Another key factor: traffic here is *horrendous*, in part because there are several large lakes in the area, and bridges are much more costly to expand than flat highways. Commute time is much talked-about, and actually seems to exert a significant push towards in-city living for the wealthy.
On the other hand, an inner-ring of older, industrial suburbs is becoming increasingly brown & poor. The further-out 'burbs are of course scenes of fabulous wealth.
Which brings me (sort of, in a roundabout fashion) to a question: how do we fight gentrification in neighborhoods which do in fact require investment? We can't build much of a movement on resisting development when that development in its early stages seems to so clearly be an improvement -- when an abandoned warehouse becomes a funky artists' colony, folks are likely going to cheer it, even though it helps build momentum for gentrification. They might even support the improvements *knowing* this is the likely long-term future.
The third world development community seems at least to pay lip service to notions of sustainability and such. Is there any similar work (theoretical, even) on development in the third worlds of the first world? I've heard tale of micro-loan projects in the US, I think, but I'd like very much to see some discussion of left strategies for developing the underdeveloped first world without causing gentrification.
-- Sage Praxis makes perfect.