You’re right that people being displaced by gentrification don’t have a birthright to continue living in their neighborhood. The problem is that the people displacing them do have a birthright - the birthright to anyone’s neighborhood, anywhere in the world. Do you also feel like that is a problem, or do you only object to “birthrights” for poor people who depend on their neighborhood for support and sometimes survival?

They don't have a birthright to a place any more than those displaced. Do you honestly think the displacers want, more than anything else, to live in a very expensive apartment in San Francisco? If they have some birthright to "anyone's neighborhood," why aren't they all living in mansions on the beach? The only birthright we agree on is the right to resolve disputes according to the rules of our government. Money provides a way to mediate the situation where two people want the same thing without them having to shoot each other over it. I much prefer the model where the mode of competition is economic benefit rather than "ability to be born in a good position."

> I much prefer the model where the mode of competition is economic benefit rather than "ability to be born in a good position”

Great! I also support economic competition as well as leveling the playing field by limiting the unfair advantages of being born in a good position.

Of course, as you probably know, social mobility is at historic lows in the US. This means people born into wealthy families are most likely to remain wealthy, and people born into poor families are most likely to remain poor. By your own argument, that is a problem because it shifts competition to “ability to be born in a good position”.

Therefore it seems that we agree after all!

Unless of course you’re not being intellectually honest and are using big words like “economic competition” only when it supports your pre-existing ideology.

You've completely changed the subject. I meant position in a literal, not figurative, sense.

Weird accusations of intellectual dishonesty aside, we do agree on economic mobility but that wasn't the topic at hand. Economic mobility doesn't mean "give the most valuable apartments in the United States to the lower class so they can live there because they don't want their lives to change."