Walk through any so-called “revitalized” neighborhood in America and you’ll notice a pattern: the paint is fresh, the coffee shops are overpriced, the sidewalks are suddenly pristine—and the longtime residents? Gone.
In New Orleans, the story is no different. From Treme to Bywater to the River District, developers sweep in with glossy promises of progress: affordable housing, new jobs, community input. But scratch beneath the surface, and the reality is far more sinister. These projects often become Trojan horses for displacement, cultural erasure, and economic exclusion—masked as modern growth.
And this isn’t just a New Orleans problem. Gentrification is devouring neighborhoods in Oakland, Atlanta, Brooklyn, Detroit, and nearly every urban center where land was once deemed “undesirable”—until developers saw dollar signs.
So let’s dismantle the carefully crafted narrative developers keep selling us. Here are the ten most common lies they tell—and what’s really happening behind the scenes.
1. “We’re bringing jobs.”
This phrase is the developer’s favorite smokescreen. “Jobs” are dangled like a shiny lure to gain public support and soften regulatory scrutiny. But what kind of jobs are we really talking about?
Typically, it’s low-wage, temporary construction gigs—often outsourced to firms from out of state. Once the cranes leave and the ribbon is cut, those jobs vanish. The permanent positions—if any—are usually in luxury boutiques or corporate chains, not local businesses. Worse, the people displaced by the project rarely end up hired.
In New Orleans’ River District redevelopment, the city was promised thousands of jobs. But dig deeper, and you’ll find the same exploitative model: temporary contracts, low pay, and zero pathways to long-term economic empowerment.
The truth: These “jobs” are a marketing tool—not a structural investment in the community.
2. “We’re revitalizing blighted neighborhoods.”
“Blight” is more than a word—it’s a weapon. It’s used to devalue communities, often Black and low-income, to justify their takeover.
Developers frame their arrival as a benevolent act: saving neighborhoods from decay. But what’s rarely acknowledged is how systemic neglect—from disinvestment, redlining, and discriminatory policies—created those conditions in the first place. What they call “blight” is often home to vibrant, culturally rich communities fighting to survive despite decades of abandonment.
In New Orleans, the city once labeled much of Treme and the 7th Ward “blighted”—only to hand it over to developers. The result? High-end condos, property tax hikes, and the slow erasure of the people who made those neighborhoods what they were.
The truth: “Blight” is manufactured—and used to justify erasing the very communities developers claim to uplift.
3. “This project will provide affordable housing.”
If you want to spot a lie wrapped in fine print, look no further than the phrase “affordable housing.” On paper, it sounds like a win for struggling residents. In practice, it’s a bait-and-switch.
Most cities define affordability based on Area Median Income (AMI)—but when the AMI is inflated by wealthy suburbs, what’s called “affordable” is still out of reach for most working-class residents. In New Orleans, where the median income for Black households is roughly $30,000, housing labeled affordable at 80% AMI (about $56,000) is anything but.
Even worse? Many projects include a tiny percentage of “affordable” units—sometimes as low as 5%—while the rest is luxury development priced for transplants and tourists.
The truth: Developers use “affordable housing” as a shield for gentrification, while doing the bare minimum to comply with inclusion mandates.
4. “We’ll preserve the neighborhood’s character.”
Nothing screams irony like a developer erecting glass condos next to a hundred-year-old shotgun house and calling it “preservation.”
In reality, “character” becomes a branding gimmick. Developers love to borrow the aesthetic, the soul, the music, and the food of a neighborhood—without keeping the people who created those things. Murals of jazz legends replace live jazz venues. Creole townhomes are bulldozed to make room for Whole Foods.
Take Bywater in New Orleans. Once a hub for artists, Black families, and working-class residents, it’s now awash in Airbnbs and minimalist boutiques selling $10 soy candles named after “Frenchmen Nights.” The people are gone. The culture is curated.
The truth: Developers don’t preserve neighborhood character—they commodify it, package it, and sell it to outsiders.
5. “We’re working with the community.”
You’ll hear this phrase at every planning commission meeting, public hearing, and press release: “We’ve engaged the community.”
But if you’ve ever attended one of these so-called engagement sessions, you know how they go. Residents speak. Developers nod. Nothing changes. The projects are already greenlit. These meetings are theater—performed to check a box.
In 2023, residents in New Orleans’ 7th Ward showed up in force to oppose a luxury development that would’ve eliminated a beloved local green space. Despite widespread opposition and clear community alternatives, the project moved forward anyway. Why? Because “community input” doesn’t equal “community power.”
