WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.240 Welcome back to the Deep Dive. I have to admit, 00:00:02.339 --> 00:00:04.080 I've been staring at the stack of research on 00:00:04.080 --> 00:00:06.240 the desk today for about 20 minutes, just, you 00:00:06.240 --> 00:00:08.279 know, trying to figure out the safest way to 00:00:08.279 --> 00:00:11.140 start this conversation. Safest. That's an interesting 00:00:11.140 --> 00:00:14.980 choice of words. Why safe? Because today we are 00:00:14.980 --> 00:00:17.679 walking right into a minefield. We are talking 00:00:17.679 --> 00:00:21.460 about the G word. Yes, gentrification. Gentrification. 00:00:21.899 --> 00:00:25.019 It is without a doubt the single most charged 00:00:25.019 --> 00:00:28.960 buzzword in modern urban life. You drop this 00:00:28.960 --> 00:00:32.020 word at a dinner party and the air just leaves 00:00:32.020 --> 00:00:34.520 the room. You say it at a city council meeting 00:00:34.520 --> 00:00:36.299 and people aren't just listening. They're screaming. 00:00:36.439 --> 00:00:39.380 Right. It's a word that everyone uses, but I'm 00:00:39.380 --> 00:00:41.219 not sure everyone uses it to mean the same thing. 00:00:41.340 --> 00:00:43.399 That's it exactly. I have this nighting suspicion 00:00:43.399 --> 00:00:45.799 that most of us, myself included, are using it 00:00:45.799 --> 00:00:48.479 as a blunt instrument rather than a precise tool. 00:00:48.700 --> 00:00:51.359 That is a very, very fair assessment. It's become 00:00:51.359 --> 00:00:54.020 this catch -all term for, you know, change I 00:00:54.020 --> 00:00:56.219 don't like or on the other side, change that 00:00:56.219 --> 00:00:59.600 makes me feel guilty. Yeah. But the actual mechanics 00:00:59.600 --> 00:01:02.259 of it, how it works, what drives it, that's often 00:01:02.259 --> 00:01:05.099 completely misunderstood. And that's the hook 00:01:05.099 --> 00:01:08.099 for me. Because on the surface, there is this 00:01:08.099 --> 00:01:10.920 massive paradox. It's a huge contradiction. How 00:01:10.920 --> 00:01:14.319 so? Well, if I describe the symptoms of gentrification 00:01:14.319 --> 00:01:17.420 without actually using the word. You know, better 00:01:17.420 --> 00:01:21.180 infrastructure, lower crime rates, new businesses 00:01:21.180 --> 00:01:24.659 opening up, property values rising, streets getting 00:01:24.659 --> 00:01:27.219 cleaned. All good things on paper. They sound 00:01:27.219 --> 00:01:29.659 like the definition of success. That sounds like 00:01:29.659 --> 00:01:32.079 the American dream or really the global dream 00:01:32.079 --> 00:01:35.000 of progress. Right. If you are a tax assessor 00:01:35.000 --> 00:01:37.560 or a city planner looking at a spreadsheet. Those 00:01:37.560 --> 00:01:39.459 things look like victory. They look like a win. 00:01:39.640 --> 00:01:41.739 But then you flip the coin and suddenly those 00:01:41.739 --> 00:01:44.079 exact same changes are described with words like 00:01:44.079 --> 00:01:47.980 colonialism. You hear phrases like erasure, displacement, 00:01:48.439 --> 00:01:50.640 cultural destruction. We have reports in here 00:01:50.640 --> 00:01:52.739 of protests involving pig's heads. Which we are 00:01:52.739 --> 00:01:55.060 definitely getting to. Oh, absolutely. And arson 00:01:55.060 --> 00:01:58.019 campaigns. So the mission for this deep dive 00:01:58.019 --> 00:02:00.659 isn't to sit here and moralize. We aren't going 00:02:00.659 --> 00:02:03.560 to decide if gentrification is good or bad in 00:02:03.560 --> 00:02:05.519 a binary sense. We want to look at the machine 00:02:05.519 --> 00:02:08.080 itself. we want to take the cover off and see 00:02:08.080 --> 00:02:11.539 the gears. How does a neighborhood actually change? 00:02:11.879 --> 00:02:14.840 Who are the specific players pulling the levers? 00:02:15.370 --> 00:02:18.310 And what does the data actually say versus what 00:02:18.310 --> 00:02:20.370 it feels like on the ground? Because that gap 00:02:20.370 --> 00:02:22.930 is huge. It's massive. And we want to strip away 00:02:22.930 --> 00:02:24.509 the emotion for a second. Don't worry, we'll 00:02:24.509 --> 00:02:26.810 bring it back to really understand the mechanics. 00:02:27.069 --> 00:02:29.030 And just to set the scope for the listener, we 00:02:29.030 --> 00:02:31.009 are going wide today. We aren't just talking 00:02:31.009 --> 00:02:33.569 about the usual suspects like Brooklyn or San 00:02:33.569 --> 00:02:36.710 Francisco. No, this is a global phenomenon. We're 00:02:36.710 --> 00:02:39.030 looking at global capital, at historical patterns 00:02:39.030 --> 00:02:42.389 that go back way, way further than I ever imagined. 00:02:42.590 --> 00:02:44.710 Me too. And we're going to get into the news. 00:02:44.719 --> 00:02:47.479 nitty gritty of the who and the how. The source 00:02:47.479 --> 00:02:50.319 material we have is so diverse. It really is. 00:02:50.400 --> 00:02:53.280 It ranges from these dense academic studies on 00:02:53.280 --> 00:02:56.060 eviction rates and sociological theories all 00:02:56.060 --> 00:02:58.780 the way to boots on the ground reporting on violent 00:02:58.780 --> 00:03:01.460 clashes in Mexico City and London. So let's start 00:03:01.460 --> 00:03:03.020 at the beginning, or at least where the word 00:03:03.020 --> 00:03:05.039 began, because I think a lot of people assume 00:03:05.039 --> 00:03:09.719 gentrification is this trendy 21st century coinage, 00:03:09.740 --> 00:03:11.500 maybe something that popped up in the 90s. Yeah, 00:03:11.539 --> 00:03:14.110 that's a common misconception. But it's got a 00:03:14.110 --> 00:03:16.590 very specific birthday. It does. It was coined 00:03:16.590 --> 00:03:19.830 in 1964 by a British sociologist named Ruth Glass. 00:03:20.189 --> 00:03:23.590 1964. 1964. So the Beatles are on Ed Sullivan 00:03:23.590 --> 00:03:26.930 and Ruth Glass is watching London change. Exactly. 00:03:26.990 --> 00:03:29.770 She was observing the District of Islington in 00:03:29.770 --> 00:03:33.490 London. Now, if you go to Islington today, it 00:03:33.490 --> 00:03:36.430 is incredibly wealthy. It's Tony Blair territory. 00:03:36.750 --> 00:03:40.610 Very posh. Very. But in the early 60s, it was 00:03:40.610 --> 00:03:43.340 a working class area. Glass described it as being 00:03:43.340 --> 00:03:46.979 full of shabby, modest mews and cottages. It 00:03:46.979 --> 00:03:48.860 was blue -collar. It was where the workers lived. 00:03:49.120 --> 00:03:51.379 But she noticed a shift. She noticed a very distinct 00:03:51.379 --> 00:03:53.599 shift. She saw middle -class people moving in 00:03:53.599 --> 00:03:55.439 and buying up these cottages, these small working 00:03:55.439 --> 00:03:57.639 -class homes. And she didn't call it revitalization. 00:03:57.919 --> 00:04:00.639 No. That's the key. She used very aggressive, 00:04:00.740 --> 00:04:03.180 very pointed language. She called them invaders. 00:04:03.439 --> 00:04:06.639 Wow. Invaders. She wrote, and this is a direct 00:04:06.639 --> 00:04:09.979 quote, One by one, many of the working class 00:04:09.979 --> 00:04:12.520 neighborhoods of London have been invaded by 00:04:12.520 --> 00:04:15.439 the middle classes. She saw it as a territory 00:04:15.439 --> 00:04:18.660 war. Where the original working class occupiers 00:04:18.660 --> 00:04:20.540 were being displaced. Precisely, and that is 00:04:20.540 --> 00:04:22.620 where she stamped it with the label, gentrification. 00:04:23.540 --> 00:04:25.839 Okay, so we have to unpack the etymology here 00:04:25.839 --> 00:04:28.500 because it's hiding in plain sight. Gentry, it 00:04:28.500 --> 00:04:30.720 sounds fancy, you know, like gentlemen. It is 00:04:30.720 --> 00:04:33.720 rooted entirely in class distinction. The word 00:04:33.720 --> 00:04:36.639 gentry comes from the old French gentrise, which 00:04:36.639 --> 00:04:40.160 means of gentle birth. Of gentle birth. In the 00:04:40.160 --> 00:04:42.920 British class system, the landed gentry were 00:04:42.920 --> 00:04:45.819 the social class just below the nobility. They 00:04:45.819 --> 00:04:47.319 weren't quite lords, but they were certainly 00:04:47.319 --> 00:04:50.220 not workers. They owned land. They were the gentle 00:04:50.220 --> 00:04:53.259 class. So by using that specific word, Glass 00:04:53.259 --> 00:04:55.959 wasn't just describing a real estate trend. She 00:04:55.959 --> 00:04:58.360 was making a class analysis from the very beginning. 