When bad things happen, we look around for someone to blame. And when it comes to gentrification, which is loosely defined as somebody not like you moving into your neighborhood, there’s no shortage of things to blame. We’ve compiled a long–but far from exhaustive–list of the things that people have blamed for causing gentrification.

Any discernible symptom of change in a neighborhood is likely to change the way it is perceived by residents and others. Cities, and their constituent neighborhoods are in effect living social structures–they’re always in a state of change. Sometimes the change is imperceptibly slow, and other times, when new buildings are built, it can be rapid and noticeable. But no neighborhood remains the same. It’s an illusion to suggest that any neighborhood will remain unchanged, and especially so for low income neighborhoods...