abstract

Guide for recent NYC arrivals on reckoning with complicity in gentrification by educating them about rent stabilization and inviting them to get involved in tenant organizing, join the housing rights movement, undertake their own political education efforts, and collectively envision alternatives to commodified housing. Questions addressed include: “Who lived here before me?”, “What is gentrification?”, “Who benefits?”, “Is my apartment rent-stabilized?”, “Doesn’t gentrification make our neighborhood safer?”, “Doesn’t gentrification bring better stores and restaurants?”, “Isn’t gentrification and urban change natural?”, “Can we stop gentrification?” “Is it possible to live somewhere kind of affordable where I am not hurting the neighborhood?” and more. Note that information herein may be outdated after the passage of the 2019 Housing Stability & Tenant Proetction Act.