Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I read a lot of books on gentrification and found this added little to the body of knowledge. Part of the problem is that the author himself is unlikable and writes subjectively. He is a white male gentrifier who excuses his own choices because he was himself pushed out of a more expensive part of New York city, and anyway he is "so much cooler" than the neighboorhood he moved into, as currently constituted. (He writes that he understands its obnoxious to say so, but he feels he has to because it's true!) He also seemingly has no problem with gay gentrifiers, who are escaping surburban persecution. He is also totally silent about brown, Hispanic and immigrant gentrifiers (aka, the people who are the vast majority of gentrifiers in pretty much any American city that is not New York, San Fran, New Orleans or Detroit). He seems to think that all gentrifiers are rich white single people who come exclusively from the suburbs, which makes them undesirable people because in the suburbs they are extremely consumerist and have no culture or community. I'm not making this up - he says it time and again. It is the kind of subjective, unsubstantiated -- and totally snobby -- thinking that permeates his text, turns the subject black and white, and eliminates all complexity. The urban crime that emptied cities before they started to gentrify is never even mentioned. And if you are, for example, a suburban father forced to move to the city so you can avoid a 2-hour daily commute and spend more time with your kids, and you actually like your new neighbors and you do things like bbq in the park and you would totally clap for the uber-hip street ballets organized by Peter's cool friends who have a right to live in the city, this guy has never heard of you and he doesn't want you there. My advice to Moskowitz is this: instead of fighting to take "your" new neighborhood (that you moved to a year ago) "back," take your cool self to the suburbs. Maybe you'll find that the rest of America isn't the s#$@hole you think it is. I give it two stars only because there are parts of the book where the author's sermonizing gives way to some useful and illuminating anecdotes about people who are more interesting than he is.