Recently, I had the pleasure of interviewing my friend about inequality in Tucson, Arizona for a project due for my introductory level sociology course. Luckily, the interview went well. I learned a lot about Arizona that I had never known, but that intrigued me to learn more.

One of the ideas my friend kept throwing around was that of “gentrification." Now gentrification is a word that I have definitely heard before. Especially since I just moved to Portland, Oregon a few months ago, but growing up in East Coast suburbs made the term unfamiliar to me.

I was interested by the elusiveness of gentrification, knowing roughly what is was, but not really what it meant. Since then, I have done my research, I know not only what gentrification is but why it is such a problem, and I am writing this today to share my new-found knowledge.

Essentially gentrification is the renovation and remodeling of urban areas, often leading to an influx of more-affluent or middle-class residents. However, it is highly controversial as it often displaces the people who lived in those areas previously. New York Magazine even equates gentrification to secondhand smoke, saying that it drifts across class lines.

Gentrification often displaces minority and elderly residents, therefore perpetuating high levels of prejudice already present in the United States. These people are being exploited and used by developers and even their own landlords, and this is something that needs to stop. They have been systematically oppressed so that they do not have the power to resist the gentrification in their own neighborhoods and are therefore forced out.

Gentrification, when it forces people out of their homes, the only homes they have ever known, is wrong. Having a nicer place to live should be a right, but when renovating areas it is important to keep in mind the difference between what low-income people can afford and whether or not they think it would be nice to have a new bakery put in down the street or if that’s just something rich elites want for themselves.

In my interview, my friend talked about previously hispanic areas in Tucson, suddenly being taken over by richer white people looking to improve the area. Gentrification should not affect people in this way. People have a right to their homes, to their own culture. There is a huge difference between renovating a restaurant to have a nicer storefront than to take control of whole neighborhoods, raising prices and forcing people away from their livelihoods.