Pavé No. I
Gentrification can be a plague, as it eats up neighborhoods
— Gordon Quinn
Changing, somehow, could be defined as the mutation of form. By displacing the word with “Gentrifying”, It gives them direction. In the movie Fresh Off The Boat, Evan, said “We see what we want to see and hear what we wanna hear.” The differences would come from the way we adjust the wanting perspectives.
Gentrification is another word to complicate the existing phenomena of urban changes. Since it was originally emphasized from a Sociological perspective, It has a vague sense of precise measurement. We talk much about Ecological and how doomed we were to handle things related to the preservation of the earth. But now, at least, there’re enough educated people that are concerned and make a set of lifestyles out of it. Like the steel straw trend, what a solid choice to be the breakthrough for the so-called creative class.
Not so long ago, everybody talked about Economic growth and the benefits of being “barely” rich — middle income. Changing jobs from harvesting land to harvesting manufacture. That very era gave birth to the field of Modern Town Planning.
Now when we’re doing our business with just our 6,43-inch screen, we need to see and manage everything differently. That means seeing everything from different approaches and from multiple perspectives. The more we know, the more complicated it is.
Socially, Gentrification was not as sexy as the issues of “Artis Ibukota” and our youth “tiktokers” scandal. Even in the field of urban planning, It’s not “that” kind of important. We tend to discuss big projects like Ibu Kota Negara, even tho we’re not even needed to be in it.
While a huge part of the country is still developing, we need to accentuate every development to be a symbol of change. To be better by default. So the spirits will carry on like “Welcome to the Black Parade.”
Town/Bandar was born through the discovery of resources or the accumulation of trading activity. Some towns transform further because of their location advantages. Some others could go south and never be discovered again.
Ibn Khaldun described this kind of stage to a certain civilization in Muqaddimah, one of the book recommendations from Mark Zuck. Change always happens. It occurs from birth to death or Mumford said from Eopolis to Necropolis.
What happens when the town/city going to die?
Everybody will leave. Maybe everything will leave it.
Regeneration is the key to rebuilding and preserving the town. A lot of towns or districts failed to regenerate. They are just changing to another form. But some could do good enough and rediscover its value.
This is where Gentrification appears in the show. Someplace and the people of it, to a certain degree, should stay as what they were. So sustainability could be achieved.
Not in a radical way of course. People as a community should have an agreement on fixed values to be started and be open to the value that will nurture better living. The community needs to have this kind of social capital. So when things go another way, they could act as a whole.
Gentrification often appears after a successful regeneration project. It could also happen after a certain district is at its peak of growth. New infrastructure development and new agglomeration. All of it will increase the land value and start to closed for lower wealth people.
In the journey to become successful, we often kill other people’s aspirations to grow. That includes our own aspirations. The most dangerous effect of gentrification is displacing. People of the ongoing triumph district will move out from the place that was created by their own. What an irony.
City, town, or district have their own span. Even when they could lengthen their span, It still could be gentrified on its own. Gentrification gives the perspective on how to handle it when it becomes a disease. In terms of change, gentrification talks about the survival of its people.
