I’ve fallen a little behind on blogging, cause I’ve been a busy, busy, boy. So I’m posting both an entry about last week’s topic, Cities, Gentrification, and Inequality, and this weeks topic.

纵观历史，城市一直是主要的商业、创意和文化中心。它们曾是阶级和种族融合的地方，是年轻人实现梦想、拓展视野的地方。但显然早在20世纪20年代就开始了，但在60年代的社会动荡中，它的速度肯定加快到了狂热的地步，许多曾经伟大的美国城市开始空荡，尤其是中产阶级，逃离到广阔的郊区寻求舒适和安全。

This middle class flight from our cities often left dwindling tax bases, decaying infrastructure, dysfunctional schools, and an isolated urban underclass in its wake. But in recent decades, some American cities have comeback through the process of re-gentrification. In this episode, we’ll look at the phenomenon of re-gentrification through the lens of philosophy, as we ask whether re-gentrification is, on balance, a morally and socially good thing or a morally and socially bad thing.

在我看来，这是一个非常双边的问题，所以对我们来说，这是一个完美的问题。中国伊朗亚洲杯比赛直播一方面，肯定有一些东西是支持士绅化的。它有助于让城市重新充满活力。这意味着房产价值的增加，经济多样性的增强，更安全的社区，更好的学校。谁不想这样呢?

But the problem is that gentrification too often happens on the backs of the less well off, especially when free reign is given to developers to do things like turn affordable rental properties into unaffordable condos. That doesn’t increase economic diversity, it just displaces the less well off in favor of the more will off.

显然，在治理中产阶级化的过程中，存在着许多利益冲突。它肯定涉及到一种微妙的平衡，以一种公正的方式管理中产阶级化，同时在经济、社会和民主上可持续。虽然我还没有做过调查，但如果在大多数城市，中产阶级化的过程在供给端严重偏向开发商的利益，在需求端严重偏向富裕消费者的品味和需求，我也不会感到非常惊讶。我怀疑不太富裕的人的利益和需求在决定在哪里建设什么东西方面发挥了很大作用。

Of course, as philosophers , John and I are more interested in the normative question of how gentrificationoughtto work, rather than in the empirical question of how itdoeswork. And that means asking questions like: Should the free market alone determine what gets built where in our urban landscapes? Or should urban development be subject to political control?

Of course, it probably needs to be a both-and rather than an either-or. If you let the free market reign, then our cities would be filled with the well-to-do and establishments that cater to them. Those would make nice places to visit, but many people could not afford to live in them. On the other hand, if you ignore the demands of the markets, you’ll get landlords who don’t see any return in investing in their properties, and you’ll get more and more urban decay. That might make cities more affordable for the less well-off, but it would make them places that the well-off want to avoid.

How exactly this delicate balancing act ought to be managed, is the question we pursue in this episode. And to help us pursue it, we turned to someone who has thought long and hard about the history and future of cities. That would be our guest, Frederic Stout, Professor of the Urban Studies Program at Stanford University and editor ofThe City Reader.

Photo byMiguel A. AmutioonUnsplash