So, You're Worried About Gentrification?

Relax: You're probably not the bad guy.

I wrote my first essay on gentrification three years ago this month. This essay followed a long period of researching the economic and cultural forces that radically remake urban neighborhoods in someone else’s image, forces that we now call gentrification.

Our family was in a personal fight against these forces during this period. After moving from the D.C. area to Indianapolis, we found ourselves priced out of the neighborhood we moved here for. Houses in our budget that were sizable enough for our family were being purchased on the day of listing by investors with all-cash offers. Several banks denied us loans because they considered our neighborhood a bad investment.

Even while struggling against these forces, we knew how easy it would have been to simply participate in them. We didn’t want to move into this neighborhood in a way that would cause harm to others. We feared that the wrong decision, house, or approach might permanently damage potential relationships with our new neighbors.

Ultimately, we purchased a home that many people would say is a textbook example of gentrification. Our house is brand new and is far above the average price of other homes in our neighborhood. In fact, our house was the stage for an anti-gentrification protest just a few months before we purchased it.

Many people would say we’re the bad guys.

At first, I believed them.

I was consumed by fear and paranoia that we had become the villains in our neighborhood’s story. This basic narrative around gentrification – that outsiders who bring neighborhood change are the bad guys – creates a kind of paralysis that prevents good actors from bringing positive change. Writing in The Atlantic, Yoni Applebaum says this paralysis comes from a damaging progressive narrative concerning neighborhood change. He writes:

Whatever its theoretical aspirations, in practice, progressivism has produced a potent strain of NIMBYism, a defense of communities in their current form against those who might wish to join them. Mobility is what made this country prosperous and pluralistic, diverse and dynamic. Now progressives are destroying the very force that produced the values they claim to cherish.^[1]

The result of this narrative – that neighborhood change is bad – fuels the gentrification myth that new housing developments for the middle class drive gentrification. Yet critical studies on gentrification lead to another conclusion: high demand for downtown living and a scarcity of houses drive up costs for everyone. As one researcher concludes, accepting the popular narrative “exacerbates the very housing crisis it seeks to solve.”^[2]

I believed the popular narrative that blamed people like me for gentrification for a long time.

I now see that it is deeply flawed.

So, you’re worried about gentrification? Relax: you’re probably not the bad guy.

Do you want to move into that urban neighborhood downtown? You should. Someone is going to buy that new or renovated house, and it’s better for everyone if it’s someone who gives a damn.

I want to share some lessons I have learned these last few years about living faithfully amid the realities of gentrification. These lessons challenge the popular and accepted narratives about gentrification and offer advice for being an agent of positive change despite forces almost entirely outside your control.

Lesson #1: Study your community.

The first flaw in our accepted gentrification narrative is that it tends to treat every urban neighborhood the same way. This in itself is a condescending injustice. Agents of positive neighborhood change must come to value, appreciate, and protect that which makes their community unique. Every neighborhood has uniquely complex layers behind larger communal issues that will take time to reveal themselves.^[3] I have been studying our neighborhood for nearly four years, and I still learn new information nearly every day.

Of course, some similarities exist in the economic and cultural forces that are changing our country’s urban neighborhoods. The use of eminent domain to displace communities of color is a well-documented strategy that cities have used to build their highways and make way for new institutions in city centers.^[4] Large investing companies sweep into urban neighborhoods to buy properties to flip or build huge rental portfolios.

Gentrification tends to build slowly over time. When you see the “symptoms” of gentrification (i.e., new houses or that juice bar on the corner), you’re dealing with the results of forces that have been at play for decades.

The question remains: how did that uniquely happen in your neighborhood or the neighborhood you care about? Until you know the answers to this fundamental question, you will be unable to address the fears and challenges of your specific community.

Lesson #2: Gentrification is outside your control.

The second lesson illustrates the first. Gentrification is outside your control. It cannot be stopped. It simply is. Let me explain by telling you more about my beloved community of Haughville.

