Synthesis Essay Whether for better or for worse, America’s society is always changing. Some changes benefit the communities in America while other changes affect it negatively. One of those changes that happened in America is called gentrification. Gentrification is the process of renewing a low-income living area . People observing this phenomenon have noticed that gentrification can improve living conditions and can also leave many people displaced . But finding out if gentrification leaves a positive or negative impact on American communities will need to be determined by weighing the problems and the solutions it brings. There are multiple problems that appear with the process of gentrification. Craig S. Wilder, a history professor at …show more content…
He describes this third place as being a safe neighborhood that is especially safe for the elderly. In order to portray the exact meaning of what a third place should look like, Oldenburg included examples of how some third places where created and what they helped create. His first example was about a woman from Buffalo, New York who started what is now known as the Sweet_Ness 7 café. Prish Moran was the name of the Woman who put some money into what many believed was a run-down area. Every year Moran would rescue a building about to be destroyed and would turn it into something else. Oldenburg recognizes her work as the formation of the third place. Another example provided by Oldenburg is, Ron Sher, from Lake Forest Park, Washington, rebuilding a shopping center that had been unsuccessful the first time. Now home to ethnic restaurants, a bookstore, with entertainment every night. Sher managed to save a place, not just the shopping center, but a whole community because once he did his work with the center, the property values of the buildings around him went up. Furthermore, Oldenburg explains his view of a third place. He mentions how a third place is a neighborhood that needs to thrive, or survive. He means, sometimes a little work put into an old neighborhood can help it …show more content…
Wilder shows how gentrification can go wrong. He blames the government for allowing families to be homeless. If the government were to stop, education reforms that cause school privatization in low-income districts or hospital closures or anything that strains the working class people any further, Wilder explains, then working class communities will survive and no families will be displaced because of gentrification. A solution to the problem Wilder provides is found in Oldenburg’s article. If these communities that are no longer working and are at the risk of becoming gentrified, then some work can be put into it by people who truly care about the community enabling it to build up and become better. People like Moran or Sher can help these dying communities live again. Moran and Sher, along with Oldenburg, support rebuilding a neighborhood rather than gentrifying it and that can be a solution for preventing