00:04:58.620 --> 00:05:00.860 Exactly. She wasn't talking about paint colors 00:05:00.860 --> 00:05:03.360 or new doors. She was implying that the landed 00:05:03.360 --> 00:05:06.199 class, the gentry, was coming back to reclaim 00:05:06.199 --> 00:05:08.720 the city from the workers. That reframes the 00:05:08.720 --> 00:05:11.319 entire process. It's not improvement. It's a 00:05:11.319 --> 00:05:14.279 reassertion of class dominance. It turns a renovation 00:05:14.279 --> 00:05:17.720 project into a feudal conflict. Wow. Okay, but 00:05:17.720 --> 00:05:21.000 speaking of history, the sources threw me a curveball 00:05:21.000 --> 00:05:22.899 that I am still trying to wrap my head around. 00:05:23.439 --> 00:05:25.740 We usually talk about this as a product of, you 00:05:25.740 --> 00:05:30.620 know, modern... capitalism. But you found historians 00:05:30.620 --> 00:05:33.019 arguing that gentrification was happening in 00:05:33.019 --> 00:05:35.060 ancient Rome. This really blows the timeline 00:05:35.060 --> 00:05:37.920 wide open. It's not just an argument. There is 00:05:37.920 --> 00:05:40.660 archaeological evidence from Roman Britain as 00:05:40.660 --> 00:05:43.839 early as the third century A .D. The third century. 00:05:43.899 --> 00:05:45.800 What does gentrification even look like in the 00:05:45.800 --> 00:05:48.199 third century? Are we talking about chariot lanes? 00:05:48.420 --> 00:05:50.800 Not quite. But it looks remarkably similar to 00:05:50.800 --> 00:05:54.019 today, just with different materials. Archaeologists 00:05:54.019 --> 00:05:56.459 in Roman towns in Britain found the physical 00:05:56.459 --> 00:05:59.399 footprints of small, independent shops. Think 00:05:59.399 --> 00:06:01.459 of the butcher, the baker, the craftsperson. 00:06:01.560 --> 00:06:03.939 The local mom -and -pop shops of their day. Exactly. 00:06:04.060 --> 00:06:06.019 And they found evidence that these shops were 00:06:06.019 --> 00:06:08.699 being systematically wiped out and built directly 00:06:08.699 --> 00:06:11.439 on top of their foundations. Let me guess. Luxury 00:06:11.439 --> 00:06:14.360 villas. Large, luxurious villas. You can literally 00:06:14.360 --> 00:06:16.740 see the evidence in the ground. The small business 00:06:16.740 --> 00:06:19.540 gets bulldozed for the luxury mansion. That's 00:06:19.540 --> 00:06:22.360 incredible. So the footprint of the city literally 00:06:22.360 --> 00:06:26.019 shifted from this mixed -use, working -class 00:06:26.019 --> 00:06:30.120 commerce to exclusive private residential wealth. 00:06:30.279 --> 00:06:32.600 That's right, which suggests that this dynamic 00:06:32.600 --> 00:06:35.959 of wealth -displacing modesty isn't just a quirk 00:06:35.959 --> 00:06:38.600 of the 21st century housing market. It might 00:06:38.600 --> 00:06:40.459 be a fundamental dynamic of human civilization. 00:06:40.560 --> 00:06:43.839 It could be. Wherever power and resources accumulate, 00:06:44.379 --> 00:06:46.660 the powerful eventually want the land occupied 00:06:46.660 --> 00:06:49.269 by the less powerful. It's a very old story. 00:06:49.449 --> 00:06:51.949 That is depressing, but also illuminating. It 00:06:51.949 --> 00:06:54.829 means we are fighting a very old urge. But let's 00:06:54.829 --> 00:06:56.509 fast forward back to today. We have this ancient 00:06:56.509 --> 00:06:59.189 practice and this word from the 60s, but defining 00:06:59.189 --> 00:07:01.589 it right now seems to be a nightmare. I was reading 00:07:01.589 --> 00:07:03.209 through the definitions in our source packet, 00:07:03.310 --> 00:07:05.110 and it feels like nobody agrees on what this 00:07:05.110 --> 00:07:07.050 actually is. It's because the definition you 00:07:07.050 --> 00:07:09.730 choose depends entirely on your agenda. It's 00:07:09.730 --> 00:07:11.709 a political act to define it. Okay, give me an 00:07:11.709 --> 00:07:14.509 example. Well, if you look at the CDC, the Centers 00:07:14.509 --> 00:07:16.899 for Disease Control in the U .S., They have a 00:07:16.899 --> 00:07:20.180 very clinical definition. They define gentrification 00:07:20.180 --> 00:07:23.720 as the transformation of neighborhoods from low 00:07:23.720 --> 00:07:26.699 value to high value. Low value to high value. 00:07:26.800 --> 00:07:28.420 That sounds like something a robot would say. 00:07:28.540 --> 00:07:31.220 It's incredibly cold. It just strips the human 00:07:31.220 --> 00:07:33.620 element out completely. It frames it purely as 00:07:33.620 --> 00:07:36.259 an economic variable. A number goes up. End of 00:07:36.259 --> 00:07:39.800 story. But then you look at sociologists. Someone 00:07:39.800 --> 00:07:42.720 like Hackworth defines it as... The production 00:07:42.720 --> 00:07:45.980 of space for progressively more affluent users. 00:07:46.180 --> 00:07:48.399 The production of space. I like that. It implies 00:07:48.399 --> 00:07:50.019 that the neighborhood is being manufactured. 00:07:50.240 --> 00:07:53.160 It's a product. And who is the product for? That's 00:07:53.160 --> 00:07:55.579 the key question in his definition. It's not 00:07:55.579 --> 00:07:57.670 for the people already there. Then you have others, 00:07:57.709 --> 00:08:00.649 like Rose, who call it a process where the new 00:08:00.649 --> 00:08:03.670 middle class culturally reshapes a working class 00:08:03.670 --> 00:08:06.009 inner city neighborhood. Cultural reshaping. 00:08:06.009 --> 00:08:08.350 That feels closer to the emotional reality, doesn't 00:08:08.350 --> 00:08:10.310 it? It does. It's not just that the rent is higher. 00:08:10.370 --> 00:08:12.050 It's that the neighborhood feels different. The 00:08:12.050 --> 00:08:14.009 smell is different. The sounds on the street 00:08:14.009 --> 00:08:16.850 are different. The entire vibe changes. And this 00:08:16.850 --> 00:08:19.750 brings us right back to that war metaphor. There 00:08:19.750 --> 00:08:22.129 is a scholar named Kiedis. writing just this 00:08:22.129 --> 00:08:26.269 year in 2024, who argues that we've lost the 00:08:26.269 --> 00:08:29.069 plot by softening our language. What do you mean? 00:08:29.189 --> 00:08:32.149 Ruth Glass used words like invasion, displacement, 00:08:32.529 --> 00:08:35.970 battle. But today, city councils and real estate 00:08:35.970 --> 00:08:38.669 developers use terms like urban revitalization. 00:08:38.789 --> 00:08:42.690 Or regeneration, urban renaissance. Yes. It sounds 00:08:42.690 --> 00:08:45.110 like a marketing brochure. Come experience the 00:08:45.110 --> 00:08:47.450 renaissance of downtown. It's a complete rebranding 00:08:47.450 --> 00:08:50.029 exercise. Exactly. Kiedis argues that these modern 00:08:50.029 --> 00:08:53.210 terms are designed to hide the conflict. Revitalization 00:08:53.210 --> 00:08:56.110 implies the neighborhood was dead before. It 00:08:56.110 --> 00:08:58.330 erases the life that was already there. Whereas 00:08:58.330 --> 00:09:01.470 gentrification, in its original, raw sense, forces 00:09:01.470 --> 00:09:03.870 us to look at the class struggle. It forces you 00:09:03.870 --> 00:09:06.610 to ask, who is winning and who is losing? Precisely. 00:09:06.610 --> 00:09:08.490 If you call it regeneration, you're the hero. 00:09:08.809 --> 00:09:10.370 If you call it displacement, you're the villain. 00:09:10.450 --> 00:09:12.669 The word itself is a battleground. Well, let's 00:09:12.669 --> 00:09:15.330 look at the conquerors, or maybe the pioneers, 00:09:15.610 --> 00:09:17.830 because it rarely starts with the billionaires, 00:09:17.850 --> 00:09:19.950 right? The guys in the suits and the big developers 00:09:19.950 --> 00:09:22.289 don't usually show up until the end. That's right. 00:09:22.350 --> 00:09:25.570 There is a very predictable pattern, what sociologists 00:09:25.570 --> 00:09:28.789 call a stage model of gentrification. It's almost 00:09:28.789 --> 00:09:31.970 like the life cycle of an insect. Okay, so walk 00:09:31.970 --> 00:09:35.100 me through it. Stage one, who picks it off? It 00:09:35.100 --> 00:09:37.460 usually starts with what they call the marginal 00:09:37.460 --> 00:09:40.279 gentrifiers. Yeah. This is stage one. Marginal 00:09:40.279 --> 00:09:42.080 gentrifiers. Who are these people? These are 00:09:42.080 --> 00:09:45.480 the artists, the students, the political activists, 00:09:45.879 --> 00:09:47.960 you know, the bohemians. These are people who 00:09:47.960 --> 00:09:50.600 are typically cash poor. They don't have a lot 00:09:50.600 --> 00:09:52.940 of money in the bank, but they are culturally 00:09:52.940 --> 00:09:55.399 rich. Right. They have education. They have taste. 00:09:55.480 --> 00:09:57.299 They have an appetite for the unconventional. 00:09:57.320 --> 00:09:59.240 And they are not moving into the gritty neighborhood 00:09:59.240 --> 00:10:01.000 because they want to flip a house for profit. 00:10:01.370 --> 00:10:03.149 They're moving there because the rent is cheap. 