The truth: Developers rarely “work with” communities. They extract from them, often under the pretense of listening.
6. “Property values will rise for everyone.”
On the surface, this sounds like a good thing. Who doesn’t want their property value to go up?
But rising property values come with a hidden cost: skyrocketing taxes. For longtime homeowners—especially elderly residents on fixed incomes—those increases can be devastating. And for renters, the chain reaction is brutal: landlords hike rents, evictions rise, and the affordable housing stock vanishes.
In places like the Marigny and Mid-City, families who’d lived in their homes for generations were pushed out—not by bulldozers, but by tax bills they could no longer afford. The wealth they’d hoped to build became a trap.
The truth: Rising values benefit developers, landlords, and investors—not the communities being displaced.
7. “It’s all privately funded—no taxpayer burden.”
This is perhaps the slickest deception in a developer’s toolkit. They love to boast that their projects are privately financed, placing no burden on the public. But behind nearly every major development deal is a web of public subsidies, tax abatements, and sweetheart incentives—often handed out with little transparency or oversight.
Take Tax Increment Financing (TIF) or Opportunity Zones—tools meant to spur investment in struggling areas. Developers exploit these programs to avoid paying taxes, while city services in the surrounding neighborhoods continue to crumble. Meanwhile, residents foot the bill through reduced public investment in schools, transit, and infrastructure.
In New Orleans, multi-million dollar hotel and condo projects have received generous public assistance, while storm drains remain clogged and teachers buy their own classroom supplies.
The truth: These deals are rarely “private.” The public pays—through taxes, neglect, and displacement.
8. “This is inevitable growth.”
When all else fails, developers default to inevitability: “The city’s changing. Growth is coming. It can’t be stopped.”
This fatalism is dishonest. Cities don’t grow by accident—they’re shaped by policy, power, and profit. Zoning decisions, tax incentives, housing regulations—all of these are choices. And those choices are often made to favor the wealthy.
The idea that gentrification is some natural force, like gravity or weather, is a lie designed to absolve decision-makers of responsibility. But equitable growth is possible. Cities like Portland and Minneapolis are experimenting with anti-displacement tools like rent stabilization, land trusts, and tenant protections. It’s not inevitable—it’s intentional.
The truth: Gentrification is not a force of nature. It’s a consequence of political choices—and it can be stopped.
9. “Crime will go down.”
Developers and city officials often sell gentrification as a solution to crime. But that claim hinges on a deeply racist and classist assumption: that poor communities of color are the source of crime, and that replacing them will bring safety.
The reality is more complicated. Crime doesn’t drop because of new luxury buildings—it drops when people have housing security, living wages, strong schools, and mental health support. Policing doesn’t fix poverty. Displacement doesn’t create justice.
Worse, increased policing to protect “revitalized” areas often means over-policing longtime residents who remain. Young Black men become suspects in neighborhoods they’ve lived in for decades.
The truth: Gentrification doesn’t reduce crime—it just displaces it, and often criminalizes those left behind.
10. “Everyone benefits in the long run.”
This is the ultimate gaslight. It’s the idea that even if some people get displaced, the rising tide will lift all boats eventually.
But we’ve been waiting. And for many communities, the tide never lifted—it drowned them.
The benefits of gentrification—rising home values, shiny new amenities, thriving businesses—flow overwhelmingly to developers, landlords, and wealthy newcomers. Meanwhile, longtime residents are pushed out, cultural landmarks disappear, and generational wealth is lost.
And let’s be honest: the “long run” is a luxury the working class doesn’t have. Families living paycheck to paycheck can’t afford to wait for some abstract future prosperity that never arrives.
The truth: Not everyone benefits. The winners are chosen—and the losers are sacrificed.
A City for Whom?
Every glossy brochure, groundbreaking ceremony, and ribbon-cutting comes with a choice: who is this city being built for?
Developers frame their work as benevolent, inevitable, even progressive. But behind every “mixed-use district” and “luxury loft” is a policy failure, a broken promise, a family displaced. Gentrification isn’t just an economic process—it’s a moral one. It tells some people their communities are worth preserving and others that theirs are expendable.
New Orleans—and cities like it—don’t have to accept this future. We can fight for community land trusts, tenant protections, inclusionary zoning, and public housing investment that puts people over profits.
Because until we do, developers will keep lying. And cities will keep losing their soul.
Related Articles:
They Grew Up Here. Now They Can’t Afford to Stay: The Human Cost of New Orleans’ Rising Rents
What Is Gentrification—and What Does It Really Look Like in New Orleans?
