Do people have a right to the city? Do longtime residents and businesses have a right to remain where they are?  If so, how should local governments, urban planners, and other decision-makers ensure these rights are maintained?

I agree that people have the right to the city. I don’t believe it is right to push out old longtime residents from their homes and businesses to make way for a higher class community. Gentrification which was discussed in “My Brooklyn”, mostly hurts the communities of color and low income. As the government implements new zoning plans, wealthier people start to migrate to these communities. Landlords begin to raise the rents for their housing and businesses. And this greatly effects the longtime residents who have been there since the beginning, and can’t afford to stay there anymore. The small local businesses suffer because they are losing competition to the larger new businesses opening shop in their communities. These people have no choice but to protest and fight to stay in their communities and that is not how these people who started their lives in these communities should be treated. In order to maintain everyones rights to the city, the government should support and implement more benefits to the small local businesses such as tax breaks and government subsidies. The larger corporations that are being implemented in these communities should be taxed. In order to satisfy the people who claim that most of these communities are dangerous and that they would feel unsafe, there should be more police and security presence. The cultural aspect that has been developed throughout these communities should also be preserved and supported.