00:10:03.269 --> 00:10:06.029 And the spaces are huge. Exactly. They want the 00:10:06.029 --> 00:10:08.250 warehouse loft with the great light to paint 00:10:08.250 --> 00:10:10.549 in. They want a place where they can play loud 00:10:10.549 --> 00:10:13.850 music or live an alternative lifestyle without 00:10:13.850 --> 00:10:17.429 a homeowners association finding them. They're 00:10:17.429 --> 00:10:20.250 looking for tolerance and affordability. But, 00:10:20.250 --> 00:10:22.690 and here's the irony that the sources keep coming 00:10:22.690 --> 00:10:25.169 back to again and again, they are the Trojan 00:10:25.169 --> 00:10:27.909 horse. They absolutely are because their presence 00:10:27.909 --> 00:10:31.149 changes the signal. They move in. They open a 00:10:31.149 --> 00:10:33.330 tiny gallery in a garage. They paint a mural 00:10:33.330 --> 00:10:36.350 on a crumbling wall. Maybe a local dive bar starts 00:10:36.350 --> 00:10:38.690 hosting poetry nights to attract them. And suddenly 00:10:38.690 --> 00:10:40.789 the neighborhood isn't perceived by outsiders 00:10:40.789 --> 00:10:44.490 as scary or dangerous anymore. No. Now it's perceived 00:10:44.490 --> 00:10:48.110 as edgy. It has grit. It has character. And that 00:10:48.110 --> 00:10:51.870 grit becomes a commodity. Which brings us to 00:10:51.870 --> 00:10:55.320 stage two. Stage two. The early adopters. Who 00:10:55.320 --> 00:10:57.740 are they? These are people like teachers, journalists, 00:10:58.019 --> 00:11:00.399 social workers, maybe some architects. They have 00:11:00.399 --> 00:11:02.759 a steady income. They're not rich, but they can 00:11:02.759 --> 00:11:04.940 get a mortgage. And they're attracted by the 00:11:04.940 --> 00:11:07.740 vibe the artists created. Yes. They want to be 00:11:07.740 --> 00:11:09.820 near the cool gallery. They want the authenticity. 00:11:10.120 --> 00:11:12.659 They see the artists as a sign that the neighborhood 00:11:12.659 --> 00:11:15.019 is interesting and safe enough to invest in. 00:11:15.220 --> 00:11:17.279 So they buy the brownstones that need a little 00:11:17.279 --> 00:11:19.860 work. They start fixing the roofs. They plant 00:11:19.860 --> 00:11:23.149 flowers in the front yard. And this is the tipping 00:11:23.149 --> 00:11:25.710 point, isn't it? It is the absolute tipping point. 00:11:25.889 --> 00:11:27.649 Because once the journalists and the teachers 00:11:27.649 --> 00:11:29.690 are there, the media starts paying attention. 00:11:30.049 --> 00:11:32.230 You get the article in the Sunday paper about 00:11:32.230 --> 00:11:34.769 the hidden gem of the city. The city's best kept 00:11:34.769 --> 00:11:37.509 secret. Right. The coffee shops start to upgrade 00:11:37.509 --> 00:11:40.870 from drip coffee to pour over. And crucially, 00:11:41.029 --> 00:11:43.389 the police start patrolling more often because 00:11:43.389 --> 00:11:45.490 these new residents call them about things the 00:11:45.490 --> 00:11:47.809 old residents never would have. And that increased 00:11:47.809 --> 00:11:50.490 police presence paves the way for the final stage. 00:11:50.750 --> 00:11:53.399 Stage three. Super gentrification. The sharks 00:11:53.399 --> 00:11:56.700 arrive. The sharks arrive. The financiers. The 00:11:56.700 --> 00:12:00.700 lawyers. The tech executives. The big developers 00:12:00.700 --> 00:12:03.440 who buy whole blocks. Real estate prices don't 00:12:03.440 --> 00:12:05.759 just creep up anymore, they explode. And the 00:12:05.759 --> 00:12:08.320 tragic irony is that this stage displaces everyone. 00:12:09.000 --> 00:12:11.279 It kicks out the original long -term low -income 00:12:11.279 --> 00:12:13.399 residents, of course. That's a given. But it 00:12:13.399 --> 00:12:15.360 also kicks out the artists and the teachers who 00:12:15.360 --> 00:12:18.059 started the whole process. The pioneers get pushed 00:12:18.059 --> 00:12:20.179 out by the settlers. The neighborhood becomes 00:12:20.179 --> 00:12:22.480 too expensive for the very people who made it 00:12:22.480 --> 00:12:25.159 desirable in the first place. And we see this 00:12:25.159 --> 00:12:28.159 perfectly in Soho, New York. Oh, Soho is the 00:12:28.159 --> 00:12:31.019 prototype, the textbook example. In the 60s and 00:12:31.019 --> 00:12:34.259 70s, Soho was a wasteland of abandoned textile 00:12:34.259 --> 00:12:37.299 factories. It was called Hell's Hundred Acres. 00:12:37.919 --> 00:12:41.639 It was dark, dangerous, and empty at night. And 00:12:41.639 --> 00:12:43.940 the artists moved in? They moved in illegally. 00:12:43.940 --> 00:12:45.440 It was illegal to live in those manufacturing 00:12:45.440 --> 00:12:48.080 buildings, but it was dirt cheap. And they turned 00:12:48.080 --> 00:12:50.379 those massive cast iron lofts into studios and 00:12:50.379 --> 00:12:53.620 living spaces. They literally created the loft 00:12:53.620 --> 00:12:56.299 living aesthetic from scratch. And now, if you 00:12:56.299 --> 00:12:58.220 walk through Soho today. Now it is an outdoor 00:12:58.220 --> 00:13:00.620 shopping mall for global luxury brands. Chanel, 00:13:00.840 --> 00:13:03.779 Prada, Louis Vuitton. The lofts are owned by 00:13:03.779 --> 00:13:05.600 hedge fund managers who live there maybe two 00:13:05.600 --> 00:13:08.639 weeks a year. There are essentially zero starving 00:13:08.639 --> 00:13:11.279 artists living in Soho today. It's the authenticity 00:13:11.279 --> 00:13:14.220 trap. We consume the thing we love until it's 00:13:14.220 --> 00:13:17.320 gone. But I want to zoom in on two specific demographic 00:13:17.320 --> 00:13:19.360 drivers the sources mentioned because they surprised 00:13:19.360 --> 00:13:22.399 me. OK. First, the role of women. The sources 00:13:22.399 --> 00:13:24.679 argue that the rise of feminism and the changing 00:13:24.679 --> 00:13:27.299 workforce are actually major drivers of gentrification. 00:13:27.399 --> 00:13:29.559 How does that work? It's a fascinating connection. 00:13:30.019 --> 00:13:32.720 If you think about the post -war suburbs, the 00:13:32.720 --> 00:13:36.320 1950s ideal, they were built on a very specific 00:13:36.320 --> 00:13:39.440 family model. The nuclear family. Husband drives 00:13:39.440 --> 00:13:42.220 the city to work. The wife stays home. Right. 00:13:42.299 --> 00:13:45.019 The entire layout of the suburbs assumes there 00:13:45.019 --> 00:13:47.799 is someone at home full time to manage the house, 00:13:47.899 --> 00:13:51.039 the kids, the shopping. It's isolated. You need 00:13:51.039 --> 00:13:52.960 a car for absolutely everything. It's incredibly 00:13:52.960 --> 00:13:54.940 inefficient if you're a working parent. Exactly. 00:13:55.080 --> 00:13:58.279 So fast forward to the 70s, 80s, and 90s. Women 00:13:58.279 --> 00:14:00.559 are entering the workforce in massive numbers, 00:14:00.600 --> 00:14:03.220 and specifically they're entering high -earning 00:14:03.220 --> 00:14:06.179 professional fields, law, medicine, corporate 00:14:06.179 --> 00:14:08.500 business. So now you have a dual -income household 00:14:08.500 --> 00:14:10.799 or a single mother who works full -time. And 00:14:10.799 --> 00:14:12.820 for that woman, the suburbs are a logistical 00:14:12.820 --> 00:14:15.279 nightmare. The commute eats up two hours of your 00:14:15.279 --> 00:14:18.120 day. The child care is miles away from the office. 00:14:18.159 --> 00:14:20.340 The grocery store is miles away from the daycare. 00:14:20.460 --> 00:14:22.980 It just doesn't work. So the inner city becomes 00:14:22.980 --> 00:14:25.080 the solution. The inner city offers proximity. 00:14:25.659 --> 00:14:28.000 It allows you to combine your paid labor, your 00:14:28.000 --> 00:14:31.240 career, and your unpaid labor parenting, household 00:14:31.240 --> 00:14:34.419 management, within a very small geographic radius. 00:14:34.740 --> 00:14:37.340 You can walk to the daycare. You can grab dinner 00:14:37.340 --> 00:14:40.000 on the way home from the office. The gentrification 00:14:40.000 --> 00:14:43.480 of the inner city was, in large part, a direct 00:14:43.480 --> 00:14:46.039 response to the time management crisis of working 00:14:46.039 --> 00:14:48.299 women. That makes so much sense. It's not just 00:14:48.299 --> 00:14:50.460 about style. It's about survival and logistics. 00:14:51.059 --> 00:14:53.399 And the second group that plays a huge role is 00:14:53.399 --> 00:14:56.899 the LGBTQ plus community. We've all heard the 00:14:56.899 --> 00:15:00.759 term gayborhood. This is a really complex and. 00:15:02.219 --> 00:15:05.240 often fraught dynamic. The sources cite Manuel 00:15:05.240 --> 00:15:08.299 Castel's research on San Francisco. Historically, 00:15:08.299 --> 00:15:11.279 gay men moved into working class, often run -down 00:15:11.279 --> 00:15:14.019 neighborhoods, not to get rich, but to be safe. 00:15:14.200 --> 00:15:15.899 They needed a sanctuary. They needed a place 00:15:15.899 --> 00:15:17.700 where they could live together, build a community, 00:15:17.879 --> 00:15:20.000 open their own bars and businesses, and walk 00:15:20.000 --> 00:15:21.600 down the street holding hands without looking 00:15:21.600 --> 00:15:23.679 over their shoulder. So they moved into places 00:15:23.679 --> 00:15:26.120 like the Castro in San Francisco when nobody 00:15:26.120 --> 00:15:28.299 else wanted those Victorian houses. Exactly. 