Brooklyn brownstones.

Brooklyn brownstones. Credit: iStock

People with modest incomes shouldn't be pushed out of gentrifying areas.

Renters all across the country are finding it harder to find affordable places to live, and homeowners are getting hit with high property values. Their areas have become gentrified and hence attractive to developers who see that building high-priced condos will help them turn a quick profit regardless of the cost to the current residents.

In Chicago neighborhoods where once low-income and middle-income people of color predominated for generations because these areas were affordable, residents are being pushed out due to the rising cost of housing. In Los Angeles, young people sometimes live with their parents well into their 30s because the cost of rent has effectively priced them out of the market. Commuters are traveling long distances to get to their jobs because they cannot afford to live near where they work in cities like Chicago, New York and Los Angeles.

Those who fled the cities are now abandoning suburbs for city cores and walkable neighborhoods, because suburbs are boring and rather stale with their McMansions and copycat houses. Areas that were once deemed risky places to live are now seen to be attractive for old and young alike.

People want to live in cities with diversity and mass transit, where art, coffee shops and bars flourish. New Orleans, Seattle, New York and Portland, Ore., are drawing in new residents all the time.

While this is attractive to many, it should not be at the expense of the individuals and families who have been living in these neighborhoods all along. They have held their neighborhoods and communities together with their very presence well before their neighborhoods became destinations for people with money. These folks should be able to reap the benefits of their neighborhoods improving and not be forced out now that their neighborhood has become fashionable.

Homelessness is not an attractive lifestyle for anyone. And yet this is where we are going.

While raising the minimum wage to $15 nationally would benefit many workers, ultimately this is not the solution.

Affordable housing can be achieved and should be a priority before vast numbers become homeless or have to travel hours each day to get to their workplace. This is not sustainable, especially due to the need to reduce carbon dioxide emissions to fight global warming. Freeways, highways and interstates are taxed to the limit right now all across the country.

We need to ensure that residents can afford to live in their own neighborhoods.

Angie Trudell Vasquez is a poet and activist who wrote this for Progressive Media Project, a source of liberal commentary on domestic and international issues; it is affiliated with The Progressive magazine.

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