The question of gentrification The question of gentrification is made complex by the fact that the urban qualities it produces—lively street life, profuse commerce, preservation and upgrading of old buildings—are highly desirable, the substrate of urbanity. The problem with gentrification is with its particulars and with its effects. Gentrification suppresses reciprocity by its narrowed scripting of formal and social behavior, by turning neighborhoods into Disneylands or Colonial Williamsburgs, where residents become cast members and the rituals of everyday life become spectacle or food for consumption. Michael Sorkin, 20 Minutes in Manhattan gentrificationurbanism
The edifice from which they came A list of types of bricks used in the Hagia Sophia may help one to build an interesting brick wall, but it poorly suggests the great edifice from which they came. Cyril Stanley Smith, A Search for Structure Atoms and aggregates knowledgecollections