00:15:28.919 --> 00:15:30.740 And they renovated them with their own hands, 00:15:30.840 --> 00:15:33.120 with their own money. They poured love and care 00:15:33.120 --> 00:15:35.480 into these properties and built a real community 00:15:35.480 --> 00:15:37.919 infrastructure. But the sources point out a tension 00:15:37.919 --> 00:15:40.960 here, a real double -edged sword. Yes. Because 00:15:40.960 --> 00:15:43.039 while they were marginalized for their sexuality, 00:15:43.500 --> 00:15:46.279 many of the early gay pioneers in places like 00:15:46.279 --> 00:15:49.019 San Francisco or Columbus, Ohio, were white men 00:15:49.019 --> 00:15:52.159 with steady professional incomes. Right. So they 00:15:52.159 --> 00:15:55.450 often had racial and economic privilege. compared 00:15:55.450 --> 00:15:58.090 to the Black or Latino residents who are already 00:15:58.090 --> 00:15:59.990 living in those neighborhoods. So you have one 00:15:59.990 --> 00:16:02.809 marginalized group unintentionally displacing 00:16:02.809 --> 00:16:05.330 another marginalized group. That is often the 00:16:05.330 --> 00:16:08.029 friction point. In Columbus, for example, sources 00:16:08.029 --> 00:16:11.690 describe how the influx of affluent white LGBTQ 00:16:11.690 --> 00:16:15.070 plus residents into a historically Black neighborhood 00:16:15.070 --> 00:16:18.190 was viewed by some long -term residents as just 00:16:18.190 --> 00:16:21.009 another wave of white displacement. The rainbow 00:16:21.009 --> 00:16:23.429 flag didn't necessarily signal safety for everyone 00:16:23.429 --> 00:16:25.309 who lived there. And just like with the artists, 00:16:25.629 --> 00:16:28.129 the gayborhood eventually eats itself. It does. 00:16:28.289 --> 00:16:30.929 The neighborhood becomes safe. It becomes cool 00:16:30.929 --> 00:16:33.409 and becomes trendy. The pink dollar attracts 00:16:33.409 --> 00:16:36.389 corporate investment. Rents rise. And suddenly 00:16:36.389 --> 00:16:38.429 the queer bookstore, the drag bar, the community 00:16:38.429 --> 00:16:41.009 center, they can't afford the rent anymore. So 00:16:41.009 --> 00:16:44.590 we're seeing the death of the gayborhood in cities 00:16:44.590 --> 00:16:47.370 all over the world. We are. The community is 00:16:47.370 --> 00:16:49.509 being priced out of the very sanctuary it built 00:16:49.509 --> 00:16:51.769 for itself. It seems like every version of the 00:16:51.769 --> 00:16:55.029 story ends the same way. The money wins. But 00:16:55.029 --> 00:16:56.970 let's look at the money. Let's talk about the 00:16:56.970 --> 00:16:59.429 mechanics. Because capital doesn't just accidentally 00:16:59.429 --> 00:17:02.149 flood into a neighborhood. There is a mechanism. 00:17:02.590 --> 00:17:05.150 And the sources point to a really important theory 00:17:05.150 --> 00:17:07.650 called the rent gap. This is the engine room. 00:17:07.849 --> 00:17:09.589 If you want to understand why gentrification 00:17:09.589 --> 00:17:12.150 happens where it happens, you have to understand 00:17:12.150 --> 00:17:15.349 the rent gap. It was a theory popularized by 00:17:15.349 --> 00:17:17.829 the geographer Neil Smith. Okay, break it down 00:17:17.829 --> 00:17:21.470 for us. Imagine I'm a developer looking at a 00:17:21.470 --> 00:17:24.069 city. Okay. You are looking at a building in 00:17:24.069 --> 00:17:26.049 a disinvested neighborhood. Maybe it's an old 00:17:26.049 --> 00:17:28.369 tenement building. It's run down. The roof leaks. 00:17:28.710 --> 00:17:31.289 The current tenants are low income, paying maybe 00:17:31.289 --> 00:17:34.069 a few hundred dollars a month. The rent you can 00:17:34.069 --> 00:17:36.829 collect from this building right now, what economists 00:17:36.829 --> 00:17:40.150 call the capitalized ground rent, is very, very 00:17:40.150 --> 00:17:42.950 low. So on paper, it looks like a bad asset. 00:17:43.009 --> 00:17:45.069 It's not making much money. To a normal person, 00:17:45.150 --> 00:17:48.190 yes. But to an investor, you aren't looking at 00:17:48.190 --> 00:17:50.309 what it is. You are looking at what it could 00:17:50.309 --> 00:17:52.829 be. The potential. You are looking at the potential 00:17:52.829 --> 00:17:57.069 ground rent. If you evicted everyone, gutted 00:17:57.069 --> 00:17:59.710 the building, put in hardwood floors and stainless 00:17:59.710 --> 00:18:02.049 steel appliances and granite countertops, and 00:18:02.049 --> 00:18:04.750 rented it to a lawyer, what would it be worth 00:18:04.750 --> 00:18:07.950 then? A lot more. A whole lot more. That difference. 00:18:08.569 --> 00:18:11.329 The gap between the current low value and the 00:18:11.329 --> 00:18:14.769 potential high value, that is the rent gap. So 00:18:14.769 --> 00:18:17.069 paradoxically, the worse a neighborhood gets, 00:18:17.170 --> 00:18:19.589 the more rundown and devalued it becomes, the 00:18:19.589 --> 00:18:21.809 bigger the rent gap gets. Exactly. And this is 00:18:21.809 --> 00:18:23.890 the dark cynicism of the real estate market. 00:18:24.349 --> 00:18:27.309 A neighborhood has to hit rock bottom. To become 00:18:27.309 --> 00:18:29.630 a good investment. The decay is what creates 00:18:29.630 --> 00:18:31.970 the opportunity. Right. And deindustrialization 00:18:31.970 --> 00:18:34.690 played a huge role here. In the 70s and 80s, 00:18:34.690 --> 00:18:36.569 when the factories closed in these inner cities, 00:18:36.769 --> 00:18:39.029 working class people lost their incomes. They 00:18:39.029 --> 00:18:41.509 couldn't pay high rent. Landlords stopped maintaining 00:18:41.509 --> 00:18:43.049 the buildings because they weren't making money. 00:18:43.190 --> 00:18:45.589 So the housing stock decayed. And that decay 00:18:45.589 --> 00:18:48.779 created the value valley. It widened the rent 00:18:48.779 --> 00:18:51.619 gap. It created the potential for massive, massive 00:18:51.619 --> 00:18:54.660 profit. If the gap is small, if a neighborhood 00:18:54.660 --> 00:18:57.359 is already stable and middle class. There is 00:18:57.359 --> 00:19:00.119 no real money to be made. Developers need the 00:19:00.119 --> 00:19:02.420 gap. They need the decay to be able to make their 00:19:02.420 --> 00:19:04.819 return. So they wait for the gap to widen and 00:19:04.819 --> 00:19:07.779 then snap the capital trap shuts. That brings 00:19:07.779 --> 00:19:11.960 us to the impact, the human cost. Because if 00:19:11.960 --> 00:19:13.779 I asked a random person on the street, what is 00:19:13.779 --> 00:19:15.920 the worst thing about gentrification? They would 00:19:15.920 --> 00:19:18.099 say displacement. Without a doubt. They would 00:19:18.099 --> 00:19:19.759 say it kicks poor people out of their homes. 00:19:19.839 --> 00:19:22.259 It's the defining narrative. It is. But this 00:19:22.259 --> 00:19:25.519 is where the deep dive gets really tricky. Because 00:19:25.519 --> 00:19:28.579 the data. The data doesn't always back that narrative 00:19:28.579 --> 00:19:30.359 up in the way you'd think. I have to say, I was 00:19:30.359 --> 00:19:32.460 really skeptical when I read this part. How can 00:19:32.460 --> 00:19:34.779 the data not show displacement? It seems obvious. 00:19:34.900 --> 00:19:37.420 It's incredibly counterintuitive. The sources 00:19:37.420 --> 00:19:40.180 cite a number of studies by economists like Jacob 00:19:40.180 --> 00:19:42.819 Vigdor and Lance Freeman and a more recent 2023 00:19:42.819 --> 00:19:45.940 Princeton study. Yeah. And they looked at eviction 00:19:45.940 --> 00:19:48.059 rates and mobility patterns. And what did they 00:19:48.059 --> 00:19:51.240 find? They found that often the probability of 00:19:51.240 --> 00:19:53.220 a poor household moving out of a gentrifying 00:19:53.220 --> 00:19:56.420 neighborhood. is actually lower, or the same, 00:19:56.559 --> 00:19:58.779 as the probability of a poor household moving 00:19:58.779 --> 00:20:00.759 out of a non -gentrifying poor neighborhood. 00:20:00.900 --> 00:20:03.779 Wait, hang on. How is that possible? If my rent 00:20:03.779 --> 00:20:07.440 doubles, I leave. It's simple math. Well, first 00:20:07.440 --> 00:20:09.660 you have to understand the baseline. Poor neighborhoods 00:20:09.660 --> 00:20:11.799 that aren't gentrifying are incredibly unstable 00:20:11.799 --> 00:20:14.480 places. Okay. People are constantly moving because 00:20:14.480 --> 00:20:17.299 of financial distress, job loss, poor housing 00:20:17.299 --> 00:20:20.880 conditions, crime or eviction. It's a constant 00:20:20.880 --> 00:20:24.420 revolving door of crisis. Life is precarious. 