History Main / VillainousGentrification

* In the ''ComicBook/{{Asterix}}'' story ''[[Recap/TheMansionsOfTheGods The Mansion of the Gods]]'' (and its [[WesternAnimation/TheMansionsOfTheGods 2014 animated film adaptation]]), Julius Caesar weaponizes the trope when he plans to build a vacation complex for wealthy Romans near the indomitable little Gaulish village in order to have it absorbed into Roman society over time via a tourist invasion.

* ''Series/Daredevil2015'': Wilson Fisk is seeking to gentrify Hell's Kitchen as it rebuilds from [[Film/TheAvengers2012 the Incident]]. In one particular case, Fisk comes into conflict with Nelson & Murdock due to trying to evict people from a tenement he is condemning so he can sell it to the Hand and they can construct Midland Circle Financial. He sends enforcers posing as handymen to trash their places, and later has a junkie murder Elena Cardenas when Foggy persists that she take a bigger buyout. He's also [[VillainWithGoodPublicity seen as a hero by much of the city]] because of his bringing "prosperity" and "business opportunities" to the area.

* In ''Series/UnbreakableKimmySchmidt'', the elderly {{Cloudcuckoolander}} Lilian Kaustupper worships her decaying, crime-ridden neighborhood as a sort of vague benevolent force/natural order, and tries to make it appear worse than it is to avoid the intrusion of outsiders and its eventual gentrification. What starts as a comedic subplot becomes arguably the most important plotline of the show, and gets increasingly serious as episodes pass. Her situation is made all the more poignant in that, after accidentally killing her husband, the lost souls she takes under her wing are the only family she has. Those people (for instance a CampGay black singer who can't get a role in ''The Lion King'' musical because he can't pass as a straight giraffe and the child bride of the leader of an apocalypse cult whose naivete and tragic backstory keep being exploited) are constantly rejected by society, and it's shown that their little DysfunctionJunction is the only place in which they can be safe and happy. Eventually she becomes a heroic champion of her people and has to enter politics to defend everyone's interest.

* ''Comicbook/{{Daredevil}}'': The ''Inferno'' arc of Creator/ChipZdarsky's run focuses on this. A villainous brother-sister duo plans to gentrify the low-income neighborhood of Hell's Kitchen by bribing or threatening emergency services to not aid the residents. [[spoiler:They also send a group of villains led by Bullseye to level it entirely.]]

* The [[MacGuffin VR glasses]] responsible for most of ''Literature/VirtualLight'''s plot contain the details of an EvilPlan in this vein: a plot by the Japanese [[MegaCorp Sunflower Corporation]] and their US backers to construct a grid of bleeding-edge {{Nanotech}} towers around San Francisco, which will gradually link up to each other, turning the city into a LayeredMetropolis in true {{Cyberpunk}} style.

* Implied in ''VideoGame/ClamMan''. The BigBad's plan is mostly just to [[spoiler:demolish Clam Man's neighborhood because it's TheWrongSideOfTheTracks]]. He makes no mention of building anything in its place, but considering all the construction equipment he and his minions have, it's possible that he could be planning to build something new over it.

* ''Film/TheManWhoShotLibertyValance'' doesn't show gentrification as something done by villains, but is nonetheless critical of it and sees its benefits as coming with a tragic price. The present-day FramingDevice makes it clear that the gentrification of the lawless town of Shinbone has largely not benefited the poor and the oppressed, and possibly made their lives worse. ([[spoiler:The poor white Tom Doniphon and his TokenBlackFriend are living in ramshackle circumstances, and Ransom Stoddard condescends to the latter. His own wife, Hailie, laments the loss of the wilderness in favour of an artificial garden, and the death of Tom Doniphon.]]

-->-- '''[[ANaziByAnyOtherName Doctor Faustus]]''' of {{ComicBook/HYDRA}}, ''ComicBook/MsMarvel2014''

* ''Manga/PrincessJellyfish'' features a land developer company buying out homes in an old neighborhood for a gentrification project, and the main character's goal is to save their retro boardinghouse from being bought out. The characters look down on the development, and the main representative of the company is an evil [[TheVamp vamp]].

