Cyclists creating change?

"Does cycling really contribute to gentrification? John Stehlin, a geographer at the University of California, Berkeley who has studied San Francisco’s cycling politics, says the relationship is complex. “Cycling feeds into wider urban changes, including gentrification, but it does not cause gentrification. A bicycle lane gets put on a street that is already undergoing change.”



"Among what urban theorist Richard Florida calls “the creative class”, the bicycle is a potent symbol of identity and status. And more bikes, it seems, means more well-paid knowledge economy jobs. “Cycling to work is positively associated with the share of creative class jobs and negatively associated with working-class jobs,” Florida wrote in 2011."

"City planners often “use cycling infrastructure as a way to facilitate development. So where gentrification goes cycling infrastructure follows, but that is a problem of planning, not cycling.”

from: https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2016/oct/05/blame-bike-cycling-contribute-city-gentrification




Many cyclists are white and wealthy. But not all of them are. More info here:
https://urbanful.org/2014/11/17/do-bike-lanes-gentrify-neighborhoods/