00:20:24.480 --> 00:20:27.400 So the baseline is already chaos and high turnover. 00:20:27.680 --> 00:20:29.619 Right. So when a neighborhood starts to gentrify, 00:20:29.759 --> 00:20:31.900 some of the existing residents actually fight 00:20:31.900 --> 00:20:34.619 harder to stay. They see the improvements, the 00:20:34.619 --> 00:20:36.900 safer streets, the better grocery stores, the 00:20:36.900 --> 00:20:39.759 cleaner parks, and they value them. They double 00:20:39.759 --> 00:20:41.339 up. They get roommates. They do whatever they 00:20:41.339 --> 00:20:43.200 can to hold on because the neighborhood is finally 00:20:43.200 --> 00:20:45.029 getting better. But people are disappearing. 00:20:45.390 --> 00:20:47.710 We see the demographics flip. A neighborhood 00:20:47.710 --> 00:20:50.230 goes from 80 percent black to 80 percent white 00:20:50.230 --> 00:20:52.970 in a decade. If they aren't all being evicted 00:20:52.970 --> 00:20:55.410 at higher rates, where are they going? This is 00:20:55.410 --> 00:20:57.009 the concept you need to burn into your brain. 00:20:57.869 --> 00:21:00.549 Exclusionary displacement. Exclusionary displacement. 00:21:00.710 --> 00:21:03.589 OK, unpack that for me. Think of it less like 00:21:03.589 --> 00:21:05.529 an eviction notice and more like a locked door. 00:21:06.049 --> 00:21:08.309 In any neighborhood, there is natural turnover. 00:21:08.569 --> 00:21:11.549 People move. A low -income family moves out because 00:21:11.549 --> 00:21:14.069 the dad got a job in another state, or the kids 00:21:14.069 --> 00:21:16.509 are grown. Sure, that happens everywhere. In 00:21:16.509 --> 00:21:18.650 the past, another low -income family would have 00:21:18.650 --> 00:21:20.930 moved into that empty apartment. The cycle would 00:21:20.930 --> 00:21:23.819 continue. But in a gentrifying neighborhood, 00:21:24.019 --> 00:21:26.240 when that low -income family moves out for whatever 00:21:26.240 --> 00:21:28.859 reason, the landlord doesn't rent it to another 00:21:28.859 --> 00:21:31.519 low -income family. No, they renovate it. They 00:21:31.519 --> 00:21:33.880 triple the price. Exactly. And a rich family 00:21:33.880 --> 00:21:36.119 moves in. So the poor family wasn't technically 00:21:36.119 --> 00:21:39.420 kicked out by the landlord, but no poor family 00:21:39.420 --> 00:21:41.579 can ever move in again. The door locks behind 00:21:41.579 --> 00:21:44.640 them. The housing stock available to low -income 00:21:44.640 --> 00:21:47.700 people shrinks unit by unit, not through mass 00:21:47.700 --> 00:21:50.319 evictions, but through attrition. Over a decade, 00:21:50.380 --> 00:21:53.519 the community just vanishes. That's it. It's 00:21:53.519 --> 00:21:56.519 insidious. It's invisible displacement. You can't 00:21:56.519 --> 00:21:58.259 photograph an eviction notice that was never 00:21:58.259 --> 00:22:01.099 served. And it explains why the eviction data 00:22:01.099 --> 00:22:03.859 might look stable while the lived reality on 00:22:03.859 --> 00:22:06.480 the ground feels like a complete erasure. Precisely. 00:22:06.599 --> 00:22:09.019 There is another form of displacement that feels 00:22:09.019 --> 00:22:12.380 very political, and it was in the research. School 00:22:12.380 --> 00:22:14.680 gentrification section really frustrated me. 00:22:14.740 --> 00:22:17.140 It is a massive issue in the United States, especially. 00:22:17.599 --> 00:22:20.819 You have a wave of white affluent gentrifiers 00:22:20.819 --> 00:22:22.960 moving into a neighborhood. They buy the houses. 00:22:23.059 --> 00:22:25.819 They fix them up. They love the diversity. But 00:22:25.819 --> 00:22:27.519 they don't send their kids to the local public 00:22:27.519 --> 00:22:29.720 school. They don't. They use private schools 00:22:29.720 --> 00:22:32.259 or they use the school choice system to get into 00:22:32.259 --> 00:22:34.740 a charter school or a magnet school across town. 00:22:35.069 --> 00:22:37.569 So you have this bifurcated community. The new 00:22:37.569 --> 00:22:39.750 residents live there, but their lives are completely 00:22:39.750 --> 00:22:41.930 separate from the long -term residents. But, 00:22:41.930 --> 00:22:44.589 and this is the kicker, they still want control. 00:22:45.009 --> 00:22:48.130 The research shows these new, affluent parents, 00:22:48.410 --> 00:22:50.529 whose kids don't even go to the local school, 00:22:50.789 --> 00:22:53.609 often take over the parent -teacher organization, 00:22:54.029 --> 00:22:56.750 the PTO, or they run for the local school board. 00:22:56.910 --> 00:22:59.309 So they are literally governing a school their 00:22:59.309 --> 00:23:02.230 own children do not and will never attend. Yes. 00:23:03.009 --> 00:23:06.190 Or... They use their political power to shift 00:23:06.190 --> 00:23:09.069 the priorities of the entire district to benefit 00:23:09.069 --> 00:23:12.529 the schools their kids do attend. And financially, 00:23:12.750 --> 00:23:15.089 it can be a disaster for that local neighborhood 00:23:15.089 --> 00:23:17.609 school. How so? In the U .S., there's something 00:23:17.609 --> 00:23:20.509 called Title I funding. This is federal money 00:23:20.509 --> 00:23:23.549 given to schools specifically based on the poverty 00:23:23.549 --> 00:23:25.650 level of the student body. I see where this is 00:23:25.650 --> 00:23:27.690 going. If the average income of the zip code 00:23:27.690 --> 00:23:30.109 rises because of all the new wealthy residents, 00:23:30.639 --> 00:23:33.740 the school might lose that crucial poverty funding. 00:23:33.880 --> 00:23:36.079 Even if the actual students in the classrooms 00:23:36.079 --> 00:23:39.259 are still predominantly low income. Exactly. 00:23:39.319 --> 00:23:41.599 So the low income kids who are still there, the 00:23:41.599 --> 00:23:43.680 ones who need that money the most for free lunches, 00:23:43.680 --> 00:23:46.220 for tutoring, for after school programs, suddenly 00:23:46.220 --> 00:23:48.480 see their programs cut because the neighborhood 00:23:48.480 --> 00:23:51.309 looks rich on a census form. That is the ultimate 00:23:51.309 --> 00:23:53.809 insult. You get all the downsides of gentrification, 00:23:54.109 --> 00:23:56.650 the higher prices, feeling out of place, and 00:23:56.650 --> 00:23:58.809 your school loses money on top of it all. And 00:23:58.809 --> 00:24:02.309 that feeling of being out of place, it has real 00:24:02.309 --> 00:24:04.829 health consequences. The sources point to studies 00:24:04.829 --> 00:24:07.069 showing that for children and the elderly who 00:24:07.069 --> 00:24:10.369 stay in gentrifying areas, diagnoses of anxiety 00:24:10.369 --> 00:24:12.910 and depression spike. It's not just financial 00:24:12.910 --> 00:24:15.410 stress. It's the psychological stress of being 00:24:15.410 --> 00:24:17.390 a stranger in your own home. And it's the stress 00:24:17.390 --> 00:24:20.940 of surveillance. We have to talk about crime 00:24:20.940 --> 00:24:24.160 and policing. The common narrative is gentrification 00:24:24.160 --> 00:24:27.319 brings down crime. And statistically, in the 00:24:27.319 --> 00:24:30.140 short term, that is often true. But at what cost? 00:24:30.299 --> 00:24:32.539 The cost is a change in the nature of policing. 00:24:33.019 --> 00:24:35.160 New residents have different norms, different 00:24:35.160 --> 00:24:37.579 expectations. They call the police on things 00:24:37.579 --> 00:24:39.779 the original residents wouldn't. Like what? They 00:24:39.779 --> 00:24:42.059 call the cops on noise from a backyard barbecue. 00:24:42.240 --> 00:24:44.799 They call the cops on teenagers hanging out in 00:24:44.799 --> 00:24:46.539 the corner. Something that might have been a 00:24:46.539 --> 00:24:49.440 community norm for decades. The suspicious person 00:24:49.440 --> 00:24:51.980 reports go through the roof. Exactly. And who 00:24:51.980 --> 00:24:54.240 is usually labeled suspicious in these contexts? 00:24:54.559 --> 00:24:56.980 Young men of color. Suddenly the local kids are 00:24:56.980 --> 00:24:59.180 being stopped and frisked constantly because 00:24:59.180 --> 00:25:01.759 a new resident feels unsafe just seeing them 00:25:01.759 --> 00:25:05.480 exist. So the neighborhood becomes a police state 00:25:05.480 --> 00:25:07.460 for the original residents, so it can feel like 00:25:07.460 --> 00:25:09.599 a sanctuary for the new ones. That's a very good 00:25:09.599 --> 00:25:11.279 way of putting it. It's a fundamental culture 00:25:11.279 --> 00:25:14.420 clash played out through 911 calls. This is a 00:25:14.420 --> 00:25:17.319 heavy picture. And I think, especially for us, 00:25:17.440 --> 00:25:19.740 it's easy to view this through a very American 00:25:19.740 --> 00:25:23.180 lens. We think of Brooklyn. We think of D .C., 00:25:23.180 --> 00:25:27.589 of San Francisco. Section five of our deep dive 00:25:27.589 --> 00:25:30.250 takes us around the world. And honestly, some 00:25:30.250 --> 00:25:32.170 of the global stories are even more intense. 