Friedrich Engels Predicted Modern Gentrification 150 Years Ago

In some sense, the costs of maintaining a city are subject to the same forces of budget fluctuations as the cost of maintaining a household.

If you live somewhere for 21 years, you’d have to replace your water heater at least twice, so that’s an extra 3k-5k expense for those years (not counting the cost for initial installment). If you’re renting in the city (more likely than owning, esp. for the types of neighborhoods which experience gentrification), the landlord may choose to spread the cost of the replacement and installation over a number of years.

So the renter experiences an “unjust” increase in rent over a number of years which takes into account the interest rates of the mortgage loan, increases in insurance, increases in prices and services (including cost of labor increases) due to normal levels of inflation etc. The crux of the issues behind all of these (imho) are interest rates on loans, but let’s stay on point.

But the same budgeting pressures affect managing costs for running a city, so when the article states that the city doesn’t need to attract new residents or investors, it sounds detached from reality.

To normalize the effect of changing economic conditions on neighborhoods and cities, you need investments and new developments, and to normalize the effects of gentrification on low income members of a neighborhood, you need social welfare programs. Cities should always invest some part of their revenue in the market so that they have leeway with discretionary spending, that’s how the Nordic states do some of their fund raising for their social welfare programs.