* ''ComicBook/BatmanNoMansLand'' had a subplot where Bruce Wayne tries to stop ComicBook/LexLuthor from [[LetNoCrisisGoToWaste using the earthquake and the shutdown of Gotham City]] to buy up property on the cheap and crush the communities.
* In ''Black Panther and ComicBook/TheCrew'', [[ComicBook/BlackPanther T'challa]] uncovers a gentrification scheme by HYDRA targeting Harlem. Not only do they intend to move the old residents out, but are working alongside a business manufacturing robot cops and have laced the new buildings with devices meant to increase anger in the residents and encourage racial riots. But they couldn't resist [[ConspiracyPlacement building all their new complexes in the shape of the HYDRA logo when seen from above]].
* Creator/DCComics four-issue crossover series has the Franchise/JusticeLeague meet the Franchise/LooneyTunes. Mister Mxyzptlk is seen planting seeds in vacant lots in downtown Metropolis. Within seconds, whole buildings rise from the ground, every one a BrandX clone of a franchise chain, such as Czarbucks coffee, Klunko's printing, ''et cetera''. Clark Kent realizes that such oversaturation of the market will monkeywrench Metropolis's economy.
* ''ComicBook/TheDregs'': : "The dregs" are under threat from gentrification, and the proprietor behind it, Beck Lasko, is all smiles as he claims he's creating a "vibrant community space" — by pushing out and killing homeless folks.
* In Volume 5 of ''ComicBook/MsMarvel2014'', Kamala and the residents of Jersey City discover that a local avenue has been massively renovated by a new corporation. She is aghast to find her superhero image being used without permission for the company's billboards, and that her favorite Serbian-Vietnamese grocery store has been replaced by luxury condos. Investigating the operation, Kamala discovers that the rebuilding is planned for the entire city and run by [[FunWithAcronyms Hope Yards Development and Relocation Association]], aka none other than HYDRA. Their next plan? Hypnotizing all the current residents of Jersey City and making them all move out of town.
* ''Comicbook/{{Orphanimo}}'': At the start of the series, [[BigBad Hari Vallalkozo]] has already turned pretty much the entire city center from a Victorian style neighborhood into a concrete jungle filled with skyscrapers. Now he has his eyes set on the last remaining house; the Orphanage, thus kicking off the plot.
* ''Comicbook/{{Daredevil}}'': The ''Inferno'' arc of Creator/ChipZdarsky’s run focuses on this. A villainous brother-sister duo plans to gentrify the low income neighborhood of Hell’s Kitchen by bribing or threatening emergency services to not aid the residents. [[spoiler: And they also send a group of villains led by Bullseye to level it entirely.]]
* The Kane Corporation in ''Harley Quinn: Breaking Glass'' plan to bring much of Gotham under their control by bribing building inspectors to wrongfully condemn buildings, then evict the residents and build expensive housing, shops, and schools. They’re not exactly subtle about it, either.
* Most of ComicBook/{{Morbius}}'s 2nd solo series deals with the gentrification of Brownsville, New York. In his 3rd solo series it's revealed he eventually took to causing the developers over a billion of dollars in damages, halting the construction and allowing the original residents to move back.
* ''ComicBook/WonderWomanTempestTossed'': The overarching villain is trying to gentrify the New York community where Diana lives, and is kidnapping and selling young women and girls from the community he considers undesirable for his plans.
* ''ComicBook/WhistleANewGothamCityHero'': The Down River district of Gotham has its community centers, libraries, religious houses, etc, attacked by Poison Ivy, frightening the locals into moving. It turns out that these terror attacks are part of the Riddler’s scheme to drive down property values in Down River, allowing him to buy the abandoned buildings for cheap and renovate them into glitzy new establishments.

* The BigBadDuumvirate in ''WesternAnimation/WendellAndWild'' are a [[UnholyMatrimony couple]] of private prison owners who wish to develop in a DyingTown so that, paired with the nearby school for troubled young girls, they'll have a school-to-prison pipeline set up to line their pockets. The climax involves collecting irrefutable evidence that they're the reason the town is dying in the first place, [[spoiler:having started a fire in a local factory that employed the majority of residents that also killed a handful of workers.]]

* ''Film/TheBatman2022'': A significant portion of the plot revolves around Renewal, a long-running project to redevelop depressed parts of Gotham City started by the late Thomas Wayne when he ran for mayor. In practice the operating budget has become a slush fund for the city's powerful and unscrupulous, in particular TheMafia under Carmine Falcone who uses it to launder money, while providing so little actual benefit to the city that one of the current mayoral candidates is openly calling for the project to be cancelled altogether.
* ''Film/BatteriesNotIncluded'': The residents of an old apartment building are fighting to keep it from being demolished by a company that wants the property for their new high-rise complex. [[spoiler: It gets burned down in the end, but the Fix-Its return and rebuild the place, good as new. The high-rises are then built ''around'' the building]].

