The harms of gentrification

Is the issue at hand more philosophical than socio-economical? More wealth, better services, lower crime — what’s not to like? Plenty, if you listen to philosophers and displaced locals. Daniel Putnam, Furman Scholar at the School of Law at New York University, offers a sharp analysis in Aeon magazine, on how philosophy can be used as a tool to diagnose and correct many of the inequalities caused by gentrification. "Gentrification is a fruitful topic of study for economists, sociologists, political scientists and historians, among others. It’s less clear where philosophy fits in. A great deal of work in philosophy is difficult to connect to gentrification simply because it exists at such a high level of idealisation and abstraction. However, recent work in political philosophy points the way towards a more practical orientation. In particular, philosophers such as Elizabeth Anderson, Amartya Sen and others have argued that philosophy can play the role of 'diagnosing' injustice. It’s worth taking a moment to unpack the metaphor."