Gentrification Research Paper

How would you feel waking up one day and realizing you can’t live in your home anymore? This is what many people in gentrified areas across the US have to deal with every day. Gentrification is an alarming and rapidly growing problem that occurs in most major cities across America. Gentrification is the process of renovating and improving a housing district so that it conforms to a higher class taste. This seems like a good thing but the majority of the time this causes affordable living to skyrocket in price and become high class living. Then the previous homeowners must leave their homes due to the sharp increase in rent money they cannot afford. This slippery slope of events is a clear cut example of why gentrification must be contained to only certain districts in the US.
Gentrification is alarmingly popular in
These cities have a broad demographic ranging from people struggling financially to very wealthy entrepreneurs. Unfortunately people who have a lower socioeconomic status are the only ones affected negatively by this process. Moreover, these people are forced out of their homes due to the drastic increase in rent prices. David R.Jones states that for the bottom 20 percent of the population, rent prices have risen 30 percent faster than their income. The median pay for the bottom 30 percent is $30,000 a year, the median rent for an average 1 bedroom apartment is $1,000 a month. The people in this situation are paying rent that accounts for 40% of their income. Furthermore, these people are gentrified out of their apartments due to ridiculous rent prices. Then homeowners raise the rent again, but this time to $1,500 a month. Next, new people move in making the same $30,000 a year salary but this time their rent is raised $500. This absurd amount of money accounts for a whopping 60% of their total salary. These conditions are unbelievable and this is what happens everyday in large