00:25:32.450 --> 00:25:35.130 They really are. Let's start with London, where 00:25:35.130 --> 00:25:37.349 the term was born. London is operating on a different 00:25:37.349 --> 00:25:40.029 level now, isn't it? Entirely. We talked about 00:25:40.029 --> 00:25:42.569 Ruth Glass and Islington in the 60s. That was 00:25:42.569 --> 00:25:46.069 middle class displacing working class. But researchers 00:25:46.069 --> 00:25:48.769 now are studying super gentrification in places 00:25:48.769 --> 00:25:51.259 like Barnesbury. What makes it super? It's no 00:25:51.259 --> 00:25:53.119 longer the middle class displacing the working 00:25:53.119 --> 00:25:56.380 class. It is the global financial elite displacing 00:25:56.380 --> 00:25:59.140 the affluent middle class. We are talking about 00:25:59.140 --> 00:26:03.380 banker bonus territory. Russian oligarchs, Saudi 00:26:03.380 --> 00:26:05.400 princes. So the teachers and the architects, 00:26:05.539 --> 00:26:07.240 the stage two people we talked about, they're 00:26:07.240 --> 00:26:09.799 getting kicked out now. Absolutely. If you don't 00:26:09.799 --> 00:26:11.980 work in high finance in the city of London, you 00:26:11.980 --> 00:26:14.559 cannot afford to live there. The sources mentioned 00:26:14.559 --> 00:26:16.819 that rising prices in London led to a doubling 00:26:16.819 --> 00:26:19.819 of evictions by private landlords in just a few 00:26:19.819 --> 00:26:22.480 years. It is a ruthless market where a house 00:26:22.480 --> 00:26:24.720 isn't a home. It's just an asset on a global 00:26:24.720 --> 00:26:26.279 balance sheet. And then you have a place like 00:26:26.279 --> 00:26:29.220 Mexico City. This is a very specific, very modern 00:26:29.220 --> 00:26:31.940 phenomenon, the digital nomad. This is the post 00:26:31.940 --> 00:26:34.099 -COVID acceleration of a trend that was already 00:26:34.099 --> 00:26:36.339 happening. You have neighborhoods like Condesa 00:26:36.339 --> 00:26:38.980 and Roma. They're beautiful, leafy, historic 00:26:38.980 --> 00:26:43.740 districts. Suddenly, they are flooded with Americans 00:26:43.740 --> 00:26:46.539 and Europeans working remotely on their laptops 00:26:46.539 --> 00:26:48.539 in cafes. And they're bringing their salaries 00:26:48.539 --> 00:26:50.740 with them. It's dollarization. That's the key 00:26:50.740 --> 00:26:53.720 word. If I am earning a San Francisco tech salary. 00:26:54.119 --> 00:26:57.880 In U .S. dollars, a $2 ,000 a month rent in Mexico 00:26:57.880 --> 00:27:00.240 City feels like an absolute bargain. I'll pay 00:27:00.240 --> 00:27:02.039 it without blinking. But for a local earning 00:27:02.039 --> 00:27:05.119 in Mexican pesos. For the local, that is an impossible 00:27:05.119 --> 00:27:07.400 sum. It's three or four times the average local 00:27:07.400 --> 00:27:10.160 wage. So the entire rental market gets distorted 00:27:10.160 --> 00:27:12.740 and re -pegged to the U .S. dollar. And it creates 00:27:12.740 --> 00:27:16.140 a weird social friction. A huge friction. Suddenly, 00:27:16.220 --> 00:27:18.460 all the menus are in English. The waiters are 00:27:18.460 --> 00:27:20.579 expected to speak English. The whole neighborhood 00:27:20.579 --> 00:27:22.680 starts to cater to foreigners who are just passing 00:27:22.680 --> 00:27:26.190 through. And the sources mentioned violent protests 00:27:26.190 --> 00:27:30.289 that broke out for July of 2025. Violent? Yes, 00:27:30.369 --> 00:27:33.009 where locals physically clashed with tourists 00:27:33.009 --> 00:27:35.829 and digital nomads. The grievance wasn't just 00:27:35.829 --> 00:27:38.230 about rent. It was about being erased in your 00:27:38.230 --> 00:27:40.210 own city. And being pushed out to the margins. 00:27:40.549 --> 00:27:43.109 Exactly. It forces locals to the periphery of 00:27:43.109 --> 00:27:46.210 the city, to places with no reliable water infrastructure, 00:27:46.549 --> 00:27:49.470 two -hour commutes on crowded buses. It's a form 00:27:49.470 --> 00:27:52.319 of invisible social segregation. Speaking of 00:27:52.319 --> 00:27:54.160 segregation, we have to talk about South Africa. 00:27:54.339 --> 00:27:56.500 Given the history of apartheid, gentrification 00:27:56.500 --> 00:27:58.660 there carries a completely different and much 00:27:58.660 --> 00:28:01.880 heavier weight. It is deeply tragic. Under apartheid, 00:28:01.880 --> 00:28:03.519 the government legally decided where you could 00:28:03.519 --> 00:28:05.900 live based on your race. They used the Group 00:28:05.900 --> 00:28:09.079 Areas Act to bulldoze vibrant non -white neighborhoods. 00:28:09.400 --> 00:28:11.740 That ended in the 90s legally. Legally, yes. 00:28:11.960 --> 00:28:14.559 But activists there now argue that financial 00:28:14.559 --> 00:28:17.380 apartheid has simply replaced racial zoning. 00:28:17.559 --> 00:28:20.069 So you can legally live anywhere. But you can 00:28:20.069 --> 00:28:21.849 only afford to live in the same places you were 00:28:21.849 --> 00:28:24.750 forced to before. Precisely. Look at the Bocap 00:28:24.750 --> 00:28:26.930 neighborhood in Cape Town. Yeah. It is famous 00:28:26.930 --> 00:28:29.549 for those brightly colored houses and cobblestone 00:28:29.549 --> 00:28:32.670 streets. It is the historic center of the Cape 00:28:32.670 --> 00:28:35.690 Malay Muslim community. It survived apartheid, 00:28:35.690 --> 00:28:38.569 but now... It's too pretty for its own good. 00:28:38.650 --> 00:28:41.069 It's become picturesque. It's picturesque. It's 00:28:41.069 --> 00:28:43.920 Instagrammable. And wealthy outsiders, mostly 00:28:43.920 --> 00:28:46.420 white South Africans and Europeans, want to buy 00:28:46.420 --> 00:28:49.200 the colorful houses. And the tactics used to 00:28:49.200 --> 00:28:51.519 get people out are just brutal. What do you mean? 00:28:51.680 --> 00:28:54.059 In the nearby Woodstock district, sources described 00:28:54.059 --> 00:28:56.599 landlords on a street called Gimpy Street cutting 00:28:56.599 --> 00:28:59.440 off water and electricity to buildings, illegal 00:28:59.440 --> 00:29:02.759 lockouts, to force long -term rent -paying tenants 00:29:02.759 --> 00:29:05.220 to leave so they can renovate and flip the properties. 00:29:05.500 --> 00:29:08.119 That is basically biological warfare, cutting 00:29:08.119 --> 00:29:10.160 off someone's water. It shows you how high the 00:29:10.160 --> 00:29:12.569 stakes are. When the rent gap is big enough, 00:29:12.730 --> 00:29:14.869 the humanity of the tenant becomes an obstacle 00:29:14.869 --> 00:29:18.069 to be removed. We see a similar story of physical 00:29:18.069 --> 00:29:21.009 erasure in Canada. I had never even heard of 00:29:21.009 --> 00:29:23.529 Hogan's Alley in Vancouver. Most people haven't, 00:29:23.529 --> 00:29:25.829 and that's the point. It doesn't exist anymore. 00:29:26.630 --> 00:29:29.289 It was Vancouver's first and only concentrated 00:29:29.289 --> 00:29:32.170 black community. It was a vibrant hub of jazz 00:29:32.170 --> 00:29:34.450 clubs and restaurants. And what happened? In 00:29:34.450 --> 00:29:38.269 the 1960s, the city bulldozed it to build a viaduct 00:29:38.269 --> 00:29:41.369 to highway ramp. That is state -sponsored gentrification. 00:29:41.670 --> 00:29:43.890 It's urban renewal used as a weapon. They officially 00:29:43.890 --> 00:29:46.990 labeled it a slum to justify destroying it. And 00:29:46.990 --> 00:29:49.970 we're still seeing it. In St. Roche, Quebec City, 00:29:50.130 --> 00:29:51.549 it used to be a working -class neighborhood. 00:29:51.869 --> 00:29:54.269 Then the government lured in Ubisoft and other 00:29:54.269 --> 00:29:56.809 tech companies. The creative class strategy. 00:29:57.089 --> 00:29:59.150 Right. Bring in the video game developers. It 00:29:59.150 --> 00:30:01.329 sounds great for the economy, but the generational 00:30:01.329 --> 00:30:03.390 residents of St. Roche suddenly find themselves 00:30:03.390 --> 00:30:05.750 living in a tech campus they can't afford and 00:30:05.750 --> 00:30:07.789 where they no longer feel welcome. It's the same 00:30:07.789 --> 00:30:11.849 pattern everywhere. Poland, Italy, Lodz in Poland, 00:30:11.910 --> 00:30:15.470 turning old textile factories into lofts. Milan's 00:30:15.470 --> 00:30:17.609 Isola district, which used to be isolated by 00:30:17.609 --> 00:30:20.450 railways, literally an island. Now it's home 00:30:20.450 --> 00:30:23.390 to those futuristic vertical forest skyscrapers. 00:30:23.470 --> 00:30:25.990 The pattern is global industrial collapse, decay, 00:30:26.369 --> 00:30:29.490 rent gap, rebranding, displacement. It's a formula. 