In a stretch of Midtown Manhattan, which has recently become filled with sky-high multimillion-dollar condo buildings, a New York Times investigation found that 50 percent of apartments are vacant for the majority of each year. In other words, the fifth and last phase of gentrification is when neighborhoods aren’t just more friendly to capital than to people but cease being places to live a normal life, with work and home and school and community spaces, and become luxury commodities.
