Gentrification is the movement of individuals and households from higher-income backgrounds to low-income neighborhoods. This process has been happening since Jim Crow laws came to an end as a means of integrating communities and reducing inequality. The practice has become hotly debated and highly controversial.

With gentrification, the risk of low-income residents being displaced is high, especially for a State like New York. Some believe that the government should intervene to prevent this from happening. When neighborhoods are gentrified, property values are often affected, which comes with increased property taxes and rents. If the residents cannot make the rent or keep up with the property taxes or even mortgage, they're forced to move out of the neighborhood. New York State has seen thousands of low-income households, usually people of color, displaced and forced to move to new communities because they can't keep up with the rent.

Those opposed to government intervention argue that the government has no business regulating any aspect of the economy, including gentrification. Theoretically, the needs of supply and demand should balance things out. If gentrification needs to go, the market will naturally phase it out, and if it is beneficial to the economy, it will remain.

The question for debate is: should the government move to stop gentrification in New York?