So what if it costs more infrastructure and other services, the city tax payers don’t have to pay for it? That is a nonsensical excuse for getting people out of the rural areas and cramming them back into the soulless cities, with crime rates through the roof.
When I was growing up in Philadelphia, gentrification of the area near the art museum was just beginning. One day, my girl friends and I had spent a day at the museum and were sitting on a bench along the park way across from the museum, waiting for my girl friend’s father to pick us up. I noticed a sign on this brand new high rise building that read, “for the discriminating buyer”. I was shocked because I had never heard that use of the word and the area was not yet gentrified. I laugh now, when I think of it. There is still a lot of tension over the gentrification of that part of Philadelphia.
Nobody is forcing people back into cities, but I'll argue that a city, crime and all, has more soul than a cookie-cutter suburban subdivision with big box stores and an Olive Garden on the edge of the mall parking lot as the finest dining option around.
People are choosing to live in cities for reasons that make sense to them, not because they're being rounded up and run into the ghetto in cattle cars. I've lived in cities, I've lived in suburbs, I've lived in small towns and I've lived in the country. All have their good points and bad points, and we all make trade-offs when we choose where to live. How we weight those factors and how we make those decisions are individual choices.