If you want it to, sure, it absolutely can!
> It's pretty clearly saying that it is bad that people who speak foreign came into the area, not just neutrally "describing [a] demographic shift of the mall "
No, it really isn't clearly saying what you're ascribing. That's your reading into it what you want to see. No one cries racism when an article about affluent whites taking over a neighborhood. This is just a different shift.
People absolutely do, even when words as strong as "took over" aren't used. Whenever race is mentioned wrt gentrification, it's one of the top comments|
For example https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19819695
> With the passage of the Civil Rights Act, we as a society decided that racial segregation was bad, and trying to demonize people people buying homes in a certain area due to their race was wrong
...
> Not okay to tell some one he ought not live somewhere because of his race. This is true regardless of what that race may be.