Are You a Gentrifier? This Calculator Will Tell You
Death knells for Brooklyn, inspired by skyrocketing rents, Starbucks and Apple Stores replacing family businesses, and the artisanal-ization of everything–AKA gentrification–are only getting louder. But sometimes it’s gentrifiers themselves who protest too much. With help from urban policy expert Ingrid Gould Ellen, Slate has devised a calculator that encourages a little self-awareness while discussing the loaded topic of a given neighborhood’s changing demographics. It reveals whether it’s all your fault that the family-run bodega on your corner is closing after 30 years in business, or whether you can rightfully complain about your neighborhood’s artisanal cheese shop infestation.
The calculator uses a simple formula: If your neighborhood’s median income is lower than the median income of your city, and your income is higher than your city’s median, you’re a gentrifier. It’s based on the definition of a gentrifying neighborhood as one with incomes in the bottom half or quarter of the income distribution of a metropolitan area, and with incomes rising more rapidly than those citywide.
The Gentrification Calculator (screenshot via Slate)
Head to Slate to discover where you fall on the gentrified-gentrifier spectrum.