00:30:29.670 --> 00:30:31.950 But and this is where the story gets really heated. 00:30:32.109 --> 00:30:34.309 People aren't just watching this happen. Section 00:30:34.309 --> 00:30:37.279 six is about the backlash. And some of these 00:30:37.279 --> 00:30:39.099 protests are wild. We have to talk about the 00:30:39.099 --> 00:30:42.359 Serial Killer Cafe. This is a classic case study 00:30:42.359 --> 00:30:45.019 in symbolic protest. This was in London, 2015, 00:30:45.319 --> 00:30:47.920 in Shoreditch. Okay, set the scene for us. Shoreditch 00:30:47.920 --> 00:30:51.039 was traditionally a poor, gritty, East End neighborhood. 00:30:51.400 --> 00:30:54.380 Then the hipsters moved in, and then these two 00:30:54.380 --> 00:30:57.099 brothers opened a cafe, and the only thing they 00:30:57.099 --> 00:31:00.559 sell is cereal. Like, just milk and cereal. Yeah. 00:31:00.859 --> 00:31:04.279 From a box? Yes. Sugary, nostalgic, mostly American 00:31:04.279 --> 00:31:07.160 cereal. Fruit Loops, Lucky Charms, Captain Crunch. 00:31:07.440 --> 00:31:09.759 But they were charging four or five pounds a 00:31:09.759 --> 00:31:12.680 bowl. Five pounds for a bowl of cereal? In a 00:31:12.680 --> 00:31:14.099 neighborhood where there are children living 00:31:14.099 --> 00:31:16.500 in poverty. Exactly. It became a lightning rod. 00:31:16.660 --> 00:31:19.140 It was the ultimate symbol of hipster indulgence. 00:31:19.180 --> 00:31:22.220 It was childish. It was arrogant. And one night, 00:31:22.279 --> 00:31:25.660 a mob of anti -gentrification protesters descended 00:31:25.660 --> 00:31:28.119 on the cafe. This wasn't a peaceful picket line 00:31:28.119 --> 00:31:30.980 from what I read. No. This was organized chaos. 00:31:31.339 --> 00:31:33.319 They had torches. They had pig's heads on sticks. 00:31:33.660 --> 00:31:36.960 Pig's heads. Yes. It was meant to be visceral 00:31:36.960 --> 00:31:39.440 and terrifying. They threw paint bombs at the 00:31:39.440 --> 00:31:42.799 windows. They set off smoke bombs. They terrorized 00:31:42.799 --> 00:31:45.500 the customers inside. It was never really about 00:31:45.500 --> 00:31:48.599 the cereal. It was about the insult. It was about 00:31:48.599 --> 00:31:51.119 the insult. The cereal represented a class of 00:31:51.119 --> 00:31:53.880 people who had so much disposable income, they 00:31:53.880 --> 00:31:57.099 could treat a basic foodstuff as an ironic, expensive 00:31:57.099 --> 00:31:59.960 joke right in the face of people who were struggling 00:31:59.960 --> 00:32:03.680 to eat. It's symbolic vandalism. And we saw another, 00:32:03.779 --> 00:32:06.019 maybe even more tone deaf disaster in Denver, 00:32:06.140 --> 00:32:09.279 the ink coffee scandal. Oh, this one just makes 00:32:09.279 --> 00:32:11.119 me wince every time I read about it. This was 00:32:11.119 --> 00:32:14.619 2017, Five Points, Denver. Historically, this 00:32:14.619 --> 00:32:17.380 was the Harlem of the West. Yeah. A crucial black 00:32:17.380 --> 00:32:19.880 cultural hub. And this coffee shop opens up. 00:32:19.980 --> 00:32:21.839 And one day they put out a metal sandwich board 00:32:21.839 --> 00:32:24.880 sign on the sidewalk. On one side, it said, happily 00:32:24.880 --> 00:32:27.440 gentrifying the neighborhood since 2014. No, 00:32:27.519 --> 00:32:29.519 they actually wrote that down and put it on the 00:32:29.519 --> 00:32:31.740 street. They did. And the other side said, quote, 00:32:31.880 --> 00:32:34.400 nothing says gentrification like being able to 00:32:34.400 --> 00:32:36.559 order a Cortado. They thought it was funny. They 00:32:36.559 --> 00:32:38.200 thought they were being cheeky and self -aware. 00:32:38.400 --> 00:32:41.440 They thought they were in on the joke. They didn't 00:32:41.440 --> 00:32:43.900 realize that for their neighbors, gentrification 00:32:43.900 --> 00:32:46.720 wasn't a joke. It was an existential threat. 00:32:47.079 --> 00:32:50.299 A photo of the sign went viral almost instantly. 00:32:50.779 --> 00:32:52.880 And the backlash was huge. It was immediate. 00:32:53.019 --> 00:32:56.019 People protested outside the shop for days. It 00:32:56.019 --> 00:32:58.640 was vandalized. Someone spray painted white coffee 00:32:58.640 --> 00:33:01.180 on the window. It became this national news story 00:33:01.180 --> 00:33:04.059 about the sheer arrogance of new businesses moving 00:33:04.059 --> 00:33:06.240 into historic communities. It just shows a total 00:33:06.240 --> 00:33:08.500 lack of empathy. It's treating the neighborhood 00:33:08.500 --> 00:33:11.200 as a playground rather than a community of people. 00:33:11.480 --> 00:33:14.119 And then in San Francisco, the rage turned against 00:33:14.119 --> 00:33:16.599 the tech giants themselves. This was the tech 00:33:16.599 --> 00:33:20.190 bus wars of 2013. The Google buses. Right. these 00:33:20.190 --> 00:33:23.309 massive, sleek, white private shuttles with tinted 00:33:23.309 --> 00:33:26.049 windows. They would drive into the city's diverse 00:33:26.049 --> 00:33:28.150 neighborhoods, like the Mission District, to 00:33:28.150 --> 00:33:30.470 pick up Google and Apple employees and shuttle 00:33:30.470 --> 00:33:32.450 them down to their campuses in Silicon Valley. 00:33:32.589 --> 00:33:35.930 And they used the public city bus stops for free. 00:33:36.250 --> 00:33:39.049 Yes. So imagine you're a local waiting for the 00:33:39.049 --> 00:33:41.170 public bus that's probably late and overcrowded, 00:33:41.230 --> 00:33:43.769 and this gleaming private spaceship pulls up 00:33:43.769 --> 00:33:46.289 to your stop. And the people inside are on Wi 00:33:46.289 --> 00:33:49.769 -Fi, drinking artisanal coffee, completely separated 00:33:49.769 --> 00:33:52.170 from the city they live in, but are also transforming. 00:33:52.250 --> 00:33:55.450 It was a perfect visual representation of a two 00:33:55.450 --> 00:33:59.210 -tiered society. A private infrastructure for 00:33:59.210 --> 00:34:01.970 the rich, overlaid on top of a crumbling public 00:34:01.970 --> 00:34:04.230 one for everyone else. And people attacked the 00:34:04.230 --> 00:34:06.190 buses. They did. They blocked them with their 00:34:06.190 --> 00:34:09.170 bodies. Protesters vomited on the windshields. 00:34:09.170 --> 00:34:11.849 They smashed windows. It was class war manifest 00:34:11.849 --> 00:34:14.530 on a street corner. And sometimes the backlash 00:34:14.530 --> 00:34:17.110 goes even further than protests. In Wales, you 00:34:17.110 --> 00:34:19.670 found a group that actually used arson as a political 00:34:19.670 --> 00:34:22.969 tool. Yes. Mybie and Glinder. The Sons of Glinder. 00:34:23.559 --> 00:34:26.219 This was a campaign that ran from the late 70s 00:34:26.219 --> 00:34:28.840 into the 90s. This wasn't about coffee or cereal. 00:34:28.960 --> 00:34:31.300 This was about language and culture. What was 00:34:31.300 --> 00:34:33.539 the issue? Wealthy English people were buying 00:34:33.539 --> 00:34:36.780 up cottages in Welsh -speaking villages to use 00:34:36.780 --> 00:34:39.199 as holiday homes. Pricing out the locals who 00:34:39.199 --> 00:34:40.880 grew up there. And killing the Welsh language. 00:34:41.059 --> 00:34:43.760 If a village becomes 50 % empty for 10 months 00:34:43.760 --> 00:34:46.300 a year, the school closes, the post office closes, 00:34:46.440 --> 00:34:48.679 the pub closes, and the Welsh language dies. 00:34:49.139 --> 00:34:51.900 It stops being a living community. So what did 00:34:51.900 --> 00:34:54.420 they do? So this group, under the cover of night, 00:34:54.619 --> 00:34:57.739 burned down English -owned holiday cottages, 00:34:57.860 --> 00:35:01.079 hundreds of them, over more than a decade. It 00:35:01.079 --> 00:35:04.280 was a violent nationalist campaign to stop what 00:35:04.280 --> 00:35:06.659 they saw as the cultural erosion of their nation. 