Gentrification

Gentrification happens when middle-or-upper-class folks move into a dilapidated area, fix it up, attract higher-tier businesses to the area, improve the schools, and generally raise its standard of living, and its real estate values. In the early 21st century, cities from Portland, OR to Houston, TX to Brooklyn, NY have all seen massive gentrification efforts.

This sounds like it would be a great thing. Who doesn’t love clean streets, good schools, and nice houses? But in many cases, gentrification comes with an unpleasant price: it can force the people who already lived there out of their neighborhood, either because they can no longer afford their home, or because they’ve been forced to close their business.

NIMBY: "Not in my back yard." It's sort of the harkening hypocritical call of the rich-well-to-do-enfranchised-entitled. They argue for the rights of the poor, the down-trodden, the disadvantanged. Hello, Presidio Heights, San Francisco. But they don't want more building in their area because well, those "affordable" housing-for-the-less-well-off would block the view, right? And who wants view-blockage?