Gentrification and Business

Gentrification and Business

Gentrification is the process of renovating and restoring the housing and businesses in a city near a bigger center city. Although some people take the negative aspects of gentrification, the development advantages that it brings to the people can be much greater than the disadvantages. Some of the most effective advantages of gentrification are the renovation of the stores and hosing around the neighborhood can improve the living quality and lower the crime rate in the area.

A way to easily observe if an area is gentrified is to look at the stores around the neighborhood. When a place is gentrified, it usually has a lot of chain stores. Those chain stores will replace the local mom and dad popshops with better quality food and groceries. According to a professor from University of Southern California, “a supermarket coming in is always a win-win situation for both the business and consumer” (Krasny 2012). Even though the chain stores will take away some of the culture experiences that only the local popshops can provide, the chain stores are still definitely better due to its convenience and the size of the company. One of the reasons that people choose big chain stores and not small shops is that people feel more comfortable and familiar with shopping in chain stores. For example, it is common to see a brand new starbucks opening in a gentrified town. Starbucks is a well-known brand, so a lot of people know about it and will usually prefer it rather than some other local small café. Not only starbucks, some other stores such as Safeway, Costco, Walmart and Best buy are some other famous chain stores as well. With all these well spread stores, those gentrified neighborhoods are able to increase their living qualities and have more diverse options.

The renewal of the city will allow upper and middle class people to have a better living environment. First, the increase in chain stores provides middle and upper class people to have...