Neighbourhood improvement and gentrification

Interesting views from Brent Toderian on the issue of neighbourhood gentrification, following Richard Florida's question: "if all economic development and neighbourhood revitalization is gentrification, how do we grow and improve our urban areas?"....

As the renaissance of cities and urban areas in North America continues, more and more neighborhoods are struggling with the challenges of change. Although the market's rediscovery of inner-city, walkable, mixed-use communities is an excellent thing in many ways, the word "gentrification" inevitably comes up in almost every discussion. But one person's gentrification is another person's revitalization, so the debate is always complex and heated.
Can you have revitalization, reinvestment, renewal without some level of gentrification? Probably not, as any perceived improvement in the eyes of the marketplace changes the economics. I do though, continue to believe that in planning for community change, there are reasonable levels of gentrification, that gentrification can be strategically managed, and that we can have "revitalization without displacement." In fact, this phrase has been the vision for Vancouver's Downtown Eastside (DTES) for years.
Gentrification that involves sweeping away the past, and the people, is by comparison easy - you often just have to let it happen. On the other hand, revitalization without displacement, protecting the low-income community as well as the built heritage in the context of change toward a more diverse community - that's much harder, and takes much longer. In every community where it's tried, and certainly here in Vancouver's DTES, it creates incredible tensions and struggles, and rightly so - vulnerable people's homes and lives are often at risk.