* ''Film/{{Casino}}'' by Creator/MartinScorsese mostly deals with the bad-old days of UsefulNotes/LasVegas when it was run by UsefulNotes/TheMafia. The finale shows the end of the mob-run casinoes, who are now bought by corporations. TheNarrator Ace is no fan of the changes, making it clear that it's no different [[MeetTheNewBoss from the old management]], the only difference being that the corporations put a more credible veneer of legitimacy on their crimes than the mob did.
-->'''Ace:''' The town will never be the same. After the Tangiers, the big corporations took it all over. Today it looks like Disneyland. And while the kids play cardboard pirates, Mommy and Daddy drop the house payments and Junior's college money on the poker slots. In the old days, dealers knew your name, what you drank, what you played. Today, it's like checkin' into an airport. And if you order room service, you're lucky if you get it by Thursday. Today, it's all gone. You get a whale show up with four million in a suitcase, and some twenty-five-year-old hotel school kid is gonna want his Social Security Number. After the Teamsters got knocked out of the box, the corporations tore down practically every one of the old casinos. And where did the money come from to rebuild the pyramids? [[CorruptCorporateExecutive Junk bonds.]]
* ''Film/{{Chinatown}}'' and its elaborate layered plot concerns an artificial drought as a result of water being dammed out, to chase farmers from their land, so that the terrain can be bought on the cheap, developed, and suburbanized. [[spoiler:[[TheBadGuyWins It succeeds.]]]] The kicker: the film is [[BasedOnATrueStory based on the real-life]] [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_water_wars California water wars]], [[spoiler:which ended the same way]].

* ''Film/District13Ultimatum'': The EvilChancellor's whole plot entails creating enough civil violence in District 13 so he has an excuse to unleash the full power of the police on the area, move out the residents by force, and replace the low income housing with luxury apartments constructed by various companies he has invested in.

* ''Hands over the City'', an Italian film by Francesco Rosi concerns an investigation into a corrupt municipal building authority of Naples as they sell contracts illegally to builders who build property on the cheap, take away land, built dilapidated poor housing that collapses easily, and crushes most of its residents.
* This plays into the RedHerring in ''Film/HotFuzz''. Sergeant Angel suspects that supermarket manager Skinner is murdering people in order to secure control of land that will become prime value after a planned bypass is built. In fact, [[spoiler: Skinner and his compatriots are killing anyone who stands out, in order to maintain their ideal community]].
* In ''Film/TheGoonies'', a gang of kids must seek treasure in order to prevent ruthless developers from knocking down their neighborhood - the eponymous Goon Docks - to build a country club.

* ''Film/ItsAWonderfulLife'' by Creator/FrankCapra has the finale showing its protagonist a vision of an alternate world where Bedford Falls becomes transformed into the nightmarish Pottersville, an exploitative run-down ViceCity and UrbanHellscape where the independent small-businesses and home-owners of Bedford Falls become impoverished slum dwellers.
* ''Film/TheManWhoShotLibertyValance'' by Creator/JohnFord doesn't show gentrification as something done by villains, but he is nonetheless critical of it and sees its benefits as coming with a tragic price. It's clear that Shinbone, the lawless town that in the present-day FramingDevice has largely not benefited the poor and the oppressed and possibly made their lives worse. ([[spoiler:The poor white Tom Doniphon, and his TokenBlackFriend are living in ramshackle circumstances, and Ransom Stoddard condescends to the latter. His own wife, Hailie, laments the loss of the wilderness in favour of an artificial garden, and the death of Tom Doniphon]].
-->'''Hallie''': Look at it. It was once a wilderness, now it's a garden. Aren't you proud?

* Detroit in ''Franchise/RoboCop'' films has become a dangerous UrbanHellscape that even the police are powerless to control. The MegaCorp, OCP, thus plans to demolish the city and rebuild it as Delta City, which would be controlled and operated almost exclusively by OCP and patrolled by robot police under the employ of OCP. While this is merely a looming threat that drives the plot in the first two movies, stopping OCP from destroying their city and homes is the main conflict of ''Film/Robocop3''.
* ''Film/{{Tremors}}'': By the time of ''Film/Tremors3BackToPerfection'' and the following TV series, teenage jerk and former resident Melvin Puig has grown up to become a real estate developer that wants the entire valley of Perfection turned into a suburb full of mini-malls, which is something that the current residents loathe, and the fact that in order for him to be able to build he would need to violate Federal endangered species laws and kill the Graboid that lives on the valley (and in order to get someone else to break them would require getting people endangered or even killed by said Graboid) doesn't stops him one bit.

