06-26-2015, 08:27 AM
(06-26-2015, 01:56 AM)BuildingScout Wrote: So you are telling me that there are people out there, living in a crime ridden part of town saying "man, this darn gentrification, with its safer, cleaner streets and better public schools"?
I once lived in a house that had been converted to a duplex, and was sold to a family who wanted to convert it back to a single-family home. Partly because rents were high, and partly just because it was a bad time of year (and all of the other reasons one is unlucky in findinga rental), I had to change neighbourhoods. If you were my former next-door neighbour, you were probably happy about this development (nice family who will be living there hopefully long-term, over two sets of neighbours who might turn over fairly frequently), but I wasn't. I wasn't especially angry, either, as I was given more than the proper notice, and the communication was good. But renters can be vulnerable, and it's not a nice thing to go through, especially if you are on the edge and have a family (I didn't at the time).
This wasn't in Waterloo Region, by the way, but another example is my neighbourhood not far from downtown. I would say it is in a (relatively slow) transition. Around the block from me, a duplex was purchased by a family who had previously flipped a house on my street, and they converted it (back) to a single family home. I know one of the tenants, a very nice late-middle-aged guy who is a sort of casual worker, and he wound up renting a room from a neighbour of mine. So their situation changed materially, and not entirely for the better. Related to this, that neighbour, a working class guy who has been in the neighbourhood for a couple of decades, lately experiences a lot of friction with the newer neighbours, who have tended to be professionals with younger families. Things that he finds normal (drinking beer with no shirt on the front porch, having a comical sign hanging on his mail box), they don't care for. Sometimes it can get more serious, as when he and I were leaving bottles on our porches for a couple of homeless guys to collect, and the one neighbour decided to confront him about attracting "those people" to the neighbourhood.
Anyway, all this to say that gentrification does have some negative side effects, and even in KW, but I agree with you that it is a positive development. And I don't think subsidized housing is the answer, either (relegating certain types of people to certain areas), but rather to relax zoning and remove impediments to developing a wide range of housing in all areas.