Gentrification kicks out the people who lived there and the local business there by jacking up rents. And this is not just a pure market dynamic - cities subsidize the developers that do these projects.
You won't care how "great" the new neighborhood is with its SoulCycle classes if you cannot afford to live there anymore.
I appreciate your prospective. I have to respectfully disagree though.
Building an apartment of affordable housing in an affluent community or building a condo of upscale units in a poor community clearly evokes feelings of NIMBY from some of the entrenched interests in both communities.
Some feel that helping 10 poor families find affordable housing in the affluent community does the greatest good. It certainly does for those families who can get the assistance to support their new lives. It does absolutely nothing though for the vast majority of the residents in their former underserved communities.
I personally feel that a greater good can result from 10 affluent families providing a cornerstone for the gentrification/improvement of an entire underserved community.
I believe we are both advocating for better services, increased safety, and affluence for historically under served communities. We just have a different perspective on how that might be done.
In general, gentrification is the clearest path to improving neighborhoods that have probably suffered as a result of "NIMBYism" elsewhere in a city.
Being opposed to gentrification is a form of "NIMBYism". Gentrification is not the enemy of affordable housing.