00:35:06.840 --> 00:35:09.579 So we have the mechanics, the global pain, and 00:35:09.579 --> 00:35:12.039 the violent rage. The big question remaining 00:35:12.039 --> 00:35:15.980 is, can it be controlled? Is this just the inevitable 00:35:15.980 --> 00:35:18.880 march of capitalism? Or is there a way to improve 00:35:18.880 --> 00:35:21.420 a neighborhood without destroying it? Section 00:35:21.420 --> 00:35:25.360 7 looks at policy. There are tools, but I have 00:35:25.360 --> 00:35:27.179 to be honest, based on the research, they are 00:35:27.179 --> 00:35:29.300 all imperfect. The most common one you hear about 00:35:29.300 --> 00:35:31.920 is inclusionary zoning. That's the mix approach, 00:35:32.159 --> 00:35:33.820 right? A little something for everyone. Yes. 00:35:33.900 --> 00:35:35.960 A city tells a developer, okay, you can build 00:35:35.960 --> 00:35:38.500 your 20 -story luxury high -rise, but you have 00:35:38.500 --> 00:35:41.480 to set aside 15 % or 20 % of the units as affordable 00:35:41.480 --> 00:35:43.699 housing. Does it work? It helps a little. It 00:35:43.699 --> 00:35:45.940 creates some units, but it's often a drop in 00:35:45.940 --> 00:35:48.400 the bucket compared to the need. And the definition 00:35:48.400 --> 00:35:51.559 of affordable is often skewed. It's often based 00:35:51.559 --> 00:35:54.480 on the area median income. If the area is already 00:35:54.480 --> 00:35:57.460 becoming rich, the AMI is high. So affordable 00:35:57.460 --> 00:36:01.030 might mean a rent of $2 ,500 a month. That doesn't 00:36:01.030 --> 00:36:03.710 help the barista or the home health aide making 00:36:03.710 --> 00:36:06.309 minimum wage. What about the German model? The 00:36:06.309 --> 00:36:09.630 notes mention milieu conservation laws. That 00:36:09.630 --> 00:36:11.969 sounds interesting. This is fascinating and very 00:36:11.969 --> 00:36:13.570 different from the Anglo -American approach. 00:36:13.750 --> 00:36:17.289 In cities like Munich, the municipality has the 00:36:17.289 --> 00:36:19.489 legal power to protect the social composition 00:36:19.489 --> 00:36:22.429 of a district. What does that mean in practice? 00:36:22.929 --> 00:36:25.269 It means they can block certain types of renovations. 00:36:25.719 --> 00:36:28.559 If a landlord wants to combine two small apartments 00:36:28.559 --> 00:36:31.079 into one big one or install luxury amenities 00:36:31.079 --> 00:36:33.480 like a balcony that would justify a massive rent 00:36:33.480 --> 00:36:36.659 hike, the city can literally say no. That changes 00:36:36.659 --> 00:36:38.400 the character of the neighborhood. Permit denied. 00:36:38.699 --> 00:36:40.920 That is a level of government intervention I 00:36:40.920 --> 00:36:42.659 can't even imagine in most of the U .S. They're 00:36:42.659 --> 00:36:45.440 basically outlawing fancy. They're prioritizing 00:36:45.440 --> 00:36:47.860 the social fabric and the people over the maximum 00:36:47.860 --> 00:36:50.880 potential property value. A very different philosophy. 00:36:51.420 --> 00:36:53.920 I was really interested in the community land 00:36:53.920 --> 00:36:58.199 trust or CLT concept that seems more structural, 00:36:58.260 --> 00:37:00.780 more permanent. CLTs are kind of the gold standard 00:37:00.780 --> 00:37:03.860 for anti -gentrification activists. The idea 00:37:03.860 --> 00:37:06.159 is to take land out of the speculative market 00:37:06.159 --> 00:37:09.019 entirely. How does it work? A nonprofit trust 00:37:09.019 --> 00:37:12.539 owns the land forever. They might sell the house 00:37:12.539 --> 00:37:14.579 that sits on the land to a low -income family 00:37:14.579 --> 00:37:17.260 at a reduced price. So the family owns the physical 00:37:17.260 --> 00:37:19.980 building, the walls and the roof, but not the 00:37:19.980 --> 00:37:22.360 dirt underneath it. Okay, I follow. And the deal 00:37:22.360 --> 00:37:25.280 is this. When that family decides to sell the 00:37:25.280 --> 00:37:28.340 house, they can only sell it for a limited, pre 00:37:28.340 --> 00:37:30.860 -agreed -upon profit. They can't flip it for 00:37:30.860 --> 00:37:33.820 the new, crazy market value. This ensures that 00:37:33.820 --> 00:37:35.579 the house stays affordable for the next low -income 00:37:35.579 --> 00:37:38.530 family and the next. and the next in perpetuity. 00:37:38.610 --> 00:37:41.670 It decommodifies the home. It treats it as shelter, 00:37:41.769 --> 00:37:43.750 not as an investment vehicle to get rich from. 00:37:43.929 --> 00:37:46.150 Exactly. It stops the speculation cycle cold, 00:37:46.269 --> 00:37:48.309 at least for that one piece of property. And 00:37:48.309 --> 00:37:50.449 finally, we have to touch the third rail of housing 00:37:50.449 --> 00:37:53.809 policy, rent control. The eternal debate. Most 00:37:53.809 --> 00:37:56.530 economists, to be fair, generally hate it. They 00:37:56.530 --> 00:37:58.869 argue that if you cap rents, developers will 00:37:58.869 --> 00:38:01.389 have no incentive to build new housing. which 00:38:01.389 --> 00:38:03.789 reduces the overall supply and actually drives 00:38:03.789 --> 00:38:06.309 up prices in the long run on non -controlled 00:38:06.309 --> 00:38:09.710 units. But tenants who have it love it. Of course. 00:38:09.849 --> 00:38:12.110 For the incumbent tenant, the grandmother on 00:38:12.110 --> 00:38:14.230 a fixed income who's lived there for 40 years, 00:38:14.389 --> 00:38:17.429 it is a lifesaver. It is the only thing keeping 00:38:17.429 --> 00:38:20.380 her in her home and her community. But there 00:38:20.380 --> 00:38:23.760 is a massive, dangerous loophole in many rent 00:38:23.760 --> 00:38:27.619 control laws called vacancy decontrol. In many 00:38:27.619 --> 00:38:30.219 cities, rent control only protects the current 00:38:30.219 --> 00:38:32.760 tenant. The moment they move out or pass away, 00:38:33.039 --> 00:38:35.639 the landlord can reset the rent to whatever the 00:38:35.639 --> 00:38:38.039 market will bear. Which puts a giant target on 00:38:38.039 --> 00:38:40.780 that tenant's back. Precisely. It incentivizes 00:38:40.780 --> 00:38:42.969 the landlord to harass the tenant. To ignore 00:38:42.969 --> 00:38:45.489 repairs, to make life miserable, because if they 00:38:45.489 --> 00:38:47.489 can just get that low rent tenant to leave, they 00:38:47.489 --> 00:38:49.730 hit the financial jackpot. It turns long term 00:38:49.730 --> 00:38:52.150 residents into financial liabilities. It seems 00:38:52.150 --> 00:38:54.389 like every single solution has a major side effect. 00:38:54.570 --> 00:38:56.849 It feels like we're trying to stop a tidal wave 00:38:56.849 --> 00:38:59.389 with a sandcastle. That is because we are often 00:38:59.389 --> 00:39:02.590 trying to solve a problem of global capital flows 00:39:02.590 --> 00:39:06.449 with local policy band -aids. As long as housing 00:39:06.449 --> 00:39:08.750 is treated primarily as a vehicle for investment 00:39:08.750 --> 00:39:13.289 and profit. Displacement is the logical, predictable 00:39:13.289 --> 00:39:15.510 outcome of the system. So let's wrap this up. 00:39:15.570 --> 00:39:17.309 We've gone from Roman villas to Munich zoning 00:39:17.309 --> 00:39:20.829 laws, from cereal cafes to community land trusts. 00:39:21.650 --> 00:39:24.349 What is the synthesis here? What's the big takeaway? 00:39:24.670 --> 00:39:27.489 I think the synthesis is that cities must change. 00:39:28.070 --> 00:39:31.230 A city that doesn't change is a dying city. If 00:39:31.230 --> 00:39:33.050 you don't have new investment, new people, new 00:39:33.050 --> 00:39:35.750 ideas, you have decay and abandonment. The question 00:39:35.750 --> 00:39:37.690 is never if a city will change. The question 00:39:37.690 --> 00:39:40.360 is... Who is the change for? And it goes right 00:39:40.360 --> 00:39:42.440 back to that authenticity trap we talked about. 00:39:42.599 --> 00:39:45.940 The sociologist Sharon Zukin's concept. We crave 00:39:45.940 --> 00:39:47.920 the authentic city. We want the history, the 00:39:47.920 --> 00:39:49.820 diversity, the grit. So we move there to be part 00:39:49.820 --> 00:39:52.360 of it. But by moving there and bringing our money 00:39:52.360 --> 00:39:54.860 and our consumer preferences with us, we slowly 00:39:54.860 --> 00:39:57.619 but surely destroy the very authenticity we crave. 00:39:57.780 --> 00:39:59.500 We are the observers who ruin the experiment 00:39:59.500 --> 00:40:01.900 just by watching it. We kill the thing we love 00:40:01.900 --> 00:40:05.190 by consuming it. So. Here is the final thought 00:40:05.190 --> 00:40:06.969 I want to leave you with today. And it's a bit 00:40:06.969 --> 00:40:08.929 of a provocative one. It's really a question 00:40:08.929 --> 00:40:12.110 for the mirror. If you moved to your current 00:40:12.110 --> 00:40:14.670 laborhood because it was up and coming or edgy 00:40:14.670 --> 00:40:18.670 or it had great potential, ask yourself, are 00:40:18.670 --> 00:40:22.269 you the pioneer or are you the colonizer? And 00:40:22.269 --> 00:40:24.949 when you buy that $6 oat milk latte from the 00:40:24.949 --> 00:40:28.090 new cafe, does your presence and your money help 00:40:28.090 --> 00:40:30.909 the person serving it to you afford to live in 00:40:30.909 --> 00:40:33.980 their own community? Or does it? slowly, dollar 00:40:33.980 --> 00:40:36.420 by dollar, price them out of their own zip code? 00:40:37.000 --> 00:40:38.760 It's an uncomfortable question, but I think we 00:40:38.760 --> 00:40:40.519 have to sit with it. That's the deep dive for 00:40:40.519 --> 00:40:41.840 today. Thanks for listening, and we'll catch 00:40:41.840 --> 00:40:43.179 you on the next one. Stay curious.