* ''Film/WestSideStory2021'': Unlike the [[Theatre/WestSideStory stage version]] or [[Film/WestSideStory1961 1961 film]], this version explicitly mentions the post-war urban gentrification that took place in New York City in the late 1950s. The fact that the city is tearing down the Upper West Side to build Lincoln Center is a driving force in the conflict between the Jets and the Sharks, as both are being driven off their territory but are powerless to stop it.

* ''[[Literature/BoneStreetRumba Battle Hill Bolero]]'' by Creator/DanielJoseOlder. As rebellion breaks out against the New York Council of the Dead, the Council kills the benevolent GeniusLoci of an old historic house. Next thing you know, the house's lot is occupied by a combination sex toy and cookie shop trying to market to an upscale crowd. One of the ghosts is so infuriated at this that she burns the new business down.
* ''Literature/TheGreatCities'': This is one of the tactics used by the Woman in White to hinder cities from [[GeniusLoci attaining sapience and manifesting avatars]]. Because cities thrive on uniqueness and distinctiveness, making cities bland and homogenous (putting up generic chain stores and pricing out the population and their original culture, etc) saps the "character" from cities and weakens them.
* ''Literature/CraftSequence'': ''Literature/LastFirstSnow'': Tan Batac, landowner of the poorer Skittersill district of Dresediel Lex, wants the whole place pulled down and modernized for reasons including the circumstances of its construction making it a fire hazard for the rest of the city. The Skittersill's residents, however, have been holding huge protests to object, feeling that this is just an excuse to fill Batac's own pockets, leaving them with homes they can't afford and jobs that won't take them. With tensions on the brink of violence, attorney/sorcerer Elayne Kevarian tries to negotiate a compromise that will enrich the Skittersill without destroying its community. [[spoiler:She fails. The protests become a riot, the riot is put down with obscene force, and countless people die. Elayne discovers too late that Tan Batac was ''making sure'' things went bad so that he could get a huge insurance payout on the place burning down ''and'' redevelop it to his whims, but she is at least able to save the Skittersill from burning, foiling his plans.]]
* Discussed in ''Literature/PatriotGames''. Jack Ryan sees a bunch of charming old homes in England, noting to himself that in the US they'd be torn down and replaced by a bunch of soulless glass boxes.
* The ''Literature/PrideAndPrejudice'' update ''Pride'' by Ibi Zoboi tackles this as a theme where it's part of the Lizzie Bennet character's dislike of the Mr. Darcy character's family moving into Bushwick where it's already being gentrified with a lot of her neighbors moving because they can no longer afford to live there and the culture of the neighborhood is being altered by the ways of the newcomers (no spraying water from the fire hydrant on a hot summer day and it's less noisier).

* ''Literature/TheSouthernBookClubsGuideToSlayingVampires:'' The Gracious Cay development that vampire James Harris sponsors, which sees much of the poor, black Six Mile neighborhood bulldozed to make way for it. [[spoiler:James intends to use it to [[HoistByHisOwnPetard fleece its investors more than anyone else]], taking their money and then sabotaging the project before moving on and leaving the Old Village broke.]]
* ''Literature/VirtualLight'': The [[MacGuffin VR glasses]] responsible for most of the plot contain the details of an EvilPlan in this vein: a plot by the Japanese [[MegaCorp Sunflower Corporation]] and their [=US=] backers to construct a grid of bleeding-edge {{Nanotech}} towers around San Francisco, which will gradually link up to each other, turning the city into a LayeredMetropolis in true {{Cyberpunk}} style.
* In the second volume of the ''Literature/VillageTales'' series, ''Literature/{{Evensong}}'', the Duke of Taunton (late [[MajorlyAwesome major]], the [[UsefulNotes/BritsWithBattleships Intelligence Corps]]) has to get [[{{Cloudcuckoolander}} naïve, Liberal Democrat]] local councillor [[SupremeChef Teddy Gates]] out of just such a crisis. It's a subverted one: the threat is in Teddy's having agreed a pledge to put up social housing in the [[CloseKnitCommunity district]] ... despite every square foot's being scheduled at least Grade II*. (Needless to say, a [[SavingTheOrphanage crafty solution]] ensues. Involving [[spoiler: retired [[UsefulNotes/NepaliWithNastyKnives Gurkhas]]]].)

