Gentrification: am I helping or hurting?

This week has been a rough one- lots of work to handle, got sick enough to have to stay home one day and got some not so great news early Friday (nothing devastating but basically I have to do a whooooole lot of work on something I've already been trying to develop for a while). Needless to say I needed to take a little bit of time to de-stress. Read: drinks with friends!

A few of my favorite co-workers rallied together and headed to what is quickly becoming one of my favorite spots in the city- happy hour includes super low cost drinks PLUS you get a mini pizza. A MINI PIZZA, you guys! In love.

We talk over work victories, frustrations, funny moments and generally light issues and are having all sorts of bonding moments when one of my co-worker's husbandshows up. I'd only met him once before very briefly, so it was cool for all of us to get the chance to talk a bit before the couple went off for an adorable married-people dinner. He and I had the chance to talk, and as we talked about our respective backgrounds and the NY neighborhoods we call home, we inevitably landed on the taboo topic du jour of young New York professionals: gentrification.

Let me give some context: I lived my entire BC (before-college) life in Central Ohio. We were always working class and things rarely came easy. Fast forward to my PS (post-college) life: I graduate from an Ivy League institution and decide to build my life in New York City- a place I've been dreaming about since the release of Home Alone 2 (don't judge me).

I look for apartments. The search is TERRIBLE. Every place is expensive- and if I want any semblance of the comforts I'd grown accustomed to in Ohio/during college, well I'd have to be prepared to live super far away or pay astronomical prices. Or you know, have some sort of insane trust fund. In comes Harlem to the rescue.

Harlem has all the trains you'd need, (somewhat) affordable housing and, when you get down to it, has people that look like me. I won't lie, it's nice to wake up, go outside and see familiar brown faces. I've lived on the cusp of the Heights for almost 4 years now and I've loved it- but things are changing.

Each summer new graduates move in, hipsters and yuppies are taking over. Rent is getting out of control and units in my building that housed families for years are being emptied, gutted and doled out to the highest bidder. Just two months ago we bid farewell to one of my favorite neighbors, a sweet older woman from Georgia who had been in the building for 40+ years. Just yesterday I heard Florence & The Machine blasting out of what used to be her front door.

I will never consider myself a full-fledged New Yorker (Midwest fo' Life!) but as I grow in this city I find myself frustrated by these sorts of scenarios. Neighborhoods get better amenities, more law enforcement, lower crime and infusions of business - but have to pay with the loss of many long-time residents.

It makes me feel sad, angry and, well.. powerless. Because at the end of the day, no matter how much my working class background or my brown skin makes me feel allied with the long-time residents of these communities, I am in reality a transplant. A young Ivy League yuppie whose very presence increases property value and decreases room for the people who've braved these neighborhoods when you were more likely to see a drug deal on a corner than a Starbucks.

Gentrification is real- and it isn't only happening in New York. Each time I go back go my beloved Ohio I notice that things keep changing.

At the end of the day I don't want to be a cause of or reason for the displacement of good people- but I need a home to live in like everyone else.

What is a girl to do?