Haughville has been primed for gentrification since at least the mid-1960s. In 1966, after the thriving Black community in downtown Indianapolis was displaced to make way for new highways and a university, the city built new public housing for Black citizens in Haughville, a White immigrant neighborhood that the city had already neglected for decades.^[5]

The mass introduction of displaced Black residents into this White immigrant neighborhood created an intense racial conflict that included arson, fights, and gun violence. In 1967, then mayoral candidate and future Senator Richard Lugar held a press conference in Haughville where he criticized the city’s administration for not preparing the neighborhood for integration. While this conference may have been nothing more than a political stunt, he wasn’t wrong.

Due in no small part to this conflict, the White immigrant population left Haughville. The community increasingly became an underserved Black neighborhood, left to decline while the city turned its gaze away. City officials have been aware of the neighborhood’s decline for over thirty years. In 1994, city planners published a report on the status of property and housing in Haughville. According to their assessment, by 1990, parts of Haughville had descended to a 55% homeownership rate, well below the city average. They found that residents had a median income of $16,000, roughly half of the median income in the rest of the county.

Because of the general decline in Haughville, the neighborhood has faced an overall population decline in the last decade. According to data collected by the Polis Center, the Black community has lost nearly a third of its population in a single decade, a phenomenon taking place in similar neighborhoods around the country.^[6]

Haughville now has a homeownership rate hovering around 30%, less than half of the rest of the city. This means that the city has been aware of declining homeownership and income for well over thirty years, and it has done little to stop it. Haughville has been subjected to outside economic forces for decades.

This leaves Haughville in a place where 70% of its properties are controlled by people who do not live here. How could the neighborhood not change?

Gentrification cannot be stopped. It just is. Who will step into it with faithfulness and wisdom? If not people who care, then who?

Lesson #3: Beware of neighborhood politics.

Neighborhood histories will reveal another place where the accepted gentrification narrative is wrong. Most people think that gentrification is driven by outside investors and corporations looking to make a profit, but this is only partially correct.

We have a fantastic tool in Indianapolis called Map Indy that allows you to look up property records in the city. Interesting data reveals itself when I study property records in Haughville.

Take the street behind my home, for example. About a dozen of the roughly 35 plots and houses are owned by a large property management company. Nine are owned by churches. Individual landlords with smaller portfolios own a handful. The rest are owned by the current residents.

These statistics hold up as you look at the rest of the neighborhood. Do large property companies own significant land here? Yes. Have private landlords made a living from purchasing rentals here? Yes.

However, a large percentage of properties are also owned by CDCs, churches, and other institutions, many of whose leaders don’t live in the neighborhood. Tax records for some of these entities reveal that they have received hundreds of thousands of dollars to generate affordable housing.

I could also identify several properties that former residents are selling at prices that no current resident or resident-led institution—our church included—could afford.

In other words, it’s not just outside investors looking to profit off the neighborhood. Former residents and neighborhood institutions also have bottom lines to meet and agendas to carry out.

This makes neighborhoods like mine very political. These politics are largely controlled by leaders who do not live in the neighborhood. Taking part in these politics often means taking sides. Taking sides means participating in factions. Factions bring divisions. Divisions tear vulnerable communities apart.

My advice? Stay out of the politics. The neighborhood will likely benefit from people working outside traditional power structures. Create new systems of trust and accountability with and for other current residents. This might give you less influence in the short term, but it will build trust with your neighbors over the long haul. This is how you generate healthy power that produces meaningful change.

Lesson #4: Learn the difference between economic and cultural gentrification.

You may have noticed that I’ve described gentrification as economic and cultural change in a neighborhood. When economic forces change a neighborhood's landscape and population, its culture will also change. The economic side of gentrification cannot be stopped. However, agents of positive change in a neighborhood can resist cultural change by preserving the neighborhood's history and the stories of its residents.

