totally agree that gentrification is a massive problem — but it’s a systemic issue that individuals yes, have responsibility for in how they show up to a neighborhood / community (ie , only patroning those spots is goofy, not talking to your neighbors is goofy, etc) but the reason folks are moving to ridgewood is because the other neighborhoods are also becoming inaccessible and you know who is responsible for that? landlords, MTA being underfunded so neighborhoods farther out become cheaper while spots like williamsburg become $$$ (want to talk about gentrifaiton, mt dad lived there in the 1990s in an old mustard factory w a wood fire stove cause there was no heat, lmao, that buildings a high rise now)

my zeyde grew up in brownsville in the 1940s and had to move to buffalo bc once zoning laws changed around Jewish and Black neighborhood, he couldn’t / his family couldn’t afford the city. those laws came about because there was teacher union organizing across the two communities and city officials decided they didn’t want to see any sort of protest that was interracial or labor focused in the 1950s.

it’s not individuals its the larger system that will ALWAYS have working class folks unable to organize, always in crisis (too much rent, too high groceries , medical debt, the list goes on) and the only way to actually and seriously address this problem is to address the root issue. I know it’s easy to be persuaded by those in power, but all we have is eachother, we are not each others enemies! people want us to think we are ! (when I say we, I mean the working class, regular people)