Gentrification is normally a perjorative -- used to deride a phenomenon which at its root is displacement of poor citizens by more well-heeled residents. It sometimes occurs directly, through evictions, eminent domain, etc. When neighborhoods change, rent structure and property values change, too. When they go up, some people may be forced to move somewhere more affordable. Some would call this indirect gentrification; others would call it simply neighborhood improvement. The line is not always clear.

The live/work form of gentrification is unique because often buildings (or sometimes land) that were previously unoccupied by residents of any kind are converted (or newly built). Therefore its impacts are as much about the change in actual land use in a neighborhood than displacement of one resident for another. Another common phenomenon is that of illegal -- and then often more affordable -- live/work projects which coexist easily with surrounding industrial users. When newer, more expensive projects -- rental or condominium -- are developed in a neighborhood already occupied by illegal projects, the tendency is for these more affordable projects to become less so in response to surrounding price rises. This is sometimes known as the SOHO phenomenon, in which artists and others pioneer neighborhoods and then are forced to other districts as their rents become too high. The only way to avoid this for such pioneers is to incorporate ownership into this picture, a long subject in itself.