Fashion doesn't matter. Conspicuous consumption is conspicuous consumption no matter how fun your mustache is. And despite our received capitalist mythology, consumers aren't the people making the large scale decisions.
Gentrification has always been a top-down affair, not a spontaneous hipster influx, orchestrated by the real estate developers and investors who pull the strings of city policy, with individual home-buyers deployed in mopping up operations.
From the article, I did get a rather smug expression on my face as I read this:
ReplyDeleteThe construction of a trolley line (of dubious utility, but just try to
convince a yuppie that a streetcar is pointless) flagged my own
neighborhood for skyrocketing property values, precipitating a rush that
has become a steady churn of property circulation.
Hmmm...Loyola? Even better, St. Claude? LOL!!