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Comment by jere | Hacker News Reader

>In Tribeca, a wealthy neighborhood in downtown Manhattan, residents who left this year earned an average income of about $140,000, Walle said. The typical person moving into the neighborhood earned an average $82,000, he said.

I was going to ask if we might call this "de-gentrification" and if that's a good thing, right? I'm sitting here in disbelief after a quick search reveals that the actual average income is $879,000. So now I'm thinking those numbers above don't mean much of anything.

https://www.businessinsider.com/tribeca-new-york-city-riches...

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> residents who left this year earned an average income of about $140,000

Averages tend to mask the true reality.

If a corporate executive makes $10 million dollars a year. And the next 100 people makes $100,000 a year. Then the total is $20 million dollars.

When you divide this by 101, you get an average of $198,000. Which is nearly double what the normal person in this example earns.

The better metric is to use the median salary. Which in this example is $100,000. And the executive’s salary is the outlier.

Then again, most executives are paid in tax deferred stock options. And they cash out for a pot of gold after a few years. So this distorts any estimates of general income and wealth of the population.

Mean is not the same as median. Billionaires drag the mean average up but not the median average. Most people in that area are not earning almost 1 million even though it is pricey.

I'm sitting here in disbelief after a quick search reveals that the actual average income is $879,000.

I don't live anywhere near NYC, and probably haven't visited more than a half dozen times, and even I know that $140K/year isn't getting you into Tribeca these days (granted, I occasionally glance at the NYT real estate section). I would expect someone covering that beat to be able to do that gut-check and, I dunno, maybe double-check those numbers.

What you're calling de-gentrification isn't really the opposite of gentrification. Gentrification is the destruction of long-standing neighborhoods and the displacement of poor people, who may have no good place to go and lose their support structures. Often, those poor people rent their homes/apartments, and so they don't benefit from the increase in prices. Their rent just goes up until they have to leave.

Rich people fleeing doesn't bring them back. Whatever they suffered in displacement is just sunk. In the very long term it may form part of a new cycle of gentrification, but only after the neighborhood has lost a lot of its old value and is usually accompanied by the kinds of desperation that poverty causes.

So it's not a good thing -- though you're right that this study is so dubious that it may not even really be an issue.

So in summary no matter what rich people do, they're the problem.

Unless you are rich, then poor people are the problem.

Seriously. The argument is that rich people come in, raising rent due to increased housing demand and constant supply, which pushes poor people out. But the reverse (rich people leave, rental demand decreases, lowering rents and allowing poor people to come back) isn’t true. Makes perfect sense /s

Yes. Every time rich people displace poor people, it's a problem.

There are a lot of things that rich people can do besides displace poor people. Maybe you can think of some.

Unfortunately we have zoned our cities such that we can no longer build enough housing to accommodate everyone. The pain of that will always fall the most on those who have the least to pay.

I sincerely want to know who can afford to live in Tribeca on $140k per year. Let alone $84k.

I wouldn’t put too much weight into this data.

A lot of these people living there have been there for decades. You absolutely could not easily afford to move there today making only that much, but that's different. We're talking long-term existing residents with locked in rent controlled rates and/or coop owners who bought decades ago when it was still relatively affordable.

And yes, all of the "data" in the linked article is complete garbage. Don't take any of it as fact.

According to this report the income of people just now moving in was $84k which as you mentioned is wildly incorrect.

de-gentrification is a good thing if you don't like cupcakes and cafes and nice restaurants and nice shops.

ANd if you like payable rent non obnoxious hipsters and their shitty music, POC and people that have politics informed by more than buzzfeed

Do you know how I can tell you’ve never lived in a low income area?

I lived in the latino part of the brooklyn for a good time it was much better before the hipsters came I will always prefer that to what gentrification brings

Too bad people can't make cupcakes for themselves.

That's a lot more effort than a quick 2$ at the corner cafe.

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