* One of the earliest episodes of ''Series/BurnNotice'' concerns a greedy extortionist demanding outrageous sums of protection money from a Hispanic neighborhood and busting up the homes and businesses of anyone unable or unwilling to pay. (Or worse.) As she explains to Michael when he goes undercover as a crook and joins her gang, she ''wants'' the rates to be too high to afford and to drive out the people who are unable to go to the police. That way, the real estate companies she owns can swoop in and buy up the property cheap, making far more money on it when the city later goes to gentrify the area than she ever could from [[ShameIfSomethingHappened simple protection rackets]].
* ''Series/Daredevil2015'': Wilson Fisk is seeking to gentrify Hell's Kitchen as it rebuilds from [[Film/TheAvengers2012 the Incident]]. In one particular case, Fisk comes into conflict with Nelson & Murdock due to trying to evict people from a tenement he is condemning so he can sell it to the Hand and they can construct Midland Circle Financial. He sends enforcers posing as handymen to trash their places, and later has a junkie murder Elena Cardenas when Foggy persists that she take a bigger buyout. He's also seen as a hero by much of the city because of bringing "prosperity" and "business opportunities" to the area.
* In ''Series/TheMonkees'' episode "Monkee for Mayor", all of the boys' elderly neighbors are being forced out of their houses so the city can build a giant parking lot.

* A ChristmasEpisode of ''Series/QuantumLeap'' had Sam trying to convince a property developer to not tear down a much-needed community center to build a luxury building in its place. After Sam and Al take inspiration from ''Literature/AChristmasCarol'' to show the developer the error of his ways, Al tells Sam that they'd succeeded in reaching a happy middle ground: the developer falls in love with the leader of the Salvation Army group running the community center, he goes through with his plan of tearing down the block but dedicates the lower floors of the new building to community spaces.
* A major plot point in ''Series/ShamelessUS'' is rich people buying up the houses in the Gallagher's neighborhood, and long time businesses being bought out and replaced with overpriced hipster businesses the locals could never afford to shop at.
* Subverted in ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'', where a lone hold-out "valiantly" refuses to sell his bookstore and allow its bulldozing for a massive new development... even though the offer is very fair, literally everyone else in town wants the development, and (with the benefit of hindsight) we know that its experimental features will lead to technological advances that will allow the colonization of Mars.

* In ''Series/UnbreakableKimmySchmidt'', the elderly CloudCuckooLander Lilian Kaustupper worships her decaying, crime-ridden neighborhood as a sort of vague benevolent force/natural order, and tries to make it appear worse than it is to avoid the intrusion of outsiders and its eventual gentrification. What starts as a comedic subplot becomes arguably the most important plotline of the show, and gets increasingly serious as episodes pass. Her situation is made all the more poignant in that, after accidentally killing her husband, the lost souls she takes under her wing are the only family she has. Those people (for instance a CampGay black singer who can't get a role in the Lion King musical because he can't pass as a straight giraffe and the ChildBride of the leader of an apocalypse cult whose naivete and tragic backstory keep being exploited) are constantly rejected by society, and it's shown that their little DysfunctionJunction is the only place in which they can be safe and happy. Eventually she becomes a heroic champion of her people and has to enter politics to defend everyone's interest.

*** The second season also has a short incident where Nick Sobotka, the nephew of the head of the dockworkers union, attempts to buy a house that used to belong to an aunt of his, only to find that due to gentrification the prices of real estate have soared so much that he could never hope to buy property in that neighborhood, showing how blue collar locals get squeezed out by gentrification.

'''Detective Pryzbylewski:''' (with distaste) He's a developer.
* In ''Series/{{Vida}}'', the subplot involves the characters resisting the attempts to gentrify Boyle Heights, mainly because it could raise property prices to the point that most residents couldn't afford to live there, and can potentially erase the neighborhood's beloved Latin culture.

* This is the primary conflict in ''Series/{{Gentefied}}'' (note the PunBasedTitle). Gentrification is raising the rent in Boyle Heights, Los Angeles, so the Morales family has to find the money to keep their long-standing taco shop afloat. Gentrifying developers are portrayed as out-of-touch and insensitive to the needs of the community. When the Moraleses [[spoiler:cater to the gentrifiers, local activists view it as a betrayal of the community]].
* ''Series/{{Physical}}'': John Breem's developmental efforts in San Diego are called out for pricing out local business owners and destroying the coastline.

