I have my disagreements for sure but I agree with what a lot of @awalkerinLA says in this piece and I don’t think it deserved much of the criticism it got. https://www.curbed.com/2020/7/16/21315678/city-racism-urbanism-atlanta-beltline

The strings of power are not really pulled by urbanists but if you’ve been around urban planning for a while, you know there’s definitely an old school thinking among a lot of politicians and other leaders that gentrification “fixes” neighborhoods.

If you are a YIMBY you are going to have to overcome people’s suspicions, based on decades of experience, that new development is not for them. We need to work really hard to prove good faith.

My disagreements are two. First, I think the piece leans too hard into urban amenities as drivers of gentrification. LA added like 8x as many jobs as houses in the last decade & almost zero transpo capacity, and that makes more difference than any parks, bike lanes, whatever.

Placemaking Richard Florida can’t cause gentrification and woke Richard Florida can’t stop it. Look at Echo Park. Almost zero investment in urban amenities, almost no new housing, lots of gentrification. Lots of things like gang injunctions! But city planning can’t stop those.

Second, by focusing on the few neighborhoods where development has been allowed it automatically lets the real villains - the single family zones on the Westside and in The Valley - off the hook. This sort of fight serves the cause of reactionaries like Liveable California.

And yeah I feel like I’ve been shouting into the void about this for 7 years
If anyone can think of a better way to communicate this I’m all ears. https://twitter.com/vamonosla/status/461318907752497153?s=21 https://twitter.com/vamonosla/status/461318907752497153