>The only way left to fight gentrification is, I am afraid to say, something between massive civil disobedience and outright violence.
Or you could just move someplace cheaper instead of resorting to this stuff.
>The alternative to fighting - chilling in our sofas and doing nothing - is waking up one day in a city without teachers, cleaning/water/sewer personnel, supermarket staff and, funny enough, police
And why exactly is this a problem? Every time I ask it in a discussion like this, no one has an answer. So what if there's no retail workers, teachers, or police? Then the problem will naturally correct itself, no? A city will eventually collapse and fail without these services, and then the real estate prices will rapidly fall to affordable prices, allowing these people to return. Meanwhile, a bunch of rich landowners will lose their shirts, which is a good thing.
>We as people can no longer trust the state (or the police) to serve our interest - both serve the interests of the ultra-rich investors only.
You as people need to move out of these unaffordable places and go someplace more affordable. You're part of the problem. You demand space in this limited market, along with everyone else, and this drives up the prices. Supply and demand, economics 101. If all the middle and lower income people abandon one of these places, the prices will drop like a stone; who wants to live in a city with no police or firefighters or restaurants? Ultra-high prices work OK for small portions of a city, so that service workers can live within commutable distance, but if the ultra-high priced zone grows too large, commuting becomes impractical and something's gotta give. So if you're a line cook at a restaurant, you need to decide whether you want to work for $10/hour in some cheap CoL town, or work for $20/hour in some ultra-expensive place and commute for 3 hours each way. If the wages aren't high enough to entice people to commute, and businesses shut down, the problem will naturally correct itself.