My friends at the Harrison Center have been a great example of this. Through their Greatriarchs project, artists at the Harrison Center have preserved the history of the Martindale-Brightwood neighborhood and the residents who have called it home for generations. These artists have found creative ways to preserve these stories, such as artifact displays of donated items from current residents accompanied by recorded stories.

The arts are a great way to preserve a neighborhood’s history even as it changes. Local historians can also document oral history so that one generation is not forgotten by the next.

But you don’t have to be a large organization to resist cultural gentrification. Get to know your neighbors, write down their stories, and work with them to apply for grants to create neighborhood-based art, music, cultural celebrations, or documentaries.

Once you learn your neighborhood’s history, you’ll likely discover many creative ways to respect and preserve stories and culture!

Lesson #5: Invest in the neighborhood.

I recently had lunch with another Indianapolis pastor who was surprised when I told him after four years, I still don’t know much about the rest of the city. The reason for that is that we try to spend much of our time, energy, and money here in the neighborhood. We moved here to invest here. We want to utilize neighborhood spaces. We want to support neighborhood restaurants (we have the best food, so that’s not hard to do). We want to shop where our neighbors shop.

Another gentrification myth is that too much outside money coming in to a neighborhood is going to drive existing residents out. As Jerusalem Demsas shows, this narrative does not hold up to scrutiny. Many urban neighborhoods that we are fearful of gentrifying are stuck in “a disinvestment and depopulation spiral.”^[7] Economic pressure and financial investment are exactly what many urban neighborhoods need to bring stability.

However, neighborhoods need more than economic investment to thrive. They need healthy narratives that teach people to love the neighborhood and call it home. When new residents move in and commit to a neighborhood’s parks, restaurants, schools, and places of business, they communicate that this neighborhood is worthy of love and respect.

Lesson #6: Be a good neighbor.

I feared how my new neighbors would view me when we first moved in. I hated being the new resident with the new house. My fears came true at first. Some of the only conversations I had with my neighbors in the first six months were them saying, “Oh, so you’re the one who bought the house,” as they quickly walked by.

Over time, things changed. Our neighbors began inviting us into their lives, and we did the same. We asked them for help with babysitting, and they asked us for help with car repairs. We invited them over for our kids’ birthday, and they brought the cake.

In time, we became friends. Now, we get to spend time with our neighbors just because we enjoy each other. It turns out that when you care about people, those divisions you were afraid of tend to dissolve pretty quickly.

So, don’t accept the simple narrative about gentrification. It’s often more of a myth or exaggerated fact. Other people probably will. Some just need a person to blame. They’ll call you the bad guy. That’s alright.

Because your neighbors will know the truth. Their perspective is all that matters.

---

^[1] Yoni Applebaum, “How Progressives Froze the American Dream,” https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2025/03/american-geographic-social-mobility/681439/.

^[2] See Jacob Anbinder, “The Pandemic Disproved Urban Progressives’ Theory About Gentrification,” https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/01/anti-growth-alliance-fueled-urban-gentrification/617525/.

^[3] Maria Cimperman, Social Analysis for the 21^st Century.

^[4] See Steve Inskeep, A Brief History Of How Racism Shaped Interstate Highways, National Public Radio (April 7, 2021), https://www.npr.org/transcripts/984784455. For specific examples in Indianapolis, see Richard B. Pierce, Polite Protest. Of the displacement of Black residents along Indiana Avenue, Pierce writes: “Neighborhood residents were faced with two equally unpleasant options. They could sell their homes for a price that was grossly inadequate for purchasing a home elsewhere in Indianapolis, or they could fight eminent domain” (82).

^[5] See Ben Hein, Finding Hope in Haughville. Message me for a copy. See also James Divita, Slaves to No One, in the special collections of the Indianapolis library system.

^[6] Jerusalem Demsas, “What’s Causing Black Flight?”, The Atlantic (September 6, 2022), https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/09/black-families-leaving-cities-suburbs/671331/.

^[7] Demsas, “What’s Causing Black Flight?”