* ''Music/TheKinks'' kept dealing with gentrification in their songs, and always in a negative and mocking way:

--> "And all the houses in the street have got a name\\

Life ain't so happy in your little Shangri-La!"
** ''Music/MuswellHillbillies'' dealt with this trope multiple times in many songs. The songs deal not only with physical and actual gentrification but also psychological and social gentrification (i.e. change in lifestyles, attitudes to body weight, consumerist fantasies) and so on. The title songs keep tackling it:
--> "They're putting us identical little boxes\\

But they're never gonna kill my cockney pride"

* ''Music/{{Space}}'''s song "Neighbourhood" is all about celebrating the working class diversity of their neighbourhood as it faces a mass eviction and being bulldozed for redevelopment.
-->"Oh they want to knock us down\\

When the bulldozers come."

-->"We lived here for so many years\\

Where will all the older people go?"
* Music/BillyJoel "No Mans Land".
-->"I've seen those big machines come rolling through the quiet pines\\
Blue suits and bankers with their Volvos and their valentines"
* Music/TheCoup's "Fat Cats Bigger Fish" is a story song about a low level steer con man going through his day picking pockets and hustling free food, and finally ends up working as a waiter at a upper class gala event, where he eavesdrops on the Mayor of the city and business people planning:
-->To make some condos out of low income housing\\
Immediately we need some media heat\\
To say that gangs run the street and then we bring in the police fleet\\
Harass and beat everybody till they look inebriated\\
When we bought the land motherfuckas will appreciate it
* Music/DannyBrown's "Jenn's Terrific Vacation:"
--> Tell me what to do when the block gets slow, and the money get low, but the rent rise up\\
White folks popping out the blue, they done tore that down and made that to a Whole Foods\\
Landlords lookin' for a payday, now it's rental scooters where we used to sling yay

[[folder:Roleplay]]

* Gentrification haunts ''Theatre/InTheHeights'' due to the ever-increasing cost of rent. The Hispanic inhabitants of the Heights put gentrification alongside racism and failing education in "96,000" and in "Finale," the protagonist laments that no one will remember the Heights he knew once the entire neighborhood is filled with rich hipsters.
* ''Theatre/{{Rent}}'' has this as one of its driving conflicts: Benny wants to build a CyberCafe and kick out the poor tenants of his apartment building (including his friends), which he sees as improving the city. The protagonists see him as a sell-out yuppie and, even when offered free rent, actively oppose his vision for a more upscale, less bohemian neighborhood.

* In ''Videogame/Borderlands2'', Handsome Jack's goal is to basically gentrify [[DeathWorld Pandora]] by murdering anyone he considers a bandit (IE; everyone) and establishing shiny new cities devoted to worshiping himself. Being a vicious psychopath, he doesn't care about how implausible or pointless this plan is and casually has the families of any employee who points this out murdered.

* ''[[VideoGame/DotsHome Dot's Home]]'' is about the historical discrimination against Black people by displacing them through gentrification, as Dot learns when she time travels to 1992, when her parents struggled with living in their rented apartment after her older sister Georgia was born. Evelyn wishes to move out so she and her daughter can live better lives elsewhere, but Hank wants to stay despite the apartment being ill-maintained by the estate because he believes that everything he and his friend Amos worked hard for to survive in the neighborhood will be wasted.

--> ''Nothing brings down real-estate prices like a good old-fashioned gang war.''
* ''VideoGame/NoMoreHeroes2DesperateStruggle'' sees the Pizza Batt Corporation trying to suck anything original and lively out of Santa Destroy, to the point of building a gigantic department store skyscraper just to render every other store in town obsolete. The company had previously appeared in the first game, where some of the assassination side missions had you targeting their executives. [[spoiler:Turns out they were the father and brothers of the second game's BigBad, who is out to ruin Santa Destroy as part of getting back at Travis for doing it.]]
* Similarly, ''VideoGame/SaintsRow2'' sees Ultor Corporation's executive Dane Vogul fomenting a [[EnemyCivilWar massive city-spanning gang war]] from behind the scenes until only one side is left standing, after which he sends in Ultor's own paramilitary [[EliteMooks Masako troops]] to wipe them out, buy up the war-torn properties at a fraction of their cost and turn it all into "glass towers, clean streets and nobody below the poverty line". By the time The Boss wakes up from their coma at the start of the game, he's already finished with Third Street, including the very church the Third Street Saints once called home in [[VideoGame/SaintsRow the first game]], and rendered it all but unrecognizable.

