Gentrification

In the UK Gentrification is usually shown between London and everywhere else. Largely because London's rents and house prices are almost 4 times what they are anywhere else. For instance, my mothers home is worth around £200k in South West UK, if the property was in London it would be worth closer to £800k to £1m because it also sits on a lot of land.

Now, I'm not against Gentrification on principle - turning an area from less than desirable to actually a nice place to go is a great thing, it's something that I really think is necessary to creating nicer neighbourhoods. What I disagree with is when it causes inflation on everything around it and it becomes unaffordable. But on the flip side, I don't think that the Government (through taxes) should have to offset the effects of gentrification, I think they should be capping rents and getting a more realistic value of the property based on what it is - not where it is.
 
I think gentrification is simply a consequence of free market economics on housing. People pay to get what they want and can't buy what they can't afford. Even if there are rent controls, landlords could still use other means to get higher rents, for example, evicting tenants. I say it's unavoidable.

I'm not sure how government assistance for gentrification would be feasible. How do we define who is suffering from gentrification? How do we help them? Handouts? Help them find new housing? I don't think any of those are necessary.

It's probably better prevent the most severe cases of gentrification rather than deal with the effects after the fact. Rent controls exist in many countries and seem to slow down rising prices. I also think that they're "market rational" in that they restore desired market mechanisms. Some government intervention in the market is necessary to allow the market to function as a market, take anti-monopoly legislation for example. Other than that I'm not sure what else can be done should be done. Gentrification will still occur, but some of its excesses could be avoided.
 
Governments can assist with gentrification by creating low cost housing, setting rent limits, encouraging more development, etc. Essentially they do all the things governments do, pulling levers to try to balance supply and demand. The effectiveness of each policy is heavily dependent on time and place, but in the past governments have made various efforts to make sure their citizens had proper housing. In 19th century Berlin that took the form of having an average of 54 people in every (small) city block. It was a great idea on paper but it was pretty brutal to actually live there. There was a similar situation in New York in the same time period. London had a pretty difficult time of it as well, because the culture was hostile towards the poor and towards government intervention in their condition. None of that is gentrification per se, but it's conceptually quite close. The rich and a good percentage of the middle class had greater housing choices than the poor, who had to live close to work, regardless of the cost.
 
We have issues with gentrification here. My fiance and I live in a small town (12,000+) in South Dakota that's around 60% poor whites. Recently new apartments, townhouses and houses have been built all over town, increasing its value but reducing options for poor citizens needing housing. Here, there are only a couple of landlords with affordable rentals available, and the rentals are old and trashy (trust my, I live in one). The landlords choose what internet/cable services you are allowed to use in those rentals and they rarely do any repairs (or do them poorly, as was the case of my fiance's toilet a couple years ago) or address complaints because there are almost no other options for poorer individuals to find better, affordable housing. In short, poor Americans living in my town (and many other similar towns in the Midwest) are stuck in dingy, unsafe, old houses and apartments because they cannot afford to live in the nicer housing options meant for more wealthy patrons. We have a growing homeless problem because there is suck a lack of affordable housing options. Many end up in the homeless shelter, on the street. You'd be shocked to know how many kids my fiance drives to school on his bus route (he works as a bus driver part-time) from the homeless shelter.

It's quite frustrating; my fiance and I both have jobs that are above minimum wage pay, and we cannot even afford a one-bedroom brand-new apartment in town with both our incomes together. They charge an upwards of $800-$900 for just one room, not including any utilities, and they also have HOA fees that pay for landscaping and general repairs. How can a low-income individual ever hope to pay for that?
 
Here the government does do something to a degree, we have a few government owned houses that go on a rent to buy scheme. So you rent the house but once you've covered the house's value it's yours. It's similar to a mortgage but there's a few differences I can't explain very well.

The only problems are that it is often hard for the people who actually need access to this housing to get into it and that there's simply not enough houses on these schemes around.
 
It's unfortunate that cost of living goes up when demand does but I don't really see that there's any avoiding it. It's certainly not the fault of people deciding to move in, they've as much of a right to be there as anyone else.
 
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