gentrification, that once-
wonky, now-common concept, is a
term freighted with moral urgency, resent-
ment, and guilt, because almost nobody in
a high-cost city can avoid it. You’re either
suffering its effects or inflicting them, often
both at the same time. Unless you leave
town altogether—as hundreds of thousands
of people of all income brackets do every
year—saying good-bye to one neighbor-
hood makes you a newcomer in another. At
its most basic, gentrification is what hap-
pens when newcomers to a neighborhood
arrive with more income or education than
those who already live there. At its most po-
litically charged, it’s treated as a form of
colonialism, ethnic cleansing, even geno-
cide. Yet gentrification’s status as a greatThe Gentrification
Myth
New studies suggest
that it doesn’t
happen the way you
think it does.
ARCHITECTURE
JUSTIN DAVIDSONmusic evokes at its most mannered and
folksy, Vernon is after more than just to
scare us. He’s trying to move people to
action, to name our troubles and overcome
them. This music is a call to rectify a great
disorder, just like Hornsby’s “The Way It
Is,” Bruce Cockburn’s “If I Had a Rocket
Launcher,” and Peter Gabriel’s “Biko.” The
new album’s cautionary lyrics, pointed
emphasis on teamwork, and collaborations
with a prodigious chorus of outside voices
and instrumentalists—the guest list
includes Hornsby, Francis Starlite, James
Blake, Velvet Negroni, members of Wye
Oak and the National, and DeYarmond
Edison alums—are a stunning reversal for
a project that began as a work of hermetic
isolation and hushed personal reflection.
It’s the thinking person’s journey, building
a platform by hook or by crook and then
using it to inspire like-minded peers to do
the same. The continued success of the Bon
Iver experiment is a function of an unblink-
ing vision and the wisdom to know whom
to have in the room; i,i maintains the
streak. “What I think we need / Is elasticity,
empowerment, and ease,” Vernon sings on
“Salem.” We get up by getting together. ■WHAT’SIN
YOURBEDROOM?
Liberator.com
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