The unfortunate death of Mr George Floyd in Minnesota, United States, has thrown into the spotlight the importance of universal equality anew. Invariably, all lives matter. But, what about the quality of such a 'life'?

If you have been following the racial turmoil in the US, you might be familiar with the term 'ghetto', which is used derogatorily to indicate areas in a city (particularly in US), which have poor living conditions and hence, are inhabited by poor citizens, while belonging 'coincidentally' to the same race, almost all the time.
The initial years of the 20th century witnessed large-scale influx of poor African-Americans from the southern states, in search of better opportunities in the industrial hubs, in the northern and western parts of the country. They settled in the city centres or the ‘inner city’, as they are called in the United States, which is discernible from an immigrant’s point of view.
Coupled with immigration from various European countries, the restructured US economy played a role in encouraging a phenomena referred to as 'White Flight', from the 'downtown' (another name for inner city) towards the suburbs, which caused the demographic divide to reflect a 'donut', with a black core and white periphery. Almost every large US city witnessed the phenomena mentioned above.
Poverty and low education rates led to crimes, while the latter led to the former (crime-struck areas witness lower standards of living generally), thus forming a vicious circle. Gradually, as a measure to curb the increase in crimes and to increase the financial stature of the "decaying 'hoods", gentrification was taken up.



Skid Row, a widely known
ghetto in Los Angeles

An underdeveloped African-American
settlement in San Diego, CA




Gentrification would involve "uplifting the poorer and crime-struck" parts of the city, by providing incentives to banking firms, businesses etc. There are two sides to the effect of the entire procedure.

The ones who support gentrification, have few sources to cite, the latest one being the Brummet and Reed Report, for the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia. It indicates that living in a neighborhood that is being gentrified, increases a student's chances of studying in a college. One's future salary is highly correlated to one's education, which implies that gentrification has at least been somewhat successful in its attempts.
The Brummet and Reed report points out that the people who move out of gentrifying neighborhoods aren't the ones who used to be poor: infact rich ones are more likely to do so. The ones who were poor, moved out after becoming a part of the middle to upper-middle income class.



A map of New York City
depicting gentrifying
neighbourhoods
A before and after
picture of a storefront
in New York City

The report further says, that the rate of displacement of degree-holders from gentrifying neighborhoods is 74%, which is almost at par with the neighbourhoods that do not: 68%. This indicates that one of the biggest concerns for dwellers hasn't manifested itself: displacement of the necessitous, due to unaffordability of the homes they were living in.
The research also suggests that gentrification did not have a perceptible impact on the income, employment status and distance of commute, between workplace and home, irrespective of the residents choosing to live in the neighbourhood or moving out of it.
Dr Davin Reed, one of the two authors of the aforementioned study, recommends that the policy makers should focus on ensuring affordability of housing in such neighborhoods. Preventing displacement wouldn't be the right course of action, he observed.

The other side of the argument resonates far more with the multitude. There is a consensus in the American society that gentrification causes inflation in prices and rents, which forces the African-American dwellers to move to poorer neighborhoods, which worsens their standard of living. Decades of inequality meted out to African-American citizens has played a part in enforcing belief in this line of thought too.



A chart depicting displaced
African-Americans and
gentrified neighbourhoods

Seattle's Central District
showing a sharp decline
in African-American population


                                                                

Further, it is vital to understand that the families which are forced to move out-due to rising prices- were the ones who had actively contributed in sustaining the downtown. The rappers and other culture-icons, who have taken the ghetto-derogation in positive light, lash out, dubbing gentrification as an attempt at "damaging the culture", with the view having a wide acceptance.
Furthermore, reports like this, aim to quantify the effect, in numbers. A staggering 69% of the neighbourhoods undergoing the process, were either an OZ (Opportunity Zone) or in vicinity of one. Hence, places in dire need of investment witness disinvestment, which is contrary to intuition.
The view is almost infallible, so much so that the article cited above (Brummet and Reed), accepts a lot of the shortcomings posed by gentrification. 
Cities like San Francisco, which are considered to be of global importance, top the list of 'gentrified cities', which in itself forces companies and municipalities to rethink their strategies.
At the same time, if a firm tries to play with words, and unknowingly ends up affecting sentiments, horrendous results are observed. One such instance was that of a coffee shop in Denver, whose advertisement can be seen below:




The controversial advertisement of ink! Coffee 

The advertisement wasn't acceptable, since the ills of gentrification are frequently associated with entry of luxurious food joints and coffee shops in the neighbourhood, which increase property prices drastically. It spurred demonstrations, which forced ink! Coffee to apologise and bring down the advertisement.

In light of the above discussion, there are various questions which come to the mind. Let us explore two such queries:
a) Do you think gentrification is financially and culturally viable, for a given part of the city, anywhere in the world?     
b) As an individual in a position of responsibility in a Silicon Valley startup, how would you deal with a situation resembling the San Francisco Tech Bus Protests? You need to get your employees to your office, which is 64 km away, while ensuring that you do not hurt the sentiments of your potential customers!

Let us see a plausible solution for the first question:
Some evils do more good than harm. The above diagram, by Jane Jacobs, demonstrates how gentrification can do a lot of good, by increasing racial diversity and average income simultaneously, to optimum levels. The "tools" that are being talked about primarily comprise of administrative intervention, via incentives for the dwellers (in form of low rents/property prices/taxes, providing opportunities for quality education, employment etc) and the investors (ease of doing business by lowering tax rates, so that profits go up) alike.


For the second question, let us examine the way in which the world’s biggest technological companies approached the problem:


The way in which Silicon Valley firms approached the problem was quite astounding: they decided to go under the scanner of SFMTA (San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency) and hence, pay taxes for using the city roads. The number of stops were reduced and the routes were regulated to pass through relatively calm zones.

The issue of gentrification might seem intrinsically American but, any city in the world with high immigration rates and lopsided policies, in my opinion, is bound to face the issue some day.