Photo Series Reveals What Gentrification Looks Like

From the Lunch & Learn Series: Educate Yourself During Your Lunch Break

Kristy Chatelain’s “Brooklyn Changing” series highlights the physical changes gentrification brings about, often at great cost to the original residents of urban areas that are being transformed by unfettered construction. More nuanced than angry, her photos depict less than five years of change in each photographed location.

Photo by Kristy May

In many cases, gentrification often seems to sterilize a previously vibrant urban landscape.

Though gentrification can have many positive benefits, it is often also a form of community displacement where politically, economically and socially powerless communities have to spend scarce resources to leave their homes and neighborhoods in the face of rising rents and a rising cost of living. I am guilty of contributing to this cost as someone who moved into a gentrifying neighborhood.

Displacement is an important issue because state, local and federal government authorities often …