Why I love Gentrifcation

A store in my Beijing neighborhood shut down a few weeks ago, and it has left me wondering if I should be so happy about it. The place was sort of like a supermarket, except it had nothing good—at all. It is how I would have imagined shopping in East Germany to be.

Each part of the store was a separate, independently operated section, equally as objectionable as the surrounding embarrassments. The shop keepers did not care much about the customers, and almost all of the products were mediocre. It’s the kind of place where you could stock up on dried sweet potatoes, green tea toothpaste, super cheap Chinese liquor, and nothing else.

One day I went in and noticed that the shelves were more pathetically bare than normal. The place had always seemed pretty depressing anyway, with its dim lighting and sad selection. It was as if I was being punished for not overcoming my laziness and going somewhere better. However, the empty shelves took it to a new level, like a nuclear holocaust was coming, but some things were still in stock because most people would rather die quickly rather than eat cut-rate pickled jelly-fish.

As you may have guessed, there was no nuclear holocaust, and the store was only selling off its remaining products in preparation for shutting down. Now that the hideous market is gone, a Wu-Mart is coming in. For those of you unfamiliar with the Chinese chain, it is reminiscent of the McDowell’s Burger joint in Coming to America: they know that you know they’re a fraud, but you’re going buy from them anyway.

It has not opened yet, but I am confident they are going to run like, well, a business. They have aisles and bright lighting, and each area does not have its own warlord, or ‘cashier’ as they call themselves. You can pay for everything at once, rather than playing that dumb game where you get a receipt from one person hand it over to another, who in turn gives you something else that you transfer over to the original cashier,eventually ending up with the goods, or alternatively committing a violent crime of frustration. At normal stores, you give money, and get products. It’s a truly novel concept.

I sort of feel bad for all of the little stalls that shut down. It’s not that clear what happened to those workers, and I hope they can find decent jobs elsewhere. However, the bottom line is that they were horrible businesses. Epically horrible. They would do things like stock shaving cream but not razors, as if it were absurd to one-stop shop.

As you can tell, I am actually pretty excited that the little merchants are gone, although I feel sort of bad about it. It’s kind of like cheering for a sports manager to get fired, and then when he finally does you realize that he has a wife and kids and no real skills.

So am I capitalist pig? Should we be supporting the little guy, even if it means that my day will lose 45 minutes to inanity? I know gentrification is supposed to be bad, but isn’t it good sometimes? All I know is I’m counting down the days for my fake Wal-Mart to open

Maybe It's just economic progress. A better run, more economic store replaces a less efficient store. By providing better value, it hence makes more money which either goes into better wages, or is spent elsewhere in the economy, so somebody else's wages go up. I see absolutely no problem with it. I'll take better service, safer food, cleaner facilities, and a rigourously regulated franchise over mom-and-pop stores anyday.

Original article Posted September 21st, 2007 by Josh at chinaexpat.com