My first place in Williamsburg Brooklyn was a loft. I am a gentrifier. Maybe I didn’t displace anyone, but definitely supported rising rents. My second home was a two bedroom apartment that I shared. Newly remodeled on the cheap… it was no palace. However, the scars of knocked down walls that were once bedrooms for a large family, remained. I am definitely a gentrifier.

Let’s get one thing clear. Life in America has never ever been fair. That is to say, that at any given point in its existence one group or another has always benefitted through the corruption of morals. Unless you’re an Ayn Rand fan, you can probably agree with that statement.

Gentrification is a subject that has seen a media spotlight for quite some time now as a blessing or a burden. But the beast, it grows. Particularly in New York City this process is thoroughly executed by city planners as a way to rejuvinate its tax base. The massive undertaking makes neighborhoods safer, and creates a ton of construction jobs for sure. There are even reports and statistics that state or claim that displacement isn’t always the case with gentrification. Yet we all know that there are very unsavory consequences that constantly haunt the sense of stability for more than 50% of New Yorkers.

In April City Comptroller, Scott Stringer, released the departments findings on the current state of economics and housing in New York City. The document is titled The Growing Gap. You won’t be surprised to learn that nearly 50% of New Yorkers are doing just fine, at least economically.

New York’s sweeping demographic change is a testament to how much do we really care about our fellow human being. Despite the global-ness of our perspective arising, we are mostly operating as individuals within a culture, who are mostly concerned with our own personal needs to survival. For nearly 50% it isn’t about the survival of staying alive, rather it is more so concern for living well, or as well as possible. In a city like New York, with housing in short supply, you aim for your ideal and then settle for second best, third best. Settling is a financial thing. If what you must settle for displaces someone else, then so be it, you need shelter. Some do this as gracefully as possible. While others are participating in a massive politically correct Manifest Destiny.

The majority of new housing in New York City is aimed at higher income brackets. From 2000-2012, rents catapulted a face-smacking 75%. Homeownership for African-Americans fell with the housing crisis from 46% in 2005 to 42.5% in 2012. More than half of all African-Americans rent. More than 59.2% of all renters spend more than 30% of their income on rent. Scott Stringer reported to New Yorkers, that most of you who are making between $20-$40k are spending 44% of your income on rent, ‘can’t afford food.’ So do we just suffer through this, lay down and take it like abandoned dogs? And while my story chooses NYC as its focus, these trends are reflected on a national scale. Most unsettling, is if you look at us as a corporate body, we are heading for bankruptcy.

These days as a creative person working independently, I am definitely on the run—the one being displaced, as the wealthy move in to Brooklyn. Living in Bedford-Stuyvesant, I see the demographic shift happening so rapidly. And it just doesn’t seem right. With skyrocketing property values, taxes on those homes also shoot through the roof. For a retired homeowner, on a limited budget, you might be forced to sell.

I wouldn’t propose to have an answer in these short paragraphs. But we have to begin implicating our roles in the direction of our neighborhoods, rather than pointing to some mysterious beast.

My name is Douglas Turner. I am a New York Based Art and Cultural Critic. I keep a dialogue going at The Architecture of Tomorrow. Parts of this post are from “Mexico to Bed-Stuy—12 Mexican Street Artists”