Author Megan McArdle argues on the controversy surrounding gentrification. McArdle has seen gentrification firsthand from her residence in Washington, D.C. She has been an editor for The Washington Post for many years, and an author for even longer. As a Washington Post author and a stakeholder in this controversy, McArdle uses her expertise in the matter and perspective to effectively argue that “Gentrification Whiplash” is a problem as big as Gentrification itself. To begin her argument, McArdle begins by claiming that gentrification has been a “societal issue” for “most of [her] professional career” (McArdle 1). She then moves on to acknowledge that some factors of gentrification can be seen as beneficial to big-city citizens, but then claims …show more content…
She states that not only is gentrification a societal issue, but politicians and city officials are not prepared to be without it. She expresses her opinion on the lack of preparedness by stating that politicians have become “used to playing on Easy Mode, which adds to the policy equivalent of driving without a seatbelt” (McArdle 7). Much like driving without a seatbelt, politicians have “for years been collecting a sort of hidden subsidy from gentrification” (McArdle 7). So not only have politicians been unprepared, but they have also been benefitting from “the most vulnerable” (McArdle 11), who have been getting tipped onto the streets. McArdle addresses this by explaining that as the poorest of communities are getting displaced, city officials have been favoring the newcomers that have been replacing the poorer black and brown communities, because of their self-sufficiency and money. McArdle implies that the problems caused by displacements, politicians’ laziness, and racial differences have not been solved by gentrification, as officials and voters have been fooled into believing, rather, “it just displaced them,” while “export[ing] [officials] problems to another Zip code” (McArdle 11,