With High Line type projects comes the concern about gentrification and low-income communities
“The Minhocão cuts through neighborhoods that were or still are relatively nice,” says Patricia Samora, a professor of architecture and urbanism at the Universidade São Judas Tadeu. “But when it was built, higher income people left and since then it’s served as a rental alternative for poorer families.”
For these families, Samora says, the idea of turning the highway into a park is complicated by fears that the new amenity would drive up real estate values and eventually, make it unaffordable for them.