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Authors

Abstract

Recent development in Logan Square have certainly bettered the general quality of life. But to others, including residents and housing market experts, such as the Geoff Smith, executive director of the Institute for Housing Studies (IHS) at DePaul, and Winifred Curran, gentrification expert and associate professor in the Department of Geography and the sustainable urban development master’s program, the influx of young, mostly white professionals is a warning sign of gentrification. It’s happening around the country—areas of disrepair are renewed and rebuilt, and people of higher socioeconomic status move in, driving up housing prices and rent rates and, perhaps unintentionally, displacing the poorer residents who have historically lived there. It’s true that change is inevitable; building and development feed a community, and more green space makes for a higher quality of living. But how do you improve a community in a way that serves the existing population who made it desirable in the first place? Is it possible?

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