The small city of Gainesville is predominately resided by college students; mostly all businesses, restaurants, nightlife scene and "things-to-do-in-Gainesville" are all geared toward providing services to this niche group or 18- to 24-year-olds. There's something new being built almost every month—eateries, apartment buildings, apparel stores, smoke shops, bars and clubs, Gator-swag stores...you name it. While it's great that we (college students) are blessed to have an endless array of places to eat and spots to hang out at, it's apparent that this city has a huge gentrification problem.

Why is it a problem? Well for starters, once you cross over to the eastern side of Waldo Road, you'll see a completely different world—one where there's poor neighborhoods, lack of resources and food insecurity issues. Why gentrify a city when there's an obvious problem with poverty? We should be working towards getting homeless people off the streets and providing higher wages to low-income earners. Instead of building places for this niche group of college students, the city should put its efforts into creating a prosperous community for all—co-op grocery stores, more facilities and aid for the homeless, employment services, etc.