[[folder:Web Original]]
* ''Gente-fied'' examines the process occurring in a Boyle Heights neighborhood, with characters from a white property owner who thinks the Hispanic residents should be grateful his trendier stores raised the local property values, to Latino and Latina residents who either reject the encroaching rebuilding or attempt to assimilate but with mixed success.
[[/folder]]

* The Franchise/DCAnimatedUniverse:
** ''WesternAnimation/BatmanBeyond'' set in the future is set in the gentrified Neo-Gotham and a plot early in the series has Derek Powers wanting to tear down the dilapidated ruins of Old Gotham (the site of Crime Alley) and Bruce steps in to defend it as a vital part of the city's history.
** ''WesternAnimation/BatmanTheAnimatedSeries'' had Roland Daggett try and chase away residents of Crime Alley, so that he could buy their property cheaply and sell it to make a killing. He does it by sending arsonists to set a series of fires and crimes to astroturf a crime wave and disorder.
* The ''WesternAnimation/KingOfTheHill'' episode "Lady and Gentrification" has Peggy try her hand at selling real estate. She sells a house in Enrique's neighborhood to a {{hipster}} who later gets his friends to move into the other houses. At first, the changes are benign ("[[FelonyMisdemeanor They put salmon in the fish taco]]!"), but Enrique later reveals that the gentrification has caused his rent to skyrocket.

* In ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark''[='=]s Season 19 episode "[[Recap/SouthParkS19E3TheCityPartOfTown The City Part of Town]]", the town, in response to Creator/JimmyFallon's demeaning commentary, gentrifies the area around Kenny's house in a bid to get their own Whole Foods, which would validate them for being socially conscious. However, the resulting urban development does nothing to help Kenny and his family. Soon, the local AsianStoreOwner, forgotten by the rest of South Park, gets the idea to revitalize his own rundown part of town as well, and it ends up becoming the home for South Park's Whole Foods (and subsequently rendering the original gentrified district abandoned). The consequences of this scheme was explored for the rest of the season, especially in the final three episodes.

Landlords lookin' for a payday, now it's rental scotters where we used to sling yay

--> ''Tell me what to do when the block gets slow, and the money get low, but the rent rise up\\

Landlords lookin' for a payday, now it's rental scotters where we used to sling yay''

* ''Literature/TheCityWeBecame'': This is one of the tactics used by the Woman in White to hinder cities from [[GeniusLoci attaining sapience and manifesting avatars]]. By putting up generic chain stores and pricing out the population and their original culture, she saps the "character" from cities and weakens their power.

* ''Film/Banlieue13Ultimatum'': The EvilChancellor's whole plot entails creating enough civil violence in District 13 so he has an excuse to unleash the full power of the police on the area, move out the residents by force, and replace the low income housing with luxury apartments constructed by various companies he has invested in.

The UrbanHellscape trope is often a precursor to this trope, as the lawless and ruined city is used to justify why the Gentrification is happening in the first place, and some villains might even try to cause or exacerbate the hellscape in order to engineer this justification. It may also be a motivation for SavingTheOrphanage or otherwise raising money in order to protect a particular house or landmark. CommunityThreateningConstruction is a related trope focusing on one specific construction project. Also compare PredatoryBusiness, RailroadPlot and GreenwashedVillainy.

* ''Film/{{Burlesque}}'' has the LA burlesque theater risking being shut down and replaced with a skyscaper and condos. However, [[AntiClimax the conflict is easily resolved]] by Ali and Tess of the theater by convincing the condo owner to spare their theater [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_rights since the skyscraper would obstruct the view from his condos.]]

'''Detective Pryzbylewski:''' (with distate) He's a developer.

* ''[[VideoGame/DotsHome Dot's Home]]'' is about the historical discrimination against Black people by displacing them through gentrification, as Dot learns when she time travels to 1992, when her parents struggled with living in their rented apartment after her older sister Georgia was born. Evelyn wishes to move out of Detroit so her and her daughter can live better lives, but Hank wants to stay despite the apartment being ill-maintained by the estate because he believes that everything he and his friend Amos worked hard for to survive in the neighborhood will be wasted.

* ''[[VideoGame/DotsHome Dot's Home]]'' is about the historical discrimination against Black people by displacing them through gentrification, as Dot learns when she time travels to 1992, when her parents struggled with living in their rented apartment after her older sister Georgia was born. Evelyn wishes to move out of Detroit so her and her daughter can live better lives, but Hank wants to stay despite the apartment being ill-maintained by the estate because he'd miss his neighbor and friend Amos if he moves out with her.

* ''[[VideoGame/DotsHome Dot's Home]]'' is about the historical discrimination against Black people by displacing them through gentrification, as Dot learns when she time travels to 1992, when her parents struggled with living in their rented apartment after her older sister Georgia was born. A newspaper article from that year states that around 6,500 residents of Brewer-Davidson Housing Projects, with a majority of them being Black, were threatened with homelessness since their old homes were being demolished to make way for family-size townhouses.

* ''[[VideoGame/DotsHome Dot's Home]]'' is about the historical discrimination against Black people by displacing them through gentrification, as Dot learns when she time travels to 1992. A newspaper article from that year states that around 6,500 residents of Brewer-Davidson Housing Projects, with a majority of them being Black, were threatened with homelessness since their old homes were being demolished to make way for family-size townhouses.

* In ''Videogame/Borderlands2'', Handsome Jack's goal is to basically gentrify [[DeathWorld Pandora]] by murdering anyone he considers a bandit (IE; everyone) and establishing shiny new cities devoted to worshiping himself. Being a vicious psychopath, he doesn't care about how implausible or pointless this plan is and casually has the families of any employee who points this out murdered.
* Implied in ''VideoGame/ClamMan''. The BigBad's plan is mostly just to [[spoiler:demolish Clam Man's neighborhood because it's TheWrongSideOfTheTracks]]. He makes no mention of building anything in its place, but considering all the construction equipment he and his minions have, it's possible that he could be planning to build something new over it.
* ''VideoGame/YakuzaLikeADragon'': Bleach Japan is a group dedicated to "bleaching" the "grey zones", i.e. gentrifying the areas where quasi-illegal and illegal but traditionally ignored activity happens. Naturally, they are pawns for the BigBad, who uses them both to squeeze small [[GenericEthnicCrimeGang ethnic gangs]] for his allies in the {{Yakuza}}, and to rile up support from the MoralGuardians and the "I'm not racist, but..."-crowd for himself and his political allies.

* ''Literature/CraftSequence'': ''Literature/LastFirstSnow'': Tan Batac, landowner of the poorer Skittersill district of Dresediel Lex, wants the whole place pulled down and modernized for reasons including the circumstances of its construction making it a fire hazard for the rest of the city. The Skittersill's residents, however, have been holding huge protests to object, feeling that this is just an excuse to fill Batac's own pockets, leaving them with homes they can't afford and jobs that won't take them. With tensions on the brink of violence, attorney/sorcerer Elayne Kevarian tries to negotiate a compromise that will enrich the Skittersill without destroying its community. [[spoiler:She fails. The protests become a riot, the riot is put down with obscene force, and countless people die. Elayne discovers too late to stop the violence that Tan Batac was ''making sure'' things went bad so that he could get a huge insurance payout on the place's destruction ''and'' redevelop it to his whims, but she ''does'' save the Skittersill from burning, foiling his plans.]]

** ''WesternAnimation/BatmanTheAnimatedSeries'' had Roland Daggett try and chase away residents of Crime Alley, so that he could buy their property cheap and sell it to make a killing. He does it by sending arsonists to set a series of fires and crimes to astroturf a crime wave and disorder.

* One episode of ''WesternAnimation/MoonGirlAndDevilDinosaur2023'' has the Muzzlers, a pair of tech geniuses that made their fortune on various home appliances with a sound cancelling device being their trademark. They plan to "improve" the LES by taking away its signature art, music, and culture. Lunella is initially tricked into taking part in their ad campaign, but rebels against it when she realizes the Muzzlers aren't improving the neighborhood, they're replacing it.

* The BigBadDuumvirate in ''WesternAnimation/WendellAndWild'' are a [[UnholyMatrimony couple]] of private prison owners who wish to develop on a DyingTown so that, paired with the nearby school for troubled young girls, they'll have a school-to-prison pipeline set up to line their pockets. The climax involves collecting irrefutable evidence that they're the reason the town is dying in the first place, [[spoiler:having started a fire in a local factory that employed the majority of residents that also killed a handful of workers.]]