A sense of place

I live in Brooklyn,NY, Greenpoint to be exact. I have lived here 36 of my 51 years ,have seen shifts from the area being red-lined by the banks[a process, when developers targeted an area,a red line would be drawn on a map , and no mortgages would be issued to locals within that circle or line,thereby creating a vacuum for a developer to fill.yeah, banks have evolved greatly,now they do this to entire states} The Polish immigrants kept this neighborhood from falling off the map,kept it safe if not beautiful. It was not too long, however, before the vultures began circling. An influx of young newly arrived artists discovered Greenpoint{they refer to themselves, without irony as pioneers} the locals,seeing visions of dollar signs, raised their rents, and what was a nice, quiet safe community filled with kids became a colony for trust funders and neer do wells, where you can have a dozen Thai eateries and only one shoemaker. What has been lost is not nostalgia,nor a conformity[though the influx did bring in some needed change in the makeup] but that sense of place, the low skyline which enabled great views of the Manhattan skyline is obscured by the growing infestation of high rise' luxury" apartments, for the bankers and other well to do types.[speaking of infestations, the new arrivals seem to come with their own brand of parasite,a bedbug epidemic.The irony is choking...}When a neighborhood goes through such a cathartic change,things rapidly , and needlessly, are discarded. Churches and schools close, because the demographics have shifted,small businesses, operating for years, are forced out by the rents,which are repulsively high,families can't afford to live in their rented apartments, and where do they go?Are these people, lifers in this place, simply chaff to be separated? All that is new is not necessarily bad or good, it is in it's application that you can judge. And somehow, the city of New York failed the long time residents of this neighborhood,by allowing speculators to control the market, buy up properties,without long term vision.{I know the NYC planning commission has some decent voices, however, money talks in this. as always}. The sense of place is now gone,replaced or displaced by an angular,neo-hipster sense of entitlement{see the asinine argument over whether to re-open McCarren Pool or keep it as an outdoor concert venue} which has no sense of roots. I know, everyone in their 20's thinks they have discovered the wheel,it is natural, and eventually ,one becomes aware that there are others in the world. The sense of solipsim that hangs in the air is noxious. Again,the world being replaced needed some palliative care, im just not certain